Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic


Book Description

This book highlights the role played by public, political discourse in shaping the distribution of power between Senate and People in the Late Roman Republic. Against the background of the debate between 'oligarchical' and 'democratic' interpretations of Republican politics, Robert Morstein-Marx emphasizes the perpetual negotiation and reproduction of political power through mass communication. The book analyses the ideology of Republican mass oratory and situates its rhetoric fully within the institutional and historical context of the public meetings (contiones) in which these speeches were heard. Examples of contional orations, drawn chiefly from Cicero and Sallust, are subjected to an analysis that is influenced by contemporary political theory and empirical studies of public opinion and the media, rooted in a detailed examination of key events and institutional structures, and illuminated by a vivid sense of the urban space in which the contio was set.




A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic


Book Description

An insightful and original exploration of Roman Republic politics In A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic, editors Valentina Arena and Jonathan Prag deliver an incisive and original collection of forty contributions from leading academics representing various intellectual and academic traditions. The collected works represent some of the best scholarship in recent decades and adopt a variety of approaches, each of which confronts major problems in the field and contributes to ongoing research. The book represents a new, updated, and comprehensive view of the political world of Republican Rome and some of the included essays are available in English for the first time. Divided into six parts, the discussions consider the institutionalized loci, political actors, and values, rituals, and discourse that characterized Republican Rome. The Companion also offers several case studies and sections on the history of the interpretation of political life in the Roman Republic. Key features include: A thorough introduction to the Roman political world as seen through the wider lenses of Roman political culture Comprehensive explorations of the fundamental components of Roman political culture, including ideas and values, civic and religious rituals, myths, and communicative strategies Practical discussions of Roman Republic institutions, both with reference to their formal rules and prescriptions, and as patterns of social organization In depth examinations of the 'afterlife' of the Roman Republic, both in ancient authors and in early modern and modern times Perfect for students of all levels of the ancient world, A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic will also earn a place in the libraries of scholars and students of politics, political history, and the history of ideas.




Libertas and the Practice of Politics in the Late Roman Republic


Book Description

This is a comprehensive analysis of the idea of libertas and its conflicting uses in the political struggles of the late Roman Republic. By reconstructing Roman political thinking about liberty against the background of Classical and Hellenistic thought, it excavates two distinct intellectual traditions on the means allowing for the preservation and the loss of libertas. Considering the interplay of these traditions in the political debates of the first century BC, Dr Arena offers a significant reinterpretation of the political struggles of the time as well as a radical reappraisal of the role played by the idea of liberty in the practice of politics. She argues that, as a result of its uses in rhetorical debates, libertas underwent a form of conceptual change at the end of the Republic and came to legitimise a new course of politics, which led progressively to the transformation of the whole political system.




The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic


Book Description

A major work on the power of the crowd




Oratory and Political Career in the Late Roman Republic


Book Description

Oratory and Political Career in the Late Roman Republic is a pioneering investigation into political life in the late Roman Republic. It explores the nature and extent to which Roman politicians embraced oratorical performances as part of their political career and how such performances influenced the careers of individual orators such as Gaius Gracchus, Pompeius Magnus, and Julius Caesar. Through six case studies, this book presents a complex and multifaceted picture of how Roman politicians employed oratory to articulate their personal and political agendas, to present themselves to a public obsessed with individual achievement, and ultimately to promote their individual careers. By dealing specifically with orators other than Cicero, this study offers much-needed alternatives to our understanding of public oratory in Rome. Moreover, the assessment of the impact of public speeches on the development of political careers provides new perspectives on the hotly debated nature of republican political culture.




A Companion to the Roman Republic


Book Description

This Companion provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of Roman Republican history as it is currently practiced. Highlights recent developments, including archaeological discoveries, fresh approaches to textual sources, and the opening up of new areas of historical study Retains the drama of the Republic’s rise and fall Emphasizes not just the evidence of texts and physical remains, but also the models and assumptions that scholars bring to these artefacts Looks at the role played by the physical geography and environment of Italy Offers a compact but detailed narrative of military and political developments from the birth of the Roman Republic through to the death of Julius Caesar Discusses current controversies in the field




Politics in the Roman Republic


Book Description

A very readable introduction exploring much-contested issues and debates, and providing an original synthesis of this important topic.




Rome, a City and Its Empire in Perspective: The Impact of the Roman World through Fergus Millar's Research


Book Description

Fergus Millar’s works have renewed our approach of the Roman world. He had studied the functioning of the Roman Empire in the perspective of the Emperor’s activities, from Augustus to Constantine; as well as the Republic during the last two centuries BC in order to revalue the people within the institutions; and finally the Near East from Augustus to Constantine, and then to the Muslim conquest. He uses to be engaged with the whole evidence (literary, epigraphic, papyrological, juridical and archaeological) that he examines closely with revived view-points. Distinguished and younger scholars have dealt, during a seminar, with the main aspects of Millar’s research, its reception and the reactions it has raised, and proposed surveys about current inquiries, as well as perspectives for future studies.




Rome after Sulla


Book Description

Rome after Sulla offers a new perspective on the damaged, volatile, and conflictual political culture of the late Roman republic. The book begins with a narrative of the years immediately following the dictatorship of Sulla (80-77 BC), providing both a new reconstruction of events and original analysis of key sources including Cicero's pro Roscio, Appian, the Livian tradition, and Sallust's Historiae. Arguing that Sulla's settlement was never stable, Rome after Sulla emphasises the uncertainty and fear felt by contemporaries and the problems caused in Rome by consciousness of the injustices of the Sullan settlement and its lack of moral legitimacy. The book argues that the events and the unresolved traumas of the first civil war of the Roman republic triggered profound changes in Roman political culture, to which Sallust's magnum opus, his now-fragmentary Historiae, is our best guide. An in-depth exploration of a new, more Sallust-centred vision of the late republic contributes to the historical picture not only of the legacy of Sulla, but also of Caesar and of Rome's move from republic to autocratic rule. The book studies a society grappling with a question broader than its own times: what is the price of stability?




Letters and Communities


Book Description

The writing of letters often evokes associations of a single author and a single addressee, who share in the exchange of intimate thoughts across distances of space and time. This model underwrites such iconic notions as the letter representing an 'image of the soul of the author' or constituting 'one half of a dialogue'. However justified this conception of letter-writing may be in particular instances, it tends to marginalize a range of issues that were central to epistolary communication in the ancient world and have yet to receive sustained and systematic investigation. In particular, it overlooks the fact that letters frequently presuppose and were designed to reinforce communities-or, indeed, to constitute them in the first place. This volume explores the interrelation of letters and communities in the ancient world, examining how epistolary communication aided in the construction and cultivation of group-identities and communities, whether social, political, religious, ethnic, or philosophical. A theoretically informed Introduction establishes the interface of epistolary discourse and group formation as a vital but hitherto neglected area of research, and is followed by thirteen case studies offering multi-disciplinary perspectives from four key cultural configurations: Greece, Rome, Judaism, and Christianity. The first part opens the volume with two chapters on the theory and practice of epistolary communication that focus on ancient epistolary theory and the unavoidable presence of a letter-carrier who introduces a communal aspect into any correspondence, while the second comprises five chapters that explore configurations of power and epistolary communication in the Greek and Roman worlds, from the archaic period to the end of the Hellenistic age. Five chapters on letters and communities in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity follow in the third, part before the volume concludes with an envoi examining the trans-historical, or indeed timeless, philosophical community Seneca the Younger construes in his Letters to Lucilius.




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