The Severan Salutatio: Re-evaluating the Severan Age

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Lindholmer, Mads Ortving

• Recent research and the conferences of the Dio-network have demonstrated that Dio was a sophisticated and often consistent historian with independent interpretations. I will use this insight to analyse the language Dio used to describe the salutatio and through this further support the argument that the Severans retained a traditional salutatio: I will show that Dio consistently uses ἀσπάζομαι for formalised, traditional salutationes but also consistently deviates from this usage if the occasion is not sufficiently formalised and traditional. This consistency of Dio’s language when describing the salutatio is important as Dio in the Severan period only uses ἀσπάζομαι for salutationes. This indicates that the salutatio had not undergone fundamental changes in this period and that the senators continued to have a privileged and formalised position in this ritual.

• Date created

  2018-05-25

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Salutatio
  • Cassius Dio
  • Rome
  • Severans
  • Herodian

• Type of Item

  Conference/Workshop Presentation

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3J09WM21

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International