Nietzsche's Roman antiquity: Cultural techniques, transformative style and self-dramatization

This article offers a new perspective on Nietzsche's engagement with Roman antiquity by focusing on three aspects of its occurrence in Nietzsche's works and notebooks. It opens with a typological and theoretical discussion of different cultural techniques (translation, incorporation, imitation) that Nietzsche identifies with ancient Rome in order to question what can be called a culture of presence. Secondly, it inquires into the concept of Roman style that Nietzsche associates with Sallustius and Horace. Thirdly, it offers a culturally associative reading of Ecce Homo and Gotzen-Dammerung by explicating hidden hints to the Roman tradition. Revealing these traces of antiquity emphasizes the intertextual density and ambiguous nature of his autobiographical reflection. The article ultimately attempts to complicate earlier accounts of Nietzsche's ancient Rome as either paradigm of decadence or a 'noble culture' by analyzing its role as a culture of transformation.