ARC Grant
Public and Private Lies: Retelling the Clash of Duty, Power and Sexual Indulgence in the Roman Imperial Court
Dr K.O. Chong-Gossard & Dr Andrew Turner (APD Fellow)
The best accounts of the first-century Roman imperial court date from 100-130 CE and depict the deleterious effect of private acts on public conduct. Tacitus closely linked adultery with abuse of duty and power; Juvenal's satires moralized about sex and the corruption of Roman values; the biographer Suetonius juxtaposed the emperors' public actions against sensationalist accounts of their sexual practices. The project explores how these authors' interests were characteristic of their own generation rather than those described by their texts. We examine literary issues (genre, reception, Hellenistic influences) and cultural concerns (moral philosophy, gender politics, sexual deviance) to discover these authors' contemporaneous viewpoints. The Australian public has a genuine and demonstrable interest in Ancient World Studies. This project offers them insight into how the ancient world constructed its political scandals. It examines the interrelationship of private acts and public conduct during the height of the Roman empire , and how personal morality was perceived to affect capability to govern. It provides a case study for the assessment of similar scandals in the modern world. By reading ancient perspectives on 'sex,' 'power,' and 'privacy', we better understand our world and the potential for miscommunication across cultures. The project also promotes co-operation between metropolitan and regional universities in sharing resources in a national collaborative project.