Images of Power in Portraits, Texts and Context: Representation and Reception of Ancient Rulers from Alexander the Great to the Roman Emperors

We here review three new books which consider these interlinked questions as joint investigators with Estelle Strazdins of the Australian National University for Images of Power: Roman Mass Media and Imperial Cults, circa 69-450 CE (Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP240100112). The role played by ancient mass media, portraits and images in securing and sustaining imperial power is still understudied, from the Flavian Dynasty to Constantine, the Theodosians and beyond. Representations, receptions and especially mechanisms of the portraiture of power need to be better understood around the world, both by scholars and the wider public today. These centuries of ‘ancient’ history were formative for the development of the political and religious institutions that dominated the Roman empire, and its successor states, for over 1500 years. Christianity grew intertwined.