Dining with Augustus:
The Roman Princeps as Host and Guest
(The Lane C. McGaughy Lectureship in Ancient Studies)
In the lifetime of Augustus the Roman Republic became an Empire, and in hindsight we are right to call him its first emperor. How did he do it? Building on varied historical and literary sources the lecture will focus on the Roman arts of entertainment as they were practised in his time, and will show how creatively Augustus himself played the roles of host and patron. His triumphant career demonstrates that these skills were (as they still are) an essential ingredient of political success.
Co-sponsored by the Willamette University Center for Ancient Studies and Archaeology, the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest and the Salem Society of the Archaeological Institute of America