Coping with Ancient Gods, Celebrating Christian Emperors, Proclaiming Roman Eternity: Rhetoric and Religion in Late Antique Latin Panegyrics
The present contribution provides an examination of the relationship between the emperor and the divine sphere in Latin panegyric poetry of the fifth and sixth centuries. Following the path magisterially set forth by Claudian, poets like Sidonius Apollinaris and, later on, Corippus employs the same literary genre to praise the newly-come Germanic kings or the Eastern Emperor. They have, however, to face a profoundly transformed historical and political realm, not to mention a different approach towards religion. Whereas Panegyrici Latini and Claudian could make wide use of mythological similes to celebrate Rome, her grandeur and the deeds of the emperor, his successors deal with the ancient gods in quite a clear-cut or, so to say, crystallized way. They show a conservative (and, to some extent, nostalgic) attitude and still believe in the endurance of Rome, which is fated to last eternally. The sacralization of Rome (with the concurring ideas of a Christian providence and the literary cliché of pagan aeternitas) is integrated within the frame of an empire that has become totally Christianized and, especially in the East, finds in political theology a privileged terrain to establish its roots. In particular the link between Christianity and the emperor as vicar of God is well outlined by the symbolism of court ceremonial and gesture, which panegyrics describe in great detail.