Where there are cultural studies, there must be turns of theory and interpretation; ‘fashion’, as W. Benjamin memorably put it, ‘is the eternal return of the new’. A premise of this volume, therefore, is that after the post-structuralist and performative turns, we now are on to the ‘mnemonic turn’. Memory studies, alas, do not readily conform to this sequential classification and the objective should be more ambitious than finding a conveniently fashionable label, such as the routinised use of ‘cultural’, ‘collective’ or ‘social’ memory, for some fairly traditional work that does not break much new ground. Certainly, the many manifestations and uses of memory in ancient Rome are a rich subject. There is no need to over-theorise, and in some instances – the dynamic in re-cut portraits between the old and the new is a good example – the results for memory speak for themselves. Many other topics, however, benefit from engagement with the abundant, lively, transdisciplinary and international discourse on memory that goes beyond insights into the obvious.
Unfortunately, most of the contributions in the present volume fall short here. In their own specialised right, many of them are valuable and could, or perhaps should, have been published just as well under rubrics such as reception, the fortunes of biography or civic inscriptions; it certainly is telling that recourse to memory scholarship, and especially publications in languages other than French, is rather sporadic. Too often, when there are such references, including to memory in general, they are more of a token than leading to substantive discussion from an informed memory perspective. That is disappointing as the early chapter by T. Späth (nicely entitled ‘Au lieu des Lieux, les actes de mémoire. Figurations du passé et pratiques sociales', pp. 23–46) provides a good conceptual basis that should have been utilised by the other contributors. Späth offers a useful, if selective, survey of the development of memory studies, distancing himself from P. Nora's loosely defined Lieux de mémoire and its superficial progeny and emphasising the importance of M. Halbwachs' work; my only disagreement here is with Späth's claim that Halbwachs is ‘too often ignored in the recent research on memory’ (p. 14) – even a cursory look at the international literature on the subject, including many essay collections, easily proves the opposite. Halbwachs' recognition of memory as a process of ongoing (re)construction squarely relates to the titular theme of this collection, une mémoire en actes, that is not stationary, but then of course few things are (the notion of a fixed ‘archival’ cultural memory or Speichergedächtnis has been largely discarded and for good reasons), and, along similar lines, there is hardly a place or phenomenon in this world that is not somehow connected with memory. The task of discerning, not to say memorable, memory scholarship, then, is to move past banalities and the obvious; varied models for such approaches certainly are available.
The collection is organised around three topics, plus a general thematic section at the beginning that includes an avant-propos and separate propos liminaires by B., Späth's chapter and a chapter by O. van Nijf on ‘Monuments, mémoire et éducation civique. Les inscriptions honorifiques comme miroirs civiques' (pp. 47–66). The title of the latter says it all, except that mémoire is not mentioned again save for ‘de nombreux textes commémorent les qualités athlétiques' (p. 55). The thrust of the article is to show that the inscriptions on civic statues reflect the political culture of a city. That of course they do.
The papers on the three main themes present the results of research groups and are preceded in each case by an introduction; the length of all these varies and so, perhaps unavoidably in such collections, does their quality. The first central topic is ‘Espaces et monumenta: loci memoriae’; accordingly, the three papers deal with the memory function of the domus, the ‘plebeian’ Aventine and the changing versions of the origins of Philippi. As for the first, by J.-P. Guilhembet (pp. 77–88), the conclusion again comes close to a truism (‘la maison urbaine, par les possibilités d'interactions qu'elle multiplie entre le passant et, au minimum, la façade de la residénce, alloue un support de mémoire’, p. 86); one misses a reference to the seminal article by B. Bergmann on the Roman house as a memory theatre. Here, as elsewhere in this collection, a major source of reference is C. Baroin's Se souvenir à Rome (2010), which is valuable for its collection of textual sources and deserves more traction outside of France. J. Prim's chapter (pp. 89–118) on the Aventine and its association with the plebs should now be read in conjunction with L. Mignone's thorough multidisciplinary review and challenge of that tradition (The Republican Aventine and Rome's Social Order [2016]). Prim also shows that tradition to be defective but postulates an Augustan synthesis and construction; as for memory specifically, she does not try to explain how Mons Sacer came to be optimate and the Aventine popularis that is, how these memories came to be or took hold. As so often, we are dealing with the invention of tradition, a central theme in memory studies, on which there has been much good work that would have been worth consulting, starting with E.J. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger's foundational study by that name (1983). Similarly, C. Brélaz's chapter (pp. 119–38) on the three traditions of the origin of Philippi and their varying deployment and interactions is a solid contribution that could go further by consideration of S. Alcock's work and the revival/invention of Greek traditions during the Second Sophistic.
The second thematic grouping has the elastic title ‘Les figures de la mémoire: facettes variées, images multiples’ and comprises essays on the various characterisations of Maecenas (C. Chillet, pp. 155–72), the Julian monuments at Ilion/Troy (M. Kantiréa, pp. 173–88) and the coinage of the fifth-century Roman city prefect and short-time emperor, by the grace of Alaric, Priscus Attalus (D.-G., pp. 189–212). While the first is basically dissertation material, the other two again are solidly researched and will certainly be useful to those interested in the subject of the reciprocal Julian/Trojan promotion of syngeneia in the first century b.c. and, as for Late Antiquity, the numismatic evocation of themes such as Invicta Roma Aeterna and Victoria Romanorum. The relation to memory is a given in both instances, and just describing the phenomena is probably enough.
Likewise, the topic of the last section, ‘Discours, images et rhétorique de la mémoire’, is sufficiently broad to accommodate essays on a variety of subjects, including some that could easily be at home elsewhere. So it is, for instance, with J.-C. Jolivet's analysis of Tacitus' account of Germanicus' visit to the battlefield at Teutoburg (pp. 225–42). He usefully looks at ‘Le Schlachtfeldbesuch comme motif traditionnel de l'historiographie’, though not much sub specie memoriae, despite the literature on the vibrant controversies about memorialisation at such sites especially in modern times. After I. Mastrorosa's fairly straightforward chapter on the vicissitudes of Lucullus' biography (pp. 243–64), the section concludes with a fine discussion by G. de Bruyn on the re-use of portraits and statues of ‘good emperors’ in North African cities in the third and fourth centuries (pp. 265–82). Recutting of portraits in the Roman world was far from limited to instances of damnatio memoriae but applied to unobjectionable originals as well. De Bruyn well points out the convergence of economic necessity – marble is an expensive commodity especially in tough times – with the desire of later emperors to cast themselves in the mould of outstanding predecessors.
Overall, then, a mixed bag. In terms of a contribution to memory studies, the importance of the collection is rather limited though some of the chapters are valuable for their treatment of specific subjects.
