War suffused Roman life to a degree unparalleled in other ancient societies. Although the place of war in ancient Roman culture has been the subject of many studies, this book is the first to examine how Romans represented war, in both visual imagery and in literary accounts. Spanning a broad chronological range, from the mid-fourth century BC to the third century AD, the essays in this volume consider audience reception, the reconstruction of display contexts, as well as the language of images, which could be either explicit or allusive in representations of war. Collectively, the essays in this volume begin with the premise that the presentation of warfare - pictorial representations, literary accounts, commemorative building programs, and more ephemeral displays, such as trophies, triumphs, and spectacles - was instrumental in constructing the Romans' view of themselves, their past, and their future.
- First book to address Roman representations of war
- Goes beyond literal representations of war, but also examines literary and allegorical representations