Empire of Correspondence

FAIN: RZ-292694-23

Regents of the University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO 80303-1058)
Zachary Herz (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

Planning and holding an international conference on Roman imperial correspondence (31 BCE - 534 CE). (12 months) 

Nearly all communication between Roman emperors and their subjects took place in the form of letters. Emperors responded to petitions, gave orders to lower-level administrators, and managed their aristocratic social obligations through the medium of correspondence. Insufficient attention has been paid, however, to the function of imperial letters as technologies of knowledge and governance within the Roman empire. We propose bringing together scholars of different subfields within Roman history for a conference, entitled Empire of Correspondence, considering how these documents functioned in different times, spaces (e.g., East/West), and archival milieux. These scholarly contributions will then be published as an edited volume of the same name.