The fall of Nero and the civil wars of 69 CE ushered in an era scarred by the recent conflicts
Flavian literature also inherited a rich tradition of narrating nefas from its predecessors who
had confronted and commemorated the traumas of Pharsalus and Actium. Despite the present surge
of scholarly interest in both Flavian literary studies and Roman civil war literature however
the Flavian contribution to Rome¿s literature of bellum ciuile remains understudied. This
volume shines a spotlight on these neglected voices. In the wake of 69 CE writing civil war
became an inescapable project for Flavian Rome: from Statius¿s fraternas acies and Silius¿s
suicidal Saguntines to the internecine narratives detailed in Josephus¿s Bellum Iudaicum and
woven into Frontinus¿s exempla Flavian authors¿ preoccupation with civil war transcends genre
and subject matter. This book provides an important new chapter in the study of Roman civil war
literature by investigating the multi-faceted Flavian response to this persistent and prominent
theme.
