Alison E. Cooley’s research while affiliated with University of Warwick and other places

Britannia Romana: Roman Inscriptions and Roman Britain. By R.S.O. Tomlin. Oxbow, Oxford and Philadelphia, 2018. Pp. xvi + 472, illus. Price: £48.00. isbn9781785707001. - Alison E. Cooley

This paper explores alternatives to analysing the political impact of Augustus in terms of the establishment of a new constitutional structure, the Augustan Principate. It starts by showing how the word principatus changed over time and explores the significance of the term statio . It considers how contemporaries viewed the political changes that occurred during Augustus’ lifetime, analysing the ways in which power at Rome became increasingly embodied in the person of Augustus himself. It suggests that there was an increasing recognition that Augustus was an exceptional individual, whose position in the state was supported by powers granted formally by senatorial decree and popular vote as well as informally by acclamation, but whose authority was ultimately a personal quality, supported by the gods, and predestined by birth. It traces the ways in which Augustus’ rule became increasingly personalised, with the result that one of the main challenges faced by Tiberius in a.d . 14 was how to take over Augustus’ personal role as princeps .

This article presents some of the results of the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions Project (funded by the AHRC 2013–2017), with new editions and commentaries on inscriptions from Roman Britain in the Ashmolean Museum. It offers an evaluation of these inscriptions based upon autopsy and digital imaging (Reflectance Transformation Imaging), and includes new photographs of them. It offers insights into the culture and society of Roman Britain as well as into the changing attitudes towards Romano-British antiquities in modern Britain from the 1600s onwards.

The bimillennium of Augustus' death on 19 August 2014 commemorated not only the end of his life but also the beginning of a two-thousand-year reception history. This volume addresses the range and breadth of that history. Beginning with the Emperor's death and continuing through Late Antiquity, Early Christianity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and early modernity to the present day, chapters address political positioning, religious mythologisation, philosophy, rhetoric, narratives, memory, and material embodiment. As they collectively reveal, Augustus has meant radically different things from one time and place to another, and even to some individual commentators as the circumstances around them changed. The weight of established narratives has often also shaped those of subsequent generations, with or without their conscious awareness. The book outlines and analyses the major themes in Augustus' reception history, clarifying the cultural and historiographical issues at stake and providing a platform for further scholarship.