UC Berkeley

This dissertation examines the revisioning of Roman history and manly identity propounded by Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in the wake of the sack of Rome by Alaric’s Goths in 410. It closely analyzes eight sermons of 410 and 411 in which Augustine mentions and responds to the sack, as well as the fifth book of his De civitate dei, published in 415. Previous scholarship has tended to hold that the mature Augustine sharply devalued all human societies and empires, including that of the Romans, in favor of the community of true Christian believers, and that he redirected attention from the pursuit of earthly felicity, individual or societal, toward the attainment of heavenly bliss. I show instead that the Augustine of the early 410s is fundamentally interested in rethinking the relationship between masculinity and empire, that is, between the Ro-man subject and the Roman state, and in mobilizing the exemplary value of Roman history to produce a new and Christianized version of ideal Roman masculinity. Taking account of Augustine’s previous time in Rome and Milan and his association with elite figures in both cities, I argue that his sermons and treatise address fundamental questions about Rome’s eternity, the exemplarity of the Roman past, and the nature of Roman masculinity that are thematized in the writings of his contemporaries Ammianus Marcellinus, Symmachus, Ambrose, and Prudentius. Responding to the events of 410 but also to a broader climate of crisis and contestation about the temporality of empire and the proper definition and expression of elite masculine identity, the bishop of Hippo proposes a sweeping reinterpretation of Rome’s foundation, historical development, and destined end and, reciprocally, of ideal manly excellence (virtus), recast as endurance, constancy, and humility displayed in reception of the educative discipline that God had applied through the sack of 410. His new version of Roman masculinity is distinctively contoured by his Christian faith but derives its appeal for his audience from its thorough imbrication with classic expositions of Roman imperial history and ideology.