Performance, memory, and processions in Ancient Rome : the Pompa Circensis from the republic to late antiquity /
Latham, Jacob A.,1974-author.
"The pompa circensis, the procession which preceded the chariot races in the arena, was both a prominent political pageant and a hallowed religious ritual. Traversing a landscape of memory, the procession wove together spaces and institutions, monuments and performers, gods and humans into an image of the city, whose contours shifted as Rome changed. In the late Republic, the parade produced an image of Rome as the senate and the people with their gods - a deeply traditional symbol of the city which was transformed during the empire when an imperial image was built on top of the republican one. In late antiquity, the procession fashioned a multiplicity of Romes: imperial, traditional, and Christian. In this book, Jacob A. Latham explores the webs of symbolic meanings in the play between performance and itinerary, tracing the transformations of the circus procession from the late Republic to late antiquity"--
"The pompa circensis, the procession which preceded the chariot races in the arena, was both a prominent political pageant and a hallowed religious ritual. Traversing a landscape of memory, the procession wove together spaces and institutions, monuments and performers, gods and humans into an image of the city, whose contours shifted as Rome changed. In the late Republic, the parade produced an image of Rome as the senate and the people with their gods - a deeply traditional symbol of the city which was transformed during the empire when an imperial image was built on top of the republican one. In late antiquity, the procession fashioned a multiplicity of Romes: imperial, traditional, and Christian. In this book, Jacob A. Latham explores the webs of symbolic meanings in the play between performance and itinerary, tracing the transformations of the circus procession from the late Republic to late antiquity"--
Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-334) and index.
Part I. An Ideal-type between the Republic and Memories of the Republic -- Pompa hominum: gravity and levity, resonance and wonder, ritual failure -- Pompa deorum: performing theology, performing the gods -- Iter pompae circensis: memory, resonance, the image of the city -- Part II. The Pompa Circensis from Julius Caesar to Late Antiquity -- 'Honors greater than human': Imperial cult and the pompa circensis -- Behind 'the Veil of power': ritual failure, ordinary humans, and Ludic processions during the High Empire -- The pompa circensis in Late Antiquity: imperialization, Christianization, restoration.
Politics and culture
Processions