Beyond the broad generality of the Roman “theology of Victory”—the idea that military success was the ultimate recognition, by the gods as well as by men, of a ruler’s legitimacy—there were a host of specific ways that a new emperor’s status was acknowledged, officially and unofficially. I shall briefly discuss five episodes, exempli gratia, that reveal a variety of kinds of recognition that vouchsafed a new emperor’s right to rule, and that suggest various forms of representations by means of which those divergent kinds of recognition were made possible.

• Liens

  • HALMA (Histoire, Archéologie et Littérature des Mondes Anciens)