Performativity and performance in Baroque Rome

Roman political leaders used distance from Rome as a key political tool to assert pre-eminence. Through the case studies of Caesar’s hegemony, Augustus’s autocracy, and Tiberi...

Romans held that the Republican city was built almost instantly following the earlier city’s catastrophic destruction by Gauls in 390 BCE. Furthermore, the huge costs of rebuilding...

This chapter examines the development of the city commune in Rome during the period 1050–1150. Rome does not occupy a central place in accounts of early Italian city communes. The ...

In this chapter, Atack argues that Xenophon’s depiction of the performance of kingship by Cyrus (Cyropaedia), Agesilaus (Hellenica, Agesilaus), and other kings contains an evaluati...

Baroque depictions of violence are often dismissed as ‘over the top’ and ‘excessive’. Their material richness and exciting visual complexity, together with the visceral engagement ...