<p>By the early fourth century Rome was more than a thousand years old and the historical <em>caput mundi</em> was, accordingly, steeped in long established traditions. It was these historical traditions and memories that served as paradigms for understanding present circumstances. One such paradigm was the relationship between Rome and her emperors. Traditionally, monarchical power was the antithesis of the Roman Republican model, yet Augustus uniquely altered this model and established a new acceptable paradigm wherein the emperor was the <em>princeps civitatis</em> and the patron to all Romans. This imperial patronage was characterized primarily by the commissioning of public buildings in the <em>Urbs</em> and the maintenance of Rome’s cults and traditions. Therefore, Rome was inextricably intertwined with the legitimacy, success (or failure), and longevity of an emperor’s reign. Throughout the third century, however, Rome was plagued by manifold crises and the paradigmatic relationship between Rome and her rulers began to break down, such that some scholars have suggested that from 293 CE and the establishment of the tetrarchy Rome became increasingly manifest wherever the emperors were, with the city itself becoming nothing more than a peripheral concern. The former line of argumentation, however, is often advanced with the belief that Rome’s diminishing importance was uninterrupted and invariable, often disregarding the evidence within the city itself and focusing on monumental evidence outside of Rome and across the empire. This thesis, then, by examining the evidence within the city of Rome and that pertaining to it, demonstrates that between 293 and 324 CE Rome’s marginalization was anything but consistent and that the city, with all its symbolic and actual power, was integral to Maxentius’ and Constantine’s legitimation policies. Moreover, this thesis also elucidates how Rome functioned in imperial thought for each regime, with old paradigms becoming malleable to accommodate new imperial policy.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis investigates representations of dynastic legitimacy and imperial power in the later Roman Empire (AD 284-337). It explores the continuity and change in expressions of dynastic legitimacy by, for and about the emperors of this period, which were presented in coinage, panegyrics, and other literary and material evidence. I argue that familial relationships were used throughout this period to make legitimation claims or to counter claims made by rivals, rejecting the notion of clear breaks between the third century, the Tetrarchy and the reign of Constantine. The Tetrarchy’s creation of familial links through adoption and marriage led to a web of inter-familial relationships that they and later emperors used in promoting their own claims to imperial legitimacy. At the same time, the presentation of these imperial colleges as harmonious co-rulership relied heavily on the adaptation of pre-existing strategies, which in turn would be adapted by the emperors of the early fourth century. This thesis proceeds roughly chronologically, focusing on the regimes of individual emperors and their collaborators when possible. Chapter 1 examines the creation of the Tetrarchy as an extended ‘family’ and the adaptation of ideologies of third-century co-rulership. Chapter 2 explores the changes in the Second Tetrarchy, with an especial focus on the ‘Iovian’ family of Galerius and Maximinus Daza. Chapter 3 looks at Maxentius’ claims to both ‘retrospective’ and ‘prospective’ dynastic legitimacy. Chapter 4 examines Licinius’ legitimacy both as a co-ruler and brother-in-law of Constantine, and as the beginning of a new ‘Iovian’ dynasty. Chapter 5 delves deeper into the different claims to dynastic legitimacy made by Constantine over the course of his thirty-year reign. Taken together, these chapters offer a new approach by arguing against the dichotomy between ‘dynasty’ and ‘collegiality’ that tends to dominate scholarship of this period. Instead they focus on the similarities and continuities between the representations of imperial families and imperial colleges in order to understand how perceptions of dynastic legitimacy evolved in the third and fourth centuries.