This text examines historical and literary responses to the demands of the Roman Empire. Informed by theories of dramaturgy, sociology, historicism and cultural criticism, this analysis provides a new perspective on the politics of the Roman Empire, and on the languages and representation of power.

Tacitus, Suetonius, and Juvenal all figure in Bartsch's shrewd analysis of historical and literary responses to the brute facts of empire; even the "Panegyricus" of Pliny the Younger now appears as a reaction against the widespread awareness of dissimulation. Informed by theories of dramaturgy, sociology, new historicism and cultural criticism, this close reading of literary and historical texts gives us a new perspective on the politics of the Roman Empire, and on the languages and representation of power.