On 11th October, Richard Buckley-Gorman defended his PhD thesis on early imperial theorizing of the role of the Roman Emperor, titled The Cosmos and Man: the Empire and the Emperor in Early Imperial Thought (abstract below). Richard wrote his thesis throughout the toughest period of the Covid crisis, with Prof. Matthew Roller as advisor. In true post-pandemic style, the defence took place across numerous time-zones of the world: Richard beamed in from New Zealand to defend with eloquence and deep knowledge, whilst his external examiner, Professor Chris Gill zoomed in from the UK. It was marvellous to witness this work come to fruition in such a rich and stimulating discussion. Congratulations from all of us, Richard!
The Cosmos and Man: the Empire and the Emperor in Early Imperial Thought: In the period of the Principate, the figure of the Emperor developed and became central to the governing of the Roman empire. Imperial literature and propaganda expressed the idea that the Empire, Augustus and his successors had been knit into the cosmos and had achieved a kind of permanence. This period was also witness to a flowering of moral and philosophical thought. I examine the confluence of these two themes in the way three authors—Seneca, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius (who was Emperor himself)—wrote about the Empire and the Emperor’s role. I argue that all three authors analysed the Roman Empire in metaphysical terms and that it is possible to discern in their writings an expression of the Emperor’s uneasy status in a kind of twofoldness to his character, expressing a reification of his public and private selves.