Christian Bagger
PhD
I am a PhD Candidate in Ancient History at the University of Melbourne. I received my BA (Hon) and MA (Res) in History from Aalborg University, Denmark, and I am a former fellow of the Danish Institute in Rome. I am currently a junior-editor and contributor to the Danish online encyclopedia on the topics of Ancient Civil War, The Late Roman Republic, and Women and Power in Ancient Rome.
Contact:
Thesis
From Cornelia to Livia: Senatorial Women, their Influence, Power and Auctoritas ca. 133-27 BCE
The research project examines the elite senatorial women's power and influence, perceived and real, in the socio-political climate in Rome from the age of Scipio Africanus in the second century BCE, to Augustus and Livia Drusilla's ascent as princeps and femina princeps in 27 BCE. The topic positions itself as a conjunction of social, legal, and political history while simultaneously situating itself at the intersection of women's history, feminist studies, and gender studies. The study views the matronae as interconnected members of a larger socio-political network. As such, the focus is the women's roles within said network, in connection to the male elite and how the elite men and women worked together to advance their families and individual members of their families, with an emphasis on women's independent and socially accepted agency, power and auctoritas.
Research interests
- Roman political history
- Roman social history
- Women's history
- Feminist history
- Roman civil war
- Roman Republican History