1989/05/01 by Barbara Saylor Rodgers · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Ancient history #Byzantine Studies and History #Classical Antiquity Studies #Computer science #Emperor #Epistemology #Function (biology) #Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies #History #Law #Philosophy #Political science #Subject (documents) #World Wide Web
paper · doi:10.1017/s0009838800040611
openalex publication_date 1989/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Many have written of imperial qualities perceived or publicized, particularly of those attached to the emperor Constantine. Although only a tediously exhaustive volume could do justice to the whole subject, and any essay which does not embrace the whole runs the risk of being faulted for some omission or other, one may yet justify a particular concern. The subject of the present paper is the tension between form and function, which appears nowhere so readily as in a series of similar literary exercises spanning a number of years, and the demonstration that form will always yield to practical necessity. For example, the rise, fall, and rehabilitation of Maximian through seven of the Panegyrici Latini clearly illustrates the many functions of a standard form. Constantine's is a more complicated case which involves two kinds of form and a certain amount of Augustan posturing.