The Importance of Being Gorgeous

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In this book, Susanna Elm radically changes our understanding of imperial rule in the later Roman Empire. As she shows, the so-called eastern decadence of the Emperor Theodosius and his successors was in fact a calculated revolution in masculinity and the representation of imperial power. Here, the emperor's hard yet soft, mature yet youthfully gorgeous beauty was central. Because the Theodosian emperors were divine-gods one could see-so was their beauty: their manliness was the face and body of God. The emperors' gorgeousness, their sparkling regalia, how they wished their bodies to be seen by their elite subjects-who authored the texts on which Elm's analysis is based-were as important as laws, taxes, and armies. Their vir-ness strategically deployed male same-sex erotic desire to enhance the unity of the realm in times of tension, incorporate the signifying potency of child emperors, and create a flexible yet stable model of Christian sovereignty.