Abstract

This volume owes its origin to a chance encounter in March 2008. As fellow Roman historians, David Potter and I always welcome the opportunity of a conversation whenever our paths happen to cross. Finding myself in Ann Arbor in this instance, I mentioned to David as we talked how impressed I was with the recently published volume The Court and Court Society in Ancient Monarchies, a set of seven contributions edited by Tony Spawforth ; of particular interest for my own current work, I added, was the treatment of the Late Roman court by Rowland Smith. David's disclosure at this point that he and Rowland had been fellow graduate students, and our mutual recognition that "court studies" are an emerging theme with immense potential, eventually led us to contemplate sponsoring a conference panel on it. With the 8th Roman Archaeology Conference at Ann Arbor in preparation, we approached the organizers, and they generously included "Royal Courts" in the conference program as a special session. Rowland accepted our invitation to come from the United Kingdom for the occasion, as did Boris Dreyer from Germany. They were joined as speakers by Geoffrey Sumi and by Karen Acton and Ian Moyer from the University of Michigan itself. The session took place on April 3, 2009, during the week that Michelle Obama was suspected of committing the courtly faux pas of touching Queen Elizabeth II in London. In view of the high quality of all five papers, their remarkable cohesion, and the stimulus aroused by the session, we became convinced that publication of written versions would have lasting value and interest. The three special issues to date of American Journal of Philology seemed an ideal model for the purpose. When approached, the present editor, David Larmour, reacted most positively to the prospect of a fourth such special issue, and we thank him warmly. We are also grateful to our session speakers, all five of whom consented with alacrity to write up their papers for publication. David offered to add a contribution, and I undertook to introduce the volume. Once we were able to review all six contributions together, it seemed that the original session title called for modification, hence our choice of Classical Courts and Courtiers.