What was Roman political praise for and what could
it achieve? Could it have literary merit? What do the
surviving examples of Roman political praise-giving
reveal about the circumstances and milieu in which they
originated? Latin Panegyric brings together
sixteen essays focusing on praise in the Roman Empire
and, in particular, on praise of the emperor. Spanning a
century of scholarship, and constituting landmark
studies on different aspects of the largest collection
of classical Latin oratory to survive after Cicero-the
Panegyrici Latini-this collection includes
speeches addressed to the emperors Trajan, Maximian,
Constantine, Julian, and Theodosius, and traces three
centuries of oratorical praise-giving in the Roman
world. These influential readings consider textual,
rhetorical, literary, political, and religious matters,
and together represent the evolving landscape of
academic attitudes towards praise discourse, with its
strengths and problems, and towards some of the
best-known Roman emperors. With a full introduction by
the editor, and with four essays translated into English
for the first time, this valuable volume plots the
narratives of Roman praise and gives students of
classical literature, history, and rhetoric direct
access to key scholarship.
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