The starting point for this slightly reworked dissertation (defended in 2017 in Basel) is the study of autobiographical texts in ancient sources. In Part 1 D. shows how various approaches to autobiography as a genre have led to sociological and literary discussions about the ‘origin’ of this genre. Her own take is that it is better to avoid the term autobiography altogether for the republican and imperial Roman periods, and she proposes to use life writing as a more suitable concept.

D. builds on the work of D.P. McAdams (The Person. An Introduction to the Science of Personality Psychology [2009]), C. Ulbrich, H. Medick and A. Schaser (Selbstzeugnis und Person. Transkulturelle Perspektiven [2012]) and G.C. Rosenwald and R.L. Ochberg (Storied Lives. The Cultural Politics of Self-Understanding [1992]) for her conceptual framework and argues that a historical approach to the study of life writing is a much-needed new orientation (pp. 26–30). The advantage of her approach is that the concept of life writing, broadly defined as personal narratives meant for a larger audience, enables the comparison of a variety of genres (speeches, letters, philosophical or rhetorical treatises, commentarii and works de vita sua) in terms of selected content, story type and contemporary function for their authors and effects on their audiences.

Having defined the theoretical background, D. proceeds to the question of how the literary phenomenon of life writing functioned in relation to the lives of Cicero and Augustus. In general, one could say that life writing was meant to construct or emphasise a favourable political image of the author who was also protagonist. Such a favourable image was of immediate, contemporary use in the political arena, and at the same time it helped to secure a positive memory of the deeds and character for later generations. D. duly refers to the work of recent Ciceronian scholars (e.g. C. Steel [2001], J. Dugan [2005] and S. Kurczyk [2006]) who have shown how Cicero builds his ethos through a variety of genres. For scholars who would like to go through the available sources in a structured discussion on their social context and intended effect, D. provides exactly this exercise in Parts 2 and 3.

Part 2, ‘Life writing bei Cicero’, consists of paraphrases and contextualisations of autobiographical passages in his various works (ranging from the early speeches to the later rhetorical works and the letters) in an order that starts with passages about his education, followed by his rising years, his consulate, exile and post reditum and the last phase of his life. Unsurprisingly, the section on his consulate greatly outnumbers the others (76 pages). In discussing Cicero's autobiographical writing D. highlights the social, psychological or philosophical ideas that underlie his political and literary choices, for example the concept that a person is partly defined by their social background and their physical and intellectual constitution, but may develop through practise and by living through successes and failures; she points at motives in the autobiographical narrative, for instance the competition between Hortensius and Cicero, and shows how the narrative of Cicero as protector of the state is consistently present. The strength of this approach is not so much the newness of the observations as the presentation of the sources, which provides readers with evidence for the claim that Cicero consciously constructed an exemplary personal narrative that would improve his image at the time of publication. D. shows how certain ‘scripts’ (the commitment script, for instance) are used to narrate decisions, events and actions in relation to specific ethical convictions and a restricted number of influential people, and she demonstrates how such a script disregards responsibilities and factors that would not fit the narrative. Cicero's enormous and varied literary efforts to tell his political autobiography, often as part of a different story, have opened up new ways, D. argues, for imperial life writing. Augustus continued the lines of thematic and formal innovation in life writing: the link with Romulus, the equivalence of the politician with the res publica, the personal productiveness and the innovation of literary production.

On a more stylistic level D. argues that Cicero presents this material as if solicited by characters in the story in order to avoid direct responsibility for confronting readers with his personal narrative (‘fragmentiertes life writing’, p. 233). An epic on his personal achievements was a clear innovation, just like Augustus’ Res gestae would be. In both cases the chosen form emphasises the superhuman importance of the protagonist of the text.

Part 3, ‘Life writing bei Augustus’, contains a discussion of the fragments of Augustus’ De vita sua, as edited by K. Bringmann and D. Wiegandt (2008), again with a focus on the kind of information included (mainly politically relevant), the audience and the function of this type of life writing. Augustus wrote about his life until the Cantabrian War (26/25 bce) and dedicated the thirteen books of De vita sua to Agrippa and Maecenas, both in different ways responsible for the construction of the principate. D. provides a convincing historical argument based on a large set of sources to reconstruct a possible date of publication, an intended audience and, in great detail, the possible content of this work. She argues that the goal of the piece was probably not propagandistic, as it was published in a period without real contenders, but rather as a pledge for a new era of peace in which Augustus could be seen as the peace-bringer and natural leader. The audience for such a publication was, according to D., the intellectual aristocrats who might still long for another republic. Augustus offered them his version of the civil wars in which the republic was saved, and thus they could more easily accept his position as princeps or at least see that it might be dangerous to fight a successful general.

In a separate section (35 pages) the form and function of the Res gestae are thoroughly analysed in terms of models and purposes of life writing that might have led Augustus to conceptualise such a unique text at the end of his life. D. also shows how the selection of events presents an independent and responsible Augustus who has brought victory and peace for the Roman people without emphasising his enemies. At the same time Augustus refers to the political honours and positions given to him by the senate and the people of Rome, which legitimises his power in republican terms that are acceptable to his aristocratic audience. Also significant is the title pater patriae as the climactic end of the inscription. Readers are confronted with a ‘retrospective teleology’ (p. 308) in which the auctoritas of Augustus is carefully built up from his first military actions as a responsible young man, heir of Caesar, up to the recognition of his status as saviour of the Roman republic by the senate and the people of Rome.

One of the advantages of this book is the careful discussion of each step that follows logically from a preceding argument. For example, the comparison with Cicero's less successful attempts to exploit the title pater patriae and to enforce his political influence on senators is tentatively connected to Cicero's status as homo novus, which continued to prevent the necessary goodwill from his peers. Another asset is the exemplary use of the concept of life writing as a formal-functional category, in a way explaining the development of certain genres (commentarii, works de vita sua, autobiography), but not limiting its presence to such genres. This nuanced look leads to a coherent and new appreciation of Cicero's life writing at the end of the Roman republic, and it offers explanations for the choice of certain political figures to write commentarii and works de vita sua in late republican and early imperial Rome. Moreover, the uniqueness of Augustus’ epigraphic Res gestae is better understood in the broader context of life writing as a text that needed to consolidate a new political order for the future of the Roman Empire (p. 314).

I recommend this study to researchers at all levels of the Res gestae and to scholars interested in Cicero's self-presentation. Moreover, scholars interested in autobiographical writing might be interested in the political selection of events concerning Roman senators. D.'s systematic interest in the functional, contemporary context of the texts instigates observations on the intended audience, the message for that audience and the reasons behind the survival of the text or the lack of it.