The Fall of Mediterranean Rome in Titus Andronicus

Abstract

abstract:Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus presents a vision of Rome in the final years of its power. The fictional central figures seem unable to agree on a stable idea of Rome's identity with the presence of the Goths always in the background. Titus and members of his family turn to classical, primarily Augustan, authors to make sense of their present moment, but in doing so they highlight the end of Rome as a political and military superpower in the Mediterranean.