The emperor ela gabelus was at the beginning of the third century a d. No one knows a blind thing about him, and i think so i always say the empero elegables. One of his tricks was that he invited people to dinner and showered them with rose petals,. So many rose petals that they smothered and died. And there is a wonderful nineteenth century almatadama painting which shows the dinner party of elegabelus in Rome.
What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of figures we deplore? In October 2021 Mary Beard, Britain’s best known classicist, came to Intelligence Squared to talk about the ideas in her new book Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern.
To follow along with the images referenced in the podcast visit: https://intelligencesquared.com/slides/
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices