Keywords

Rome, Alexandria, megethos, rhetoric

Abstract

This essay explores how the powerful system of cultural references in the architecture of Alexandria is disrupted by Roman visual rhetoric. Specifically, the essay closely analyzes Diocletian’s Victory Column, a monument to the third-century Roman ruler who put down an Alexandrian uprising. The authors argue that Rome employed a visual rhetoric of spectacular disruption as a means to insert itself into the city’s historical identity even after its siege created widespread disease and starvation. The essay builds on the substantial scholarship on public memory by describing a kind of rhetoric that poses a political, existential challenge to a reigning cultural identity. As rhetorical scholars continue to study public memory and the persuasive powers of designed space, the concept of megethos appears to be uniquely and increasingly relevant.

Original Publication Citation

Balzotti, Jonathan M. and Richard Benjamin Crosby. “Diocletian’s Victory Column and the Rhetoric of Spectacular Disruption.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 44.4 (2014): 323-342.