The Stock Tyrant and the Roman Emperors: the Influence of the Traditional Portrait of Tyranny on Suetonius' Caesares
The Stock Tyrant and the Roman Emperors: The Influence of the Traditional Portrait of Tyranny on Suetonius' Caesares Harold Smith Reeves Brooksville, Florida A.B., Princeton University, 1991 J.D., University of Chicago, 1996 Ph.L., Catholic University of America, 2002 S.T.B., Pontificia Università di S. Tommaso d’Aquino, 2005 M.A., University of Virginia, 2010 A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Classics University of Virginia May, 2014 ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Contents Table of Contents i Abstract ii Acknowldgements iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Rhetoric and the Caesares 19 Chapter 2: From Ancestry to Empire 53 Chapter 3: The Stock Figure of the Tyrant 107 Chapter 4: Dissecting the Roman Tyrants: The Eidological Portraits of the 146 Emperors in the Caesares Chapter 5: Sic Semper Tyrannis: The Death of the Emperor in the Caesares 264 Conclusion 367 Bibliography 371 ii Abstract This dissertation analyzes the influence of the epideictic rhetoric, and in particular of the traditional portrait of the tyrant drawn from invective, on Suetonius’ Caesares. Using the works of Xenophon, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, it first establishes that both the form of a Suetonian biography and the way in which Suetonius describes the ancestry and early life of each emperor, reflect the rhetorical practices traditionally employed to praise a great man in antiquity. It then demonstrates that for the substance of his portraits Suetonius turned to the stock figure of the tyrant. It traces the development of the traditional portrait of the tyrant in Greek and Roman drama, historiography, oratory, rhetoric, and political philosophy.
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