Università Roma Tre

“The inscriptions of the praetorian prefects”
The long history of the praetorian prefecture stretches for six centuries between the late Augustan age and the Justinian age. The life, social origin, culture and career, skills and activity, the profile and extension of the mandate of its owners, i.e. the praetorian prefects, changed over time, and significantly in the first half of the Fourth century. The transformation of the office, its being at first dangerously close and then definitively distant from the person of the Emperor, without institutional roots either in Rome or in the cities of the Roman Empire, had important epigraphic consequences: first of all on the typology and conservation of the inscribed monuments, made in honour of the prefects and made by the prefects themselves, then on the consistency and representativeness of the surviving epigraphic heritage. The student faces the analysis and interpretation of the epigraphic texts relating to the holders of the prefecture between the First and Sixth centuries: he is called upon to reflect on the historical contextualization of careers and to formulate hypotheses on the paths of realization and conservation of the inscribed monuments.

Attending Students: Handouts (xerocopies and PDFs) and materials provided by the teacher at the beginning of the course and during the lessons.

Non-attending Students:
- A. Buonopane, Manuale di epigrafia latina, Rome (Carocci) 2009 [mandatory];
- Terme di Diocleziano. La collezione epigrafica, edited by R. Friggeri, M.G. Granino Cecere, G. Gregori, Milan (Electa) 2012 [757 pp. - € 49,00]: mandatory study of Room I + 4 Rooms of your choice.
Exercises: Visit to the 'Epigraphic Collection' of the National Roman Museum at the Baths of Diocletian in Rome.