French Literature Reviews - 2026
B. Chazal, La Rhétorique du blâme dans l’Histoire Auguste
History, Politics and Society
La Rhétorique du blâme dans l’Histoire Auguste
Benoît Chazal
Paris, Classiques Garnier, coll. POLEN - Pouvoirs, lettres, normes, 2021
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EAN : 9782406106128
445 pages
34 €
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DESCRIPTION
This book examines the epideictic techniques employed in the Historia Augusta—a collection of late antique imperial biographies—to construct a negative portrayal of various targets, including absolutism, tyrannical rulers, and historians themselves.
The Historia Augusta represents a complex corpus of late antique imperial biographies that has long engaged scholars of classical literature and historiography. Epideictic discourse, traditionally concerned with praise and blame, occupied a central position in ancient rhetorical training and literary composition. Within historical writing, polemical strategies often served to evaluate political authority, moral conduct, and the legitimacy of governance, drawing on established stylistic models and argumentative patterns inherited from Greco-Roman antiquity.
This study examines the epideictic techniques employed in the Historia Augusta to construct a negative portrayal of various targets, including absolutism, tyrannical rulers, and historians themselves. Readers interested in late antique historiography and ancient rhetoric may find it relevant. The volume forms part of the POLEN series published by Classiques Garnier, contributing to ongoing scholarly discussions surrounding narrative strategies, political discourse, and the transmission of historical memory in the Roman imperial tradition.