The fall of Nero and the civil wars of 69 CE ushered in an era scarred by the recent conflicts; Flavian literature also inherited a rich tradition of narrating nefas from its predecessors who had confronted and commemorated the traumas of Pharsalus and Actium. Despite the present surge of scholarly interest in both Flavian literary studies and Roman civil war literature, however, the Flavian contribution to Romeâs literature of bellum ciuile remains understudied. This volume shines a spotlight on these neglected voices. In the wake of 69 CE, writing civil war became an inescapable project for Flavian Rome: from Statiusâs fraternas acies and Siliusâs suicidal Saguntines to the internecine narratives detailed in Josephusâs Bellum Iudaicum and woven into Frontinusâs exempla, Flavian authorsâ preoccupation with civil war transcends genre and subject matter. This book provides an important new chapter in the study of Roman civil war literature by investigating the multi-faceted Flavian response to this persistent and prominent theme.
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