A powerful and at times darkly humorous examination of the workings of the Roman emperors
Author Archives: Caillan Davenport
I am a Roman historian in the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia).
My current project, funded by the Australian Research Council, is a study of 'Popular Perceptions of Roman Emperors from Augustus to Theodosius I'. This project aims to examine how Roman emperors were perceived by the inhabitants of their empire, from soldiers, slaves and freedmen to senatorial aristocrats. It has two main aims: to explain the different ways in which the emperors' military, judicial, religious and moral authority was conceived, interpreted and transmitted in the Roman world; and to analyse the continuities and changes in these aspects between the first and fourth centuries A.D.
My research in general focuses on the government and society of the Roman world from the Republic to Late Antiquity. I have published widely on topics such as Roman historiography, letter writing, inscriptions, imperial ideology, and the transformation of the Roman army and administration in the third and fourth centuries A.D.
I am the co-author (with Jennifer Manley) of "Fronto: Selected Letters" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), a translation and commentary of 54 letters of Cornelius Fronto, tutor to the emperor Marcus Aurelius. I am the sole author of the forthcoming monograph,"A History of the Roman Equestrian Order", to be published by Cambridge University Press.
