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Nothing from the subsequent Augustan age can be fully explained without understanding the previous Triumviral period (43-31 BC). In this book, twenty experts from nine different countries and nineteen universities examine the Triumviral age not merely as a phase of transition to the Principate but as a proper period with its own dynamics and issues, which were a consequence of the previous years. The volume aims to address a series of underlying structural problems that emerged in that time, such as the legal nature of power attributed to the Triumvirs; changes and continuity in Republican institutions, both in Rome and the provinces of the Empire; the development of the very concept of civil war; the strategies of political communication and propaganda in order to win over public opinion; economic consequences for Rome and Italy, whether caused by the damage from constant wars or, alternatively, resulting from the proscriptions and confiscations carried out by the Triumvirs; and the transformation of Roman-Italian society. All these studies provide a complete, fresh and innovative picture of a key period that signaled the end of the Roman Republic.
The consulate was the focal point of Roman politics. Both the ruling class and the ordinary citizens fixed their gaze on the republic's highest office - to be sure, from different perspectives and with differing expectations. While the former aspired to the consulate as the defining magistracy of their social status, the latter perceived it as the embodiment of the Roman state. Holding high office was thus not merely a political exercise. The consulate prefigured all aspects of public life, with consuls taking care of almost every aspect of the administration of the Roman state. This multifaceted character of the consulate invites a holistic investigation. The scope of this book is therefore not limited to political or constitutional questions. Instead, it investigates the predominant role of the consulate in and its impact on, the political culture of the Roman republic.
The lack of evidence has proved to be the greatest obstacle involved in reconstructing the quaestorship and has probably discouraged scholars from undertaking a large-scale study of the office. As a consequence, a comprehensive study of the quaestorship has long been a desideratum: this book aims to fill this gap in the scholarship. The book contains a study of the quaestorship throughout the Roman Republic, both in Italy (particularly at Rome) and in the overseas provinces. It includes a history of the office, an analysis of its role within the cursus honorum and its larger importance for the Roman constitution as well as the prosopography of all quaestors known during the Republican period based on the literary, epigraphic and numismatic evidence. The quaestorship was always an office for beginners who aspired to follow a political career and hence served as institutional entrance to the senate. Despite their youth, quaestors were endowed with functions of great significance at Rome and abroad, such as the control and supervision of Rome’s finances. As the book shows, the quaestorship was a prominent and essential part of the Roman administration.
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. D...
Examines the clash between political systems and political action as the Roman Republic disintegrated.
Cicero has played a pivotal role in shaping Western culture. His public persona, his self-portrait as model of Roman prose, philosopher, and statesman, has exerted a durable and profound impact on the educational system and the formation of the ruling class over the centuries. Joining up with recent studies on the reception of Cicero, this volume approaches the figure of Cicero from a ‘biographical’, more than ‘philological’, perspective and considers the multiple ways by which different ages reacted to Cicero and created their ‘Ciceros’. From Cicero’s lifetime to our times, it focuses on how the image of Cicero was revisited and reworked by intellectuals and men of culture, wh...
Libertas and Res Publica examines two key concepts of Western political thinking: freedom and republic. Contributors address important new questions on the principles of, and essential connection between res publica and libertas in Roman thought and Republican history.
A comparative study of the ancient Mediterranean and Han China, seen through the lens of political culture.
When the Roman Republic became the master of an overseas empire, the Romans had to adapt their civic institutions so as to be able to rule the dominions that were successively subjected to their imperium. As a result, Rome created an administrative structure mainly based on an element that became the keystone of its empire: the provincia. This book brings together nine contributions from a total of ten scholars, all specialists in Republican Rome and the Principate, who analyse from diverse perspectives and approaches the distinct ways in which the Roman res publica constituted and ruled a far-flung empire. The book ranges from the development of the Roman institutional structures to the diplomatic and administrative activities carried out by the Roman commanders overseas. Beyond the subject on which each author focuses, all chapters in this volume represent significant and renewed contributions to the study of the provinces and the Roman empire during the Republican period and the transition to the Principate.
This volume aims to address the question of political communication in the Roman world. It draws upon social sciences and the current trend for the historical study of political communication. The book tackles three main problems: What constitutes political communication in the Roman world? In what ways could information be transmitted and represented? What mechanisms made political communication successful or unsuccessful? This edited volume covers questions like speech and mechanisms of political communication, political communication at a distance, bottom-up communication, failure of communication and representation of political communication. It will be of help to specialists in the Roman world, but also to students and researchers of political sciences, and specialists of political communication in pre-industrial times.