1990 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Studies of Death in Ancient Rome
| Project/Area Number |
63450051
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
History of Europe and America
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| Research Institution | Nagoya University |
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Principal Investigator |
HASEGAWA Hirotake Nagoya Univ. School of Letters Professor, 文学部, 教授 (50022364)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
SUNADA Toru Nagoya Univ. School of Letters, Research Assistant, 文学部, 助手 (10206576)
OGAWA Masahiro Nagoya Univ. School of Letters, Assistant Professor, 文学部, 助教授 (40127064)
TAMURA Takashi Junior Coll., Assistant Prof., 助教授 (80179902)
TOKI Shousaku Nagoya Univ. of Foreign Studies, Assistant Professor, 助教授 (20197859)
KUNIHARA Kichinosuke Sugiyama Jogakuen Univ., School of Literature, Professor, 文学部, 教授 (10022344)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1989 – 1990
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| Keywords | Romans / death / ius imaginum / deification / hero-cult / view of life and death / acts of martyrs / senatus consultum ultimum |
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| Research Abstract |
We have studied various aspects of death in ancient Rome, and the results can be summarized as follows.
1 From the point of view of social history, we considered "imagines maiorum" and an old Roman proverb. The imagines, a symbol of gloria of Roman noble families, could be transferred from one family to another by woman at their marriage. The proverb "sexagenarii de ponte" can be interpreted as a reflection of the practice of disposing of old men by abandonment and also of the antagonism between the young and the aged.
2 In the literary field, an examination was made on the image of after-life in Propertius' and Lucretius' poems and on the problem of death and deification of Roman heroes in mythology and historiography.
3 In the politics, we have investigated about the succession of power after the death of leading men in the late republican period and also on the political murder under senatus consultum ultimum which was a declaration of a state of emergency.
4 Lastly we studied the suicide of Roman people and observed that their attitude to it had changed under the influence of Christianity.
By these studies we have reached a deeper understanding of what the Romans thought of their life and death and how their view of death was different from those of other peoples including the Japanese. This collaboration has suggested, however, that their remains much to be explored in the Roman idea of death so that we may know better about our own.
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