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Empresses-In-Waiting: Female Power and Performance at the Late Roman Court

Empresses-In-Waiting: Female Power and Performance at the Late Roman Court

Hardcover

Series: Women in Ancient Cultures

Medieval & Renaissance HistoryAncient RomeGeneral World History

ISBN10: 1802075933
ISBN13: 9781802075939
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Published: Jul 5 2024
Pages: 352
Weight: 1.47
Height: 0.81 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

Empresses-in-Waiting comprises case studies of late antique empresses, female members of imperial dynasties, and female members of the highest nobility of the late Roman empire, ranging from the fourth to the seventh centuries AD. Situated in the context of the broader developments of scholarship on late antique and byzantine empresses, this volume explores the political agency, religious authority, and influence of imperial and near-imperial women within the Late Roman imperial court, which is understood as a complex spatial, social, and cultural system, the centre of patronage networks, and an arena for elite competition. The studies explore female performance and representation in literary and visual media as well as in court ceremonial, and discuss the opportunities and constraints of female power within a male dominated court environment and the broader realms of imperial activity. By focusing on imperial women, the volume not only addresses questions of gendered rhetoric and agency but throws into relief general dynamics in the exercise of imperial power during a period in which the classical Mediterranean world at large, as well as the Roman monarchy, underwent crucial transformations.

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Ancient Rome