Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture

Demonstrates the central significance of rhetoric in ancient responses to and receptions of Roman art.

Rhetoric was fundamental to education and to cultural aspiration in the Greek and Roman worlds. This collection of essays presents a large arena of responses and theoretical formulations about Roman visual culture within the literature of ancient rhetoric that has been significantly neglected in normative art history and Classical archaeology.Rhetoric was fundamental to education and to cultural aspiration in the Greek and Roman worlds. It was one of the key aspects of antiquity that slipped under the line between the ancient world and Christianity erected by the early Church in late antiquity. Ancient rhetorical theory is obsessed with examples and discussions drawn from visual material. This book mines this rich seam of theoretical analysis from within Roman culture to present an internalist model for some aspects of how the Romans understood, made and appreciated their art. The understanding of public monuments like the Arch of Titus or Trajan's Column or of imperial statuary, domestic wall painting, funerary altars and sarcophagi, as well as of intimate items like children's dolls, is greatly enriched by being placed in relevant rhetorical contexts created by the Roman world.