INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

MEDIAL (RE)PRESENTATIONS - VARIOUS MESSAGES

LEADERSHIP, IDEOLOGY AND CROWDS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE OF THE 4th CENTURY AD

GÖTTINGEN, 19-20 FEBRUARY 2015

This conference concentrates on leadership, ideology and crowds in the fourth century AD (i.e. the period from the emperors Constantine to Theodosius (306-395). As a dynamic period within Roman history, the fourth century saw various transformations in the imperial administrative structures, the position of the emperor(s), and the emerging dominance of Christianity. We will investigate the fourth century at large, with a specific focus on the functioning of leadership and ideology, and on the ways in which leading figures in society - in particular emperors and bishops - interacted with their 'crowds', whether they be the inhabitants of the city of Rome, the subjects of the empire at large or the members of the various Christian communities. The emergence of bishops as religious leaders on the worldly stage of power made them a force to reckon with for the emperors of the fourth century. Consequently, we are interested in the ways in which emperors and bishops interacted while having similar aims: securing their own position of power.

Our workshop seeks to:

(1) develop a typology of leadership relations in the fourth century

by looking at both vertical and horizontal leadership relations, i.e. between leaders and subjects as well as between different types of leaders, we will come to a new understanding of the perspectives of both leaders (religious and secular) and subjects, the two opposite ends of the power spectrum. We will confront different types of leadership models from modern sociology and social psychology with our ancient sources. How did leaders tie their subjects to them and in which ways could they mobilize their people? Furthermore, we will compare and combine the results of top-down and bottom-up approaches. Traditional research on literary sources has mostly examined the perspective of the upper layers of Roman society (emperors, elites and army) as these are usually at the centre of the texts. In recent years, research on other types of sources, for instance coins, has shown some interest in a larger group of the population, as the concept of 'audience' received more attention. While not denying the value of top-down models, we deliberately want to include the perspective of Roman society's lower strata and therefore combine top-down and bottom-up approaches. Leadership, Roman or other, cannot function without the presence and acceptance of all levels of society, thus including the people/plebs. Especially with the help of disciplines that have more recently come to the fore in research on the Roman Empire such as social psychology, sociology or human geography, we want to focus on the lower levels of society as well. After all, employing both top-down and bottom-up models makes the necessary dialogue between leaders and subjects visible and tangible.



(2) understand expressions of leadership, ideology and crowds in various types of sources

by analyzing the different ancient media, such as coinage, inscriptions, monuments and literature, within their own context and medial discourse instead of 'picking and mixing' them, the participants of our workshop, who are specialists on different types of sources, will demonstrate how these sources will allow for ideological differentiation and diverse messages to different types of audiences. We will deliberately look for both literary and visual (re)presentations of the relationship between leaders and subjects. The various studies in the larger project Emperors and Ancestors (conducted at the Radboud University Nijmegen (2009-2015), in which both organizers of the conference participated) have demonstrated the necessity of analyzing the different ancient media such as coinage, inscriptions, monuments and literature into their own context and medial discourse before combining them. In other words, specific local and medial traditions should be taken into account while analyzing the sources. This approach of 'systematic medium analysis' thus forms the methodological framework for the examination of the ancient sources for our conference.



(3) merge traditional philological and historical analyses with modern theories and methodological applications from a broad range of disciplines such as ancient history, classical philology, archaeology, art history, Roman law, theology, sociology, social psychology, topography or urban design.

The study of universal phenomena as leadership, ideology and crowd behavior can only profit from a multidisciplinary approach. As an illustration, the example of the use of digital humanities within the study on the ancient world has proven itself valuable in recent years. The creation of databases in order to facilitate quantitative analyses, corpus linguistics, the development of several types of graphs and maps as well as the use of Virtual Reality Technology: these all serve as tools of analysis making it possible to map patterns, trends and long term developments (see for instance http://romereborn.frischerconsulting.com, which show digital models of Rome in A.D. 320). Such techniques are effective when analyzing ancient media systematically over a longer stretch of time. As many of these new technologies are relatively new to traditional scholarship, this conference serves as a means to bring together scholars for the exchange and discussion of the employability of various types of digital techniques.

Programme

For the programme click here or see the sidebar.

The conference is organized by Erika Manders and Danielle Slootjes, and forms a joint venture between the universities of Göttingen (Germany) and Nijmegen (The Netherlands).