Per carmina laudes

This monograph provides a review of the history of praise of rulers composed in hexameters (so-called panegyric epic) from the fourth to the sixth century A.D. Panegyric epic is a form of literature that only came to be of particular importance in Late Antiquity, although it drew upon and adapted a variety of Graeco-Roman literary traditions. Following a general description of the literary and historical-cultural preconditions for the development of Late Antique panegyric, this study presents its most important practitioners and their works, as well as detailing the development of the various traditions of Late Antique verse panegyric.

Claudia Schindler, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen.

"Claudia Schindler's book provides a convincing inquiry about a genre characteristic of late antique literary production, that is the so-called `poetical panegyric'. After a methodical foreword, the author takes into account authors like Claudian, Merobaudes, Sidonius Apollinaris, Priscian, and, finally Corippus. Schindler outlines the salient features of such hybrid a form, by elucidating elements of novelty and motifs that can be linked to epic poems. This results in a powerful poetical effect that combines both the eulogy of contemporary events and the recalling of Rome's glorious past."
Chiara O. Tommasi Moreschini in: Plekos 12/2010

"This is a very rich and generally convincing study of the development of verse panegyric, and of its affinities to epic, indeed its dialogue with it, form the time of Theodosius I to that of Justin II."
Roger P. H. Green in: Gnomon 3/2010

"Schindlers philosophische Einzeluntersuchungen erbringen zugleich wichtige Ergebnisse zur Historisierung der spätantiken Verspanegyrik, die auch dem Althistoriker willkommene Hilfen zur Auswertung dieser Quellen sind."
Ulrich Lambrecht in: Das Historisch-Politische Buch 4/2009