ESR 6 War and Peace. Military Lives and Identities in Latin Verse Inscriptions

Penelope Faithfull

Objectives
The project will focus on military lives and their poetic male representations and images of masculinity. It investigates the manifestations and complexities of ethnic, local and professional identities as reflected in verse of the most mobile and ethnically, linguistically and culturally most diverse segment of the ancient Roman population. Military units, though heterogeneous internally, were perceived as homogeneous representatives of Roman rule in the provinces, importing Roman as well as individual lifestyles and cultures. Hopes and fears, strangeness and camaraderie, brutal death and post-military successes are reflected upon in verse. These aspects will be analysed in order to gain a substantially enhanced understanding of the poetics and realities of displacement, careers, citizenship, war, peace and rule in the Roman Empire.

The study takes into account the vast territory of Roman Empire of the imperial period to understand its poetic specifics, since Roman military culture was present in the Greek- as well as the Latin-speaking world. The presentations of military lives should be compared with the masses of verbal prose representations of the other persona categories. The CARMEN objectives and methods will offer e.g. contemporary gender approaches and methods to address the military identity scheme in a new light.

Expected Results
A doctoral thesis on the objectives mentioned above to build up a gen­eral expertise on issues related to migration, foreignness, cultural appropriation, inclusion/exclusion and the impact of war on local socie­ties, and professional skills in digital editing.