Emperors And Rhetoricians

Panegyric, the art of publicly praising prominent political figures, occupied an important place in the Roman Empire throughout late antiquity. Orators were skilled political actors who manipulated the conventions of praise giving, taking great license with what they chose to present (or omit). Their ancient speeches are rare windows into the world of panegyrists, emperors, and their audiences. In Emperors and Rhetoricians, Moysés Marcos offers an original, comprehensive look at all panegyrics to and by Julian, who in 355/56 CE promoted himself as a learned caesar by producing his own panegyric on his cousin and Augustan benefactor, Constantius II. During key stages in his public career and throughout the time he held imperial power, Julian experimented with and utilized panegyric as both political communication and political opportunity. Marcos expertly mines this vast body of work to uncover a startlingly new picture of Julian the Apostate, explore anew the arc of his career in imperial office, and model new ways to interpret and understand imperial speeches of praise.

Panegyric, the art of publicly praising prominent political figures, occupied an important place in the Roman Empire throughout late antiquity. Orators were skilled political actors who manipulated the conventions of praise giving, taking great license with what they chose to present (or omit). Their ancient speeches are rare windows into the world of panegyrists, emperors, and their audiences. In Emperors and Rhetoricians, Moysés Marcos offers an original, comprehensive look at all panegyrics to and by Julian, who in 355/56 CE promoted himself as a learned caesar by producing his own panegyric on his cousin and Augustan benefactor, Constantius II. During key stages in his public career and throughout the time he held imperial power, Julian experimented with and utilized panegyric as both political communication and political opportunity. Marcos expertly mines this vast body of work to uncover a startlingly new picture of Julian the Apostate, explore anew the arc of his career in imperial office, and model new ways to interpret and understand imperial speeches of praise.

"Kennedy's exposition is lucid and elegant, his enthusiasm for his subject infectious. Accordingly, the reader approaching that subject for the first time will be frequently enlightened, but never bored: indeed he will probably be stimulated to turn to the author's earlier works for further enlightenment." --From the review of the original printing by J. D. Frendo in The Classical Review, vol. 34, no. 2, 1984, pp. 204-5:

"In a book that will change the way we read Renaissance rhetoric, Wayne A. Rebhorn shows that the issues at stake are not dialogue and debate but power and control. Looking closely at what rhetoricians themselves said about their art, Rebhorn explores the profound engagement of rhetoric with some of the major cultural concerns of the time, including political authority, social mobility, gender relations, and attitudes toward the body." "As he reads texts by Shakespeare, Jonson, Herbert, Carew, Tirso de Molina, Machiavelli, Rabelais, and Moliere, among others, Rebhorn offers a new model for the rhetorical reading of literature. Renaissance literature, he maintains, subjects rhetorical discourse to examination and evaluation and in the process exposes its many contradictions and evasions." "According to Rebhorn, rhetoricians imagine orators ambiguously, both as absolutist rulers who employ rhetoric to help maintain the status quo, and as base-born outsiders who use it to promote their own social advancement or even to resist authority. Renaissance rhetoric is equally ambiguous when it confronts issues of gender, for it identifies itself as simultaneously male and female, both "masculine" in its power and "feminine" in its procreativity and adornment. Finally, Renaissance rhetoric conveys a contradictory vision of the body, for although it is most typically aligned with the body image associated with elites, it simultaneously identities itself with the ethically suspect, grotesque body linked with the lower classes."--BOOK JACKET

""Kennedy's exposition is lucid and elegant, his enthusiasm for his subject infectious. Accordingly, the reader approaching that subject for the first time will be frequently enlightened, but never bored: indeed he will probably be stimulated to turn to the author's earlier works for further enlightenment."" --From the review of the original printing by J. D. Frendo in The Classical Review, vol. 34, no. 2, 1984, pp. 204-5: George A. Kennedy is Paddison Professor of Classics, Emeritus, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an elected Member of the American Philosophical Society, and Fellow of the Rhetoric Society of America. Under Presidents Carter and Reagan, Dr. Kennedy served as member of the National Humanities Council. He was earlier President of the American Philological Association and of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric. He is author of fifteen books, including Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism, Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction, Aristotle On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, and Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition, as well as numerous articles and translations into English from Greek, Latin, and French.

This book investigates the wartime role of Emperor Hirohito and the transition of the Emperor System, a structure which had been in place for a large period of Japanese history, and one undergoing significant change due to a series of intense encounters with Western-style modernity since the Meiji period of the late nineteenth century. Specifically, it explores moments in three episodes of social reality that were part of the wartime experience of the Japanese people: namely, the initiation of the conflict, accomplishing an end to the war, and the transition to post-war society.

Explores a Byzantine emperor's construction of authority with the help of his rhetorical texts Examines the changes in the Byzantine imperial idea by the end of the fourteenth century with a particular focus on the instrumentalization of the intellectual dimension of the imperial ruleIntegrates late Byzantine imperial visions into the bigger picture of Byzantine imperial ideology Provides a fresh understanding of key pieces of Byzantine public rhetoric and introduces analytical concepts from rhetorical, literary, and discursive theoriesOffers translations of key passages from late Byzantine rhetoricManuel II Palaiologos was not only a Byzantine emperor but also a remarkably prolific rhetorician and theologian. His oeuvre included letters, treatises, dialogues, short poems and orations. Florin Leonte deals with several of his texts shaped by a didactic intention to educate the emperor's son and successor, John VIII Palaiologos. He argues that the emperor constructed a rhetorical persona which he used in an attempt to compete with other contemporary power-brokers. While Manuel Palaiologos adhered to many rhetorical conventions of his day, he also reasserted the civic role of rhetoric. With a special focus on the first two decades of Manuel II Palaiologos' rule, 1391-1417, Leonte offers a new understanding of the imperial ethos in Byzantium by combining rhetorical analysis with investigation of social and political phenomena.

In the generation after Constantine the Great elevated Christianity to a dominant position in the Roman Empire, his nephew, the Emperor Julian, sought to reinstate the old gods to their former place of prominence--in the face of intense opposition from the newly powerful Christian church. In early 363 c.e., while living in Syrian Antioch, Julian redoubled his efforts to hellenize the Roman Empire by turning to an unlikely source: the Jews. With a war against Persia on the horizon, Julian thought it crucial that all Romans propitiate the true gods and gain their favor through proper practice. To convince his people, he drew on Jews, whom he characterized as Judeans, using their scriptures, institutions, practices, and heroes sometimes as sources for his program and often as models to emulate. In The Specter of the Jews, Ari Finkelstein examines Julian's writings and views on Jews as Judeans, a venerable group whose religious practices and values would help delegitimize Christianity and, surprisingly, shape a new imperial Hellenic pagan identity.