Seit 2023 veranstaltet die Mommsen-Gesellschaft jedes Jahr zu Beginn des Wintersemesters einen virtuellen Vortragsabend zusammen mit der Association of Ancient Historians (AAH), ihrer amerikanischen Partnergesellschaft. Angeboten werden jeweils zwei Vorträge über neue Forschungen von Kolleginnen und Kollegen beiderseits des Atlantik. Die Vortragssprache ist Englisch.
Mit diesem Angebot möchte die Mommsen-Gesellschaft den wissenschaftlichen Austausch zwischen dem deutschsprachigen Raum und Nordamerika anregen und fördern.
Bewerbungen für die Vortragsreihe können jederzeit an den Ersten Vorsitzenden der Mommsen-Gesellschaft gerichtet werden. Bitte fügen Sie eine halbseitige Zusammenfassung Ihres Vortrags (abstract) und einen Lebenslauf bei.
Mitte Juni entscheiden je drei Repräsentanten der AAH und der Mommsen-Gesellschaft in einer virtuellen Sitzung über die eingereichten Vorschläge. Die erfolgreichen Kandidatinnen und Kandidaten werden bis spätestens 30. Juni benachrichtigt. Das Programm wird im Laufe des Sommers an dieser Stelle, per Newsletter und unter „Aktuelles aus der Mommsen-Gesellschaft“ veröffentlicht.
Zuhörende sind herzlich willkommen. Bitte melden Sie sich rechtzeitig beim Schriftführer der Mommsen-Gesellschaft, der Ihnen den Zugangslink mitteilt.
Unser bisheriges Programm:
2025
“Mors pro patria: Murder, Suicide, and Sacrifice in ancient Rome”
Celia E. Schultz, Professor of Classical Studies and History, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
Abstract: This paper revisits the murder of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in a melee on the Capitoline Hill in 133 B.C.E. The most famous of interpretation of this episode is D. C. Earl’s dramatic declaration in his 1961 biography of Gracchus that Scipio Nasica, who veiled his head before leading a crowd of senators against the tribune and his supporters, sacrificed Gracchus in order to save the state (Earl 1961: 119). This explanation has been pooh-poohed, for very good reasons, by scholars who have sought to identify other forms of ritual killing that might fit the bill. My argument is, at first glance, paradoxical. I argue that there no reason to accept Earl’s historical interpretation, but also that Earl was right, just not in the way he imagined. Our sources indeed include the image of Nasica’s veiled head to evoke human sacrifice in the mind of the reader, but they do not include this detail because that is what happened in 133. It has more to do with the Greek literary imagination and Greek ideas about Roman sacrifice than anything that actually happened in that moment of political crisis in Rome. To make my case, I look at the presentation of other episodes of Late Republican political murders and suicides.
“Romana mors? Female Suicide in Roman Funerary Culture”
PD Dr. Burkhard Emme, Institut für Klassische Archäologie, Freie Universität Berlin
Abstract: In Roman literature and art, suicide features frequently as a reaction to the death of a loved one, especially if not exclusively in case of women. The motif can be found in historical accounts as well as in mythological narratives and images. The lecture deals with different aspects of this phenomenon: its roots in auto-aggressive behavioural patterns in case of bereavement, its significance for the construction of gender-specific roles, its connection to a general Roman ‘culture of exemplarity’ and its metaphorical function as an expression of loyalty and closeness in the funerary context.
2024
“A Road Not Taken: Cornelius Gallus and the Failure of Augustus‘ African Policy”
Stanley M. Burstein, Professor Emeritus of History, California State University, Los Angeles
Abstract: Augustus boasts in his Res Gestae that he sent an army into Aethiopia (that is, Nubia) that reached the city of Napata at the Fourth Cataract of the Nile. The reference is to the campaign conducted G. Petronius, the first Prefect of Egypt, in late 25 or early 24 BCE. Other sources confirm Augustus’ account and imply that the kingdom of Kush, the principal power in Nubia, came under Roman control. Yet in 20 BCE Augustus abandoned almost all his gains south of Egypt. This lecture considers the reasons for this failure and examines an alternative approach to relations between Roman Egypt and Kush implemented by Cornelius Gallus but rejected by Augustus.
“Contested Claims of Promoting the Public Good – the Oligarchic Coups of 411 and 404/3 BC”
Alexandra Eckert, Althistorisches Seminar, Universität Göttingen
Abstract: In the third book of his Politics, Aristotle presents oligarchy as the rule of the wealthy few violating the public good. This lecture will show that the question who acted to the benefit of the polis and promoted the public good also played a pivotal role in the wider context of the oligarchic coups of 411 and 404/3 BC, when democracy was abandoned in Athens twice. In 411 BC, the oligarchs presented their plans to change the Athenian political system from a democracy to a non-democratic regime as beneficial for the polis. In 404/3 BC, attempts of the leading oligarchs proved futile to justify their atrocities against citizens and metics at Athens as acts fostering the public good. Appeals to the public good were also highly relevant in the aftermath of the oligarchic coups, when the Athenians tried to cope with the severe consequences of these events. Not only citizens, but also metics, who had supported the democrats in overthrowing the oligarchic regime of 404/3 BC, emphasized their contributions to the public good after the restoration of democracy at Athens.
2023
“Eikônographeia: Biometrics and Documentary Identity in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt”
Ella Karev, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Chicago
Abstract: Karev intends to centre the discussion around a single question: when does a community begin to need—and employ—a system of verifiable documentary identification? Karev argues that systems of identity verification such as the biometrics evidenced here are an expression of the decreased value of social credit in the wake of community fluctuation.
“Populism in Rome?”
Christoph Lundgreen, Professor für Alte Geschichte, TU Dresden
Abstract: Via a careful examination of Ciceros speeches, letters, and philosophical works after his return from exile, Lundgreen seeks to show how the Arpinate introduces both the intensity of preferences and the supposed will of the (true) people as new elements in the political discourse of his time, thereby, consciously or not, delegitimizing the Roman assemblies and procedures – and thus being a very different populist in the modern sense than the normally (and wrongly) evoked examples of Athenian Demagogues or Roman populares.