Date of Award

Spring 2026

Thesis Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Department

Classics

Sponsor

Hannah Ewing

Committee Member

Robert Vander Poppen

Committee Member

Scott Rubarth

Abstract

Following decades of civil war and moral collapse in the Late Republic, Augustus sought to legitimate his principate through a sweeping cultural program proclaiming the arrival of a new Golden Age. This thesis examines how the authors Livy and Virgil contributed a literary dimension to that program by retelling Rome's archaic past. Livy curates the Roman kings as exempla of entrepreneurial virtue and civic self-determination, while Virgil's Aeneid grounds proto-Roman identity in pietas and coalition-building across ethnic boundaries. Both works, independent of direct state commission, answered the moral demands of the Augustan moment and affirmed that civilizational renewal requires a living relationship with founding principles.

Comments

Please add Patricia Tomé as a committee member too!

Rights Holder

Katherine Anna Hamner

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