Aristocracy of Eloquence: Language and Identity in Roman Gaul, 289-389 CE [electronic resource].

9780355027778

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2017

1 online resource (260 p.)

Access is available to the Yale community.

This dissertation explores the question of identity in fourth-century Gaul and examines how powerful Gallic politicians engaged with the aristocratic ideology that overshadowed them. For much of the century, Gaul was the political core of the western Roman empire; it was the home both of emperors and of schools whose students would dominate the upper echelons of government. Drawing on philology, prosopography, numismatics, and epigraphy, I argue that Gauls were not simply accepted into the highest social ranks by other elites across the empire, especially at Rome, no matter what titles they won from the imperial court or what positions they held in government. In the face of an overwhelmingly negative cluster of stereotypes that were embedded in the educational regimen of the Roman tradition, Gauls had to construct the prestige that aristocrats at Rome simply inherited, and I look at how they did so. I survey how the identity of a Gallic political class took root in the wreckage of the third century, developed into an administrative identity defined by literary knowledge and rhetorical ability, and finally blossomed into a self-conscious aristocracy whose members defined themselves not by origin and lineage, as at Rome, but by mastery of Latin, rhetoric, and literary traditions.

Books / Online / Dissertations & Theses

English

January 29, 2018

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 2017.

Yale University.