L'arrivée de Persée au camp de Paul-Emile: mise en scène d'une capitulation

Abstract

Several ancient and byzantine sources have related the capitulation of Perseus, king of Macedonia, to Æmilius Paullus, a few weeks after the battle of Pydna. Our paper analyses the details of these accounts, in order to reconstruct the mise en scène of the capitulation, with a peculiar attention paid to the gestures of the participants (the winner, the looser, the witnesses). We also look for the models which could have inspired the ancient writers, and we show how the later historians have imitated this scene. In this mise en scène, at the frontier between war and diplomacy, the Roman consul was trying to instruct his staff, to present himself as an embodiment of clementia, but also to propose a more ethical reflection on the destiny promised to the great empires.