Description
Book SynopsisHow the notion of unique eras influenced the Roman view of time and the narration of history from various perspectives.
The Victorian Era. The Age of Enlightenment. The post-9/11 years. We are accustomed to demarcating history, fencing off one period from the next. But societies have not always operated in this way. Paul Hay returns to Rome in the first century BCE to glimpse the beginnings of periodization as it is still commonly practiced, exploring how the ancient Romans developed a novel sense of time and used it to construct their views of the past and of the possibilities of the future.
It was the Roman general Sulla who first sought to portray himself as the inaugurator of a new age of prosperity, and through him Romans adopted the Etruscan term saeculum to refer to a unique era of history. Romans went on to deepen their investment in periodization by linking notions of time to moments of catastrophe, allowing them to conceptualize their own
Trade Review
There is much more in the book that cannot be covered in this review . . . It is well written with a clear argument that temporal periodisation mattered to the Romans in the first century BCE, prefiguring the ‘Augustan Age’ (on which there is much discussion) . . . The book is worth reading to open your mind to the concept of the Romans taking action with a view to a future that would last beyond their own lifetime. * The Classical Review *
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: A New Order of the Ages
- 1. Omen History: Sulla and the Etruscans on Periodization
- 2. Eternal Returns: Cataclysmic Destruction in Greek and Roman Thought
- 3. Inflection Points: Progress and Decline Narratives with Periodization
- 4. Beyond the Metallic Ages: Technical Histories and Culture Heroes
- 5. Acting Your Age: Periodization in Roman Politics after Sulla
- 6. Pyramids and Fish Wrappers: Roman Literary Periodization
- Conclusion: Spaces after Periods
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- General Index
