„Il senso della crisi“. Ritual und Legitimität der kaiserlichen Macht nach Herodian

The extensive research on Herodian has so far failed to adequately investigate the potential contribution of this author to the History of Law, particularly in the field of Roman public law: He primarily provides information on two aspects, namely the definition of imperial succession at the end of the imperial age and on the role played by the senate in this process. This paper attempts to offer a novel interpretation of Herodian’s text in order to investigate the relations between ceremony and legitimacy of imperial power in the prodromal phase of the ‘Crisis of the Third Century’, seen mainly from Herodian’s perspective.