IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 1107: Erasure in Late Antiquity, IV: Erasure, Law, and the Late Roman Court

Wednesday 8 July 2020, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Postgraduate & Early-Career Late Antiquity Network
Organisers:	Becca Grose, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht Guy Walker, Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin
Moderator/Chair:	Hope Williard, Library, University of Lincoln
Paper 1107-a	Claudian and Roma: Fighting Pagan Erasure at a Christian Court (Language: English) Ben Kybett, Department of Classics University of Cambridge Index terms: Pagan Religions, Political Thought, Rhetoric
Paper 1107-b	'As if said law had never even been promulgated': Justinian's Legal Erasures (Language: English) David Rockwell, Department of Medieval Studies Central European University Budapest/Wien Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Economics - Trade, Economics - Urban, Law
Paper 1107-c	Erasing an Emperor: Or, How to Make a Tyrant - The Fate of Phocas, 602-610 (Language: English) Nadine Viermann, Exzellenzcluster 'Kulturelle Grundlagen von Integration', Universität Konstanz Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Political Thought, Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract	This session will focus on alternative forms of historical, cultural, and even legislative erasure at the very highest political level: the court of the emperors' itself. The first paper (Kybett) explores the personification of the goddess Roma in the poetry of Claudian as a rebuttal to Prudentius' Christian portrayal of the goddess and his attempts to erase pagan culture from the political sphere. The second (Rockwell) looks at the retroactive 'erasure' of legislation by Justinian and its repercussions on various aspects of sixth-century life. The third (Viermann) looks at the manipulation of memory through the vilification of the emperor Phocas by his successor Heraclius.