<Articles>'Fellow Servants of the Muses' in the Later Roman Empire : Litterati and Empire (Special Issue : Networks of Learning)

NISHIMURA Masahiro

doi:10.14989/shirin_101_9

This article deals with the relationship between literary culture and the Roman Empire in the fourth century in terms of the concept 'Networks of Learning'. The late Roman elites enjoyed a common literary culture based upon love and veneration of the Muses fostered through a shared education in classical literature. Though a privileged minority group in the whole population, this educated class, called the 'fellow servants of the Muses' by Peter Brown in his Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity, maintained a network of interactions and communications extending throughout the empire through which they moved, built careers as teachers and administrators and exchanged information and cooperated with each other through letterwriting. The later Roman Empire is characterised by the development of bureaucracy, and it was the literary elites who occupied the posts created in the later Roman bureaucracy. Because they moved throughout the empire in pursuit of these posts, the empire-wide itinerancy and interrelationship of educated elite was supported by the institutional development of the later empire and the prestige and benefits accrued from advancement within the bureaucratic organisation. Literary culture and networks of the educated class were sustained by and closely connected with the imperial system. Literary culture in the later Roman Empire played an important role in confronting imperial power. As P. Brown pointed out in the abovementioned book, the rhetorical education of the day was regarded as fostering self-restraint and decorum befitting of social elites, integrating local elites and imperial officials as educated men sharing the same cultural code and thus imposing restrictions on the exercise of imperial power. It was necessary for the smooth running of the vast empire to abide by a mode of behaviour moulded by literary culture that helped to earn the consent to govern and cooperation from local elites. Conversely, the sharing of culture tied the educated elites to the later Roman Empire. The belief itself that education could control and manipulate imperial power constituted a part of the mechanism of government and the mentality of educated men was heavily influenced by the existence of the empire.

<Articles>'Fellow Servants of the Muses' in the Later Roman Empire : Litterati and Empire (Special Issue : Networks of Learning)

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