Thesis title (provisional): Dynamics of Power and Artistry of Arrangement in Valerius Maximus’ Facta et dicta memorabilia
Abstract
My work focuses on the Facta et dicta memorabilia, a nine-book collection of more than a thousand exempla (anecdotes from Roman and non-Roman history) assembled by Valerius Maximus in the 30s AD under emperor Tiberius. My PhD thesis develops the current trend in scholarship that examines the Facta et dicta memorabilia as a work of literature in its own right. It gives credit to Valerius Maximus’ artistry, narrative strategies, and ideas, and to his role in the transmission of history. The thesis investigates how Valerius deals with the dynamics of power between individuals – how these are established, maintained, or subverted – with a particular focus on the relationship between power and the art of speaking, as well as silence and inability to speak.
My major interests concern Latin prose and poetry of the Late Republic and Early Empire with a focus on authors of the Tiberian age (Valerius Maximus, Velleius Paterculus, Seneca the Elder), the interrelation between memory, exemplarity, history, as well as on the creation, transmission and politics of memory.