Rome at a gallop: Livy, on not gazing, jumping, or toppling into the void

Diana Spencer*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

Getting a sense of perspective on Rome, whether temporal or spatial, is a recurrent concern of this collection. Modelling the chronological filters and processes of layering of the spaces from which, and into which, one gazes, is central to understanding how and why Rome's multiple pasts continue to obsess us. It also allows us to tease out correspondences and conflicts between ongoing urges to recuperate 'Classical' Rome, and a succession of simultaneous penchants-from antiquity onwards-for rewriting it in our own image. Chronological perspective (or, in Bakhtin's terms, the chronotope) Wgures as one underlying concern in this essay-the versions of us and them, then and now, that Rome and Livy invoke are never culturally neutral. Equally signiWcant, however, is the perhaps more straightforward trick of creating a textual 'reality eVect' by deploying a whole range of vertical and horizontal perspectives, both spatial and temporal. My essay is interested in particular in how one deWnes place, moves through space, and comprehends up and down in Livy's early Rome; in the consequences of this for Augustan Rome; and Wnally, in the * David Larmour, Indra McEwen, and Gideon Nisbet signifycantly improved various drafts of this essay, for which many thanks are due.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Sites of Rome
Subtitle of host publicationTime, Space, Memory
EditorsDavid H. J. Larmour, Diana Spencer
Place of PublicationOxford
PublisherOxford University Press
Pages61-101
Number of pages41
Edition1st
ISBN (Electronic)9781383035575
ISBN (Print)9780199217496
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2007

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Oxford University Press 2007. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Filters
  • Modelling
  • Perspective
  • Temporal
  • Understanding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Arts and Humanities

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