Latin Panegyric

What was Roman political praise for and what could it achieve? Could it have literary merit? What do the surviving examples of Roman political praise-giving reveal about the circumstances and milieu in which they originated? <p/><em>Latin Panegyric</em> brings together sixteen essays focusing on praise in the Roman Empire and in particular on praise of the emperor. Spanning a century of scholarship and constituting landmark studies on different aspects of the largest collection of classical Latin oratory to survive after Cicero--the <em>Panegyrici Latini</em>--this collection includes speeches addressed to the emperors Trajan Maximian Constantine Julian and Theodosius and traces three centuries of oratorical praise-giving in the Roman world. These influential readings consider textual rhetorical literary political and religious matters and together represent the evolving landscape of academic attitudes towards praise discourse with its strengths and problems and towards some of the best-known Roman emperors. With a full introduction by the editor and with four essays translated into English for the first time this valuable volume plots the narratives of Roman praise and gives students of classical literature history and rhetoric direct access to key scholarship.<br>