Research project
Commemorating Augustus
- Start date: 1 January 2013
- End date: 31 December 2028
- Funder: Leverhulme Trust (2023-24)
- Primary investigator: Dr Penelope Goodman
Value
£22,389
Description
The Commemorating Augustus project launched in 2013 in anticipation of the bimillennium of the emperor Augustus’ death on 19 August 2014. Marking as it did two thousand years of varied and ambivalent responses to Augustus, this anniversary seemed the perfect time to explore his legacy and think about what he means to us today.
The project began with a half-day colloquium at Leeds in May 2013, followed by a major international conference over the very date of the bimillennium in 2014. This conference explored the range and breadth of Augustus’ reception history from his death to the present day, attracting eighty scholars from across the globe. A selection of its papers were then developed into the 2018 edited volume, Afterlives of Augustus, AD 14–2014 (Cambridge University Press). Spanning a wide range of times, places, media and contexts, they show that Augustus can be interpreted in radically different ways depending on perspective, but also that established narratives about him have tended to shape those of subsequent generations, with or without their conscious awareness.
The final stage of the project, supported by a 2023-24 Leverhulme Research Fellowship, has returned to the bimillennium of Augustus’ birth in 1938. The commemoration of this anniversary in Fascist Italy has been well studied. However, a corpus of over 200 bimillennial events held at the same time across the rest of the world is largely unknown to scholarship. Dr Goodman is now working on a monograph which examines these commemorations, drawing on contemporary archival sources. It will argue that without knowing about them, we cannot fully understand Italy’s use of Augustus, especially to pursue international soft power, or why he was of interest to those in other nations: for example, as a key figure in constructions of western identity, discourses around imperialism, and appeals to peace and unity.
Publications and outputs
- Goodman, P.J. 2018. 'Twelve Augusti' in The Journal of Roman Studies 108: 156-70.
- Goodman, P.J. (ed.) 2018. Afterlives of Augustus, AD 14–2014. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Goodman, P.J. 2023. ’Augustus and his bimillennium in the soft power strategy of the Fascist regime’ in F. Oppedisano, P.S. Salvatori and F. Santangelo, eds., Costruire la nuova Italia: miti di Roma e fascismo. Rome: Viella: 285-310.
- Goodman, P.J. 2024. 'Retrospective Parentage: Augustus as a Father of Europe' in C. Davenport and S. Malik, eds. Representing Rome’s Emperors: Historical and Cultural Perspectives through Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 265-95.