Successor principis. The Representation of Possible Successors and Endangered memoria in the Roman Imperial Period

• Applicant: Dr. Philip Egetenmeier
• Subject Area: Ancient History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 540305224

In my research project, I want to examine the representation of potential successors in the period from Caesar's autocracy (45 BC) to the death of Septimius Severus (211 AD). Contemporaries and later historiographers evaluated an emperor's successor primarily based on his ability to ensure security and prosperity in the empire and his adherence to proper forms of interaction with the status groups in Rome. This picture, however, ignores the perspective of the emperor who selected and built up the successor. A central task of the successor was also to protect his predecessor from memory sanctions. After the death of an emperor, the Senate deliberated on how to deal with the memory (memoria) of the deceased, and regularly this involved the threat of memorial sanctions, such as the annulment of his decrees, the erasure of his name in inscriptions, and the destruction of his statues. Imperial memoria was thus precarious. Considering this precarious memoria and expected memory sanctions, I want to examine the succession efforts, especially how they were communicated to the most important groups (senate, knights, military, urban population of Rome) and within the provinces. Ideally, the successor obligated to the deceased emperor could enforce the deification of his predecessor, whereby the latter's memoria was not only secured but even became part of the state cult. For this, however, it was necessary to give the successor a strong position amongst the relevant groups while he was still alive, because immediately after the transfer of power, one of the first actions was to negotiate how to deal with the predecessor. In addition to descriptions of public appearances in the literary tradition, coins and statues will be analyzed as media of imperial communication. Via such stages and forms of representation, acceptance towards the presumptive successor could already be built up during the lifetime of the reigning emperor. Using a comprehensive and diachronic approach, I would like to explain the sometimes very different ways in which different emperors dealt with the issue of their succession, which, in my opinion, were strongly dependent on the relationship of the respective ruler to the relevant groups and whether he had to expect memory sanctions after his death. A study on the construction of imperial successors in the light of expected memory sanctions remains to be done up to now and would fill an important gap.

• DFG Programme: WBP Fellowship
• International Connection: Canada
• Hosts: Professor Dr. Andreas Bendlin; Professor Dr. Boris Chrubasik