IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 1619: Erasure in Late Antiquity, II: Erasure, Law, and the Late Roman Court

Thursday 8 July 2021, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Postgraduate & Early-Career Late Antiquity Network
Organisers:	Kay Boers, Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies, Universiteit Utrecht Guy Walker, Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin
Moderator/Chair:	Hope Williard, Library, University of Lincoln
Paper 1619-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 1619-b	Justinian's Legal Erasures: Legal Fictions in the Novels (Language: English) David Rockwell, Department of Medieval Studies Central European University Budapest/Wien Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Economics - Trade, Economics - Urban, Law
Paper 1619-c	Barefoot Penitents: Theodosian Erasure of Imperial Visual Status through Religious Submission (Language: English) Henry Anderson, Department of Classics & Ancient History, University of Exeter Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Lay Piety, Political Thought, Religious Life
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 6th-century life. The third (Anderson) approaches the apparent visual erasure of royal status when Theodosian dynasts adopted penitent clothing in times of crisis.