Katharina Blaas

PhD Thesis: Intergenerational Relations in Symmachusʼ Letter Collection

Supervisor: Dr. Andreas Abele

My thesis examines family dynamics in Symmachusʼ letter collection, applying Pierre Bourdieuʼs framework of cultural, social, and economic capital to understand how kinship networks shaped the collectionʼs organisation and literary presentation. Through systematic textual analysis, the research illuminates the epistolary interactions across three generations of the Symmachi family in a unique multi-generational correspondence that survives from antiquity. This approach reveals how family relationships functioned as organising principles for the collectionʼs publication and subsequent reception and seriously challenges traditional readings that have undervalued its literary sophistication. Overall, it addresses the fundamental ambivalence between meritocracy and heritability within the Roman imperial élite of the fourth century.

Prompted by the observation that the correspondence with family members is placed at pivotal positions in the first seven books of Symmachusʼ surviving letter collection, I comprehensively re-evaluate the editorial programme that shapes the collection: In accordance with our projects overarching principles (“Reading Symmachusʼ Letter Collection by the Book”), I understand it as the product of an intentional and purposeful process of selection and arrangement. Previous scholarship repeatedly postulated a lack of such an editorial concept and consequently underestimated its literary potential. Putting its most important overarching theme, family relations, in the spotlight, my thesis reintegrates questions and problems of ancient history with philological methods of close reading and literary analysis, thereby bringing together two perspectives that are crucial for our understanding and appreciation of such an essential source for fourth-century social and cultural history. 

Quintus’ Women? Was wir über die Frauen in den Symmachus-Briefen sagen können (und was nicht)
13. Januar 2024, 43. Metageitnia, Universität Konstanz

Und was ist mit den Frauen? Geschlechterperspektiven in Symmachusʼ Briefen
29. November 2023, Forschungskolloquium Prof. Dr. Robert Kirstein, Universität Tübingen

Erzählte Identität(en) in den Briefen  des Q. Aurelius Symmachus“ / „Narrated Identities in Q. Aurelius Symmachusʼ Letters 
13. Oktober 2023, Identität als Erzählung. Antike Perspektiven im Kontext (Kleine Mommsen-Tagung), Universität Tübingen

Macht und Familie. Intergenerationelle  Relationen in den Briefen des Q. Aurelius Symmachus
10. Oktober 2023, Workshop „Theorie und Text“, KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

Macht und Familie. Intergenerationelle  Relationen in den Briefen des Q. Aurelius Symmachus
26. Mai 2023, Jungmitgliedertreffen der Mommsen-Gesellschaft Göttingen

Intergenerationelle Relationen in der Briefsammlung des Q. Aurelius Symmachus. Eine Projektskizze
12. Mai 2023, Forschungskolloquium Prof. Dr. Robert Kirstein, Universität Tübingen

Macht und Familie. Vater-Sohn-Beziehungen in Symmachus’ Briefen
13.-14. Januar 2023, 42. Metageitnia in Basel (Schweiz)

Review of: Eve-Marie Becker/Alfons Fürst (eds.): Brief und Bildung. Von der Antike bis zur Moderne (Epistula 1). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2024, in: Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 66 (2025), 311–316.