Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kahlos, Maijastina Ritva

Titel

Saeculum praetextati

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

1998

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This dissertation studies Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, a Roman pagan senator who lived in the fourth century C.E. in a period of transition in the late Roman Empire. He accumulated numerous priesthoods and initiations of polytheistic cults, restored and protected pagan temples, and is also known to have devoted himself to the studies of philosophy and literature. He was highly esteemed by his contemporaries and the succeeding fifth-century generation. The primary goals of this study were to discuss through Praetextatus' religious and intellectual activities and even through his death and “afterlife” (1) the aristocratic way of life of Roman senators, (2) the coexistence of pagans and Christians, and (3) the cultural and religious atmosphere in fourth-century Rome. The figure of Praetextatus is analyzed on three levels. The reconstruction of his life, career and person based on contemporary writers and epigraphical material has been compared with the image created by the succeeding generation, in Macrobius' Saturnalia. Furthermore, he is compared with other pagan senators of the fourth century and also with Christian senators of the same period. I suggest that pagan and Christian senators shared a common aristocratic code of life and similar values and ideas, e.g. of the immortality of the soul, though there were also many differences. During his lifetime Praetextatus appears as a senator among others, though a highly cultured aristocrat belonging to the highest elite of the senatorial order, but after his death he appears exceptional. The reactions after his death show him as a “great man” whose personality, death and immortality get much attention and cause controversy. The dissertation is divided in three parts: (1) A Senatorial Life is a short introduction to Praetextatus as a person, looking at him as a representative of the Roman senatorial order, his family, properties, connections and worldly career. (2) Religion and Culture discusses his religious, literary and philosophical activities in the context of fourth-century culture. (3) A Senatorial Afterlife treats his fate post mortem, that is, the contemporary conceptions of his death and afterlife and the image depicted by Macrobius, the writer of the next generation.