The Death Event and the Theory of Power: Ovidian Incunabula for the Development of a Coherent Ideology about the Afterlife of the Roman Emperor

Abstract

This research focuses on the cultural interrelations arouse by the rites of the emperor’s death in Rome. It rebuilds and analyzes, starting from the inventive concerning the theme contained in the Ovidian’s works, the loci, the description formulas, and the cultural codes. It refers in particular to the literature, that concerns the death of the Roman emperor, which is analyzed from the point of view of rhetoric. In this way, we show a fiction or, if you prefer, a dubious reality, which hides a forcing. And so, it introduces a witness, which confirms the veracity of deification.

Keywords

• ovidio
• consecratio
• apoteosi
• morte
• testimone