The nature of the Roman monarchy in the late first/early second centuries A.D.: The reigns of Nerva and Trajan to the acquisition of Arabia.

The Roman Principate was in a constant state of change. The individual needs of each emperor dictated that they adapt the history of the monarchy to their unique situation. The emperors modified their construction of the past to advertise their program for the future. This dissertation offers a paradigmatic study of the retouching of the past under Nerva and Trajan. Both Nerva and Trajan came to the throne under questionable circumstances: Nerva after the assassination of his predecessor, and Trajan following a mutiny of the Praetorian Guard and the near descent of Nerva's rule into civil war. Both emperors sought to legitimate their tenuous grasp of power by rewriting imperial history to justify their sole retention of the office. Both however downplayed their predecessors in order to legitimate their uneasy successions and to appeal to various strata of Roman society. The degradation of the past required a retelling of history that combined both fact and fiction. This phenomenon can illuminate the political needs of an emperor and bring out some of the way he formulated his image. At the same time, however, it adds a new level of complexity to the study of imperial political history whose content was subject to significant alteration.Ph.D.Ancient historyBiographiesClassical literatureLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/130983/2/9825241.pd