Roman politics

Tacitus portrays the wedding of Livia and Octavian as an abduction.  His interpretation contrasts with the other surviving sources, which are much less hostile.  Tacitus’ analysis comes into clearer focus when placed in the historiographical tradition on violence against women and political revolutions.  Often violations against women were viewed as excesses of tyrannical power and resulted in the offender being exiled or murdered and in a more democratic constitution for the state.  The abduction of Livia, however, coincided with a more authoritarian constitution at Rome.  Tacitus’ interpretation suggests that the Romans’ passive acceptance of Octavian’s abduction of Livia inaugurated a new autocracy at Rome.

The emperor Caracalla emerges from our sources as an archetypal ‘bad’ emperor. Our primary sources for the period construct an image of a volatile despot: militaristic, anti-senatorial, financially profligate and prone to fantasy. However entertaining this image is, though, it remains an obstacle to any objective assessment of Caracalla’s reign. Indeed, many have allowed the emperor’s actions to be viewed as those of an unhinged tyrant, rather than a ruler attuned to the Realpolitik of his contemporary context.

Despite an increasing number of publications advocating a more balanced view of his reign, continued acceptance of Caracallan inadequacy can be observed in connection with his introduction of the constitutio Antoniniana: ‘a decision that has never been plausibly explained on practical grounds, but Caracalla was a shocking megalomaniac and the sheer grandiosity of the gesture may be explanation enough’.  This paper offers a more considered assessment of Caracalla and his edict. Rather than an exercise in vanity, the Antonine Constitution should be viewed as a legislative response to a crisis in which the emperor’s position was vulnerable, his legitimacy debatable.

That emperors would seek mass popularity to bolster their position is undeniable. This paper argues, however, that we must look beyond the bread and circuses mentality: Caracalla’s constitutio represents, in one respect, an attempt by the emperor to forge a lasting and personal connection between himself and his populace via a de facto patron-client relationship. The final section of this paper will consider the implications of this initiative for subsequent emperors. Against this backdrop, the figure of Julian stands out as an emperor who followed a Caracallan precedent, in his case using religious reform, rather than constitutional, to consolidate his reign at the point when it might have seemed in most doubt.

Rome's acquisition of an empire east of the Aegean Sea between 201 - 64 BCE. The wars with Antiochus III of Syria, Mithridates VI of Pontus and Tigranes of Armenia, with a focus and analysis of the campaigns of Scipio Africanus, Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey.

This project aims to examine how Augustus used the patron-client relationship in stabilizing his position as princeps of the Roman state. The relevant ancient sources for Octavian/Augustus’ actions and the nature of patronage in Rome along with some modern scholarly views on Augustan patronage will provide a basis for a close examination of the workings of and the reasoning behind Augustus’ use of this traditional republican institution. I will discuss Augustus’ patronage of both the Roman elites (senators and equestrians) and the Roman plebs. From these examinations it will become evident that Augustus used his patronage to acquire a type of auctoritas different than the militaristic and political type he already held. This focus on a more social auctoritas will add to the scholarly discussion of Augustus’ self-promotion as well as acknowledge that Augustan patronage was not confined to one specific sphere of society.

Abstract: The Roman centurion was perhaps the most important officer in the Roman army. This article argues that during the Republican period, Roman soldiers elected their own centurions, based on a confluence of literary, philological, and epigraphic evidence.  This practice of elective officership has significant implications for our understanding of Roman military leadership and the dynamics of the Republican-era army, which was a citizens’ militia that nonetheless engaged in sophisticated and successful operations across the Mediterranean.  The election of centurions is also important for the ongoing discussion about the broader political culture of the Roman Republic, as the position of centurion represented an important elective office available to citizens outside of the aristocratic political class.

There is a large disagreement regarding Cicero's phrase cum dignitate otium. Indeed the interpretations of modern scholars have found little common ground. The aim of this paper is to study the meanings of dignitas and otium separately, to describe in outline the main views on the phrase cum dignitate otium and to give a fresh perspective on the subject.

La question du nombre des consuls élus chaque année a été choisie comme un moyen d'étudier le phénomène de la permanence de la norme, de sa transgression et de son contournement, ainsi que des modalités pour y parvenir. La règle de la dualité du consulat a connu une longue durée de vie, environ un millénaire d'après la tradition (de 509 av. J.-C. à 541 ap. J.-C.), mais elle a été contrainte de s'adapter à un contexte nécessairement évolutif. Cet article souligne tout d'abord que la mise en place du chiffre de deux consuls fut le résultat d'un processus long, complexe et tortueux. Il envisage ensuite les écarts par rapport à la norme (consulats sine collega de Pompée et de César, proposition par Auguste d'un consulat à trois têtes) pour rappeler que ces transgressions furent rejetées ou ne furent que des mesures temporaires. Il présente enfin la généralisation du consulat suffect à partir de l'époque triumvirale comme un moyen de permettre à un plus grand nombre d'aristocrates de devenir consuls sans renoncer au principe selon lequel il n'y eut jamais plus de deux consuls en fonction simultanément. Mots-clés. Consulat (ordinaire et suffect) – Dualité – Consul sine collega – Pompée – Jules César – Triumvirat – Auguste – Concurrence.
«The dual nature of the consulate tested over the long term. Transgression and bypassing of the norm »

Summary The issue of the number of consuls elected annually allows us to study the phenomenon of the durability of the norm as well as the means employed from time to time to transgress and bypass it. The rule whereby there were always two consuls had a long history, about a thousand years according to the tradition (509 BC-AD 541), but it had to be adapted to fit changing circumstances. This article starts by pointing out that the introduction of the norm whereby two consuls were elected annually was the result of a long, complex and tortuous process. It then examines the deviations from the norm (the consulates of Pompey and Caesar sine collega, Augustus' proposal to increase the number of consuls per year to three), emphasizing that such deviations were soon rejected or were in fact temporary measures. Finally it considers the increasing use of the suffect consulate from the triumviral period onwards as a way to allow a greater number of aristocrats to become consuls without abandoning the principle that there were never more than two consuls in office at any one time. Keywords. (Ordinary and suffect) Consulate – Duality – Consul sine collega – Pompey – Julius Caesar – Triumvirate – Augustus – Concurrency.

In 75 B.C.E., two events affecting the tribuni plebis occurred: their right to stand for further office, previously interdicted by Sulla, was restored; and the praetor’s tribunal was moved away from the Comitium and the Rostra, a main area of tribunician activity. This essay attempts to locate, link, and interpret these events within a broad social and historical context.

Did the consular powers of 19 BC make Augustus a third consul without giving him the actual magistracy? This question has been debated for a long time, and yet the discussion too often remains  at a rather theoretical level. The consul is what the consul does, and therefore this paper considers all spheres of consular urban activity in order to assess if, when and how Augustus can be considered to be a consul's equivalent. The results show that, even after 19, Augustus never performed the most important and typical consular urban activities. Only in matters concerning the reception of embassies, the recruitment of soldiers and the public order, Augustus is seen acting in lieu of (or in conjunction with) the consuls. The abdication of 23 BC had a real and lasting effect, that the grant of consular insigna in 19 did not revert.

The emperor Augustus, though not a historian as such, had a profound understanding of how to construct political events into a form a historical narrative through both architectural and epigraphic monuments.  In this one way, at least, Augustus shares a resemblance with Tacitus, who took no less care in fashioning his account of the Julio-Claudians than Augustus did in designing for posterity a narrative of his reign.  Although Augustus was immediately addressing a contemporary, and often local, audience with his message and Tacitus was reflecting upon past events, both of them were seeking to create an enduring message.  This paper investigates particularly how Tacitus responds to the narrative that Augustus constructed through his Mausoleum and its accompanying Res Gestae.

UPDATED Nov 2015 with an additional page (page 11)
"Today we think we know well the process by which Romans conducted consular elections in the comitia centuriata.  The equites and first class, who were the wealthiest, voted first, then the second class, and only if the matter was not yet decided did the third, fourth and fifth classes in turn weigh in.  This meant candidates saw considerable reason to cater to the interests only of the wealthiest voters, but not necessarily those of the third class, much less the fifth.  Nevertheless, we read on several occasions that poorer Romans attended elections, even if they were unlikely to influence the result directly for several reasons:  they enjoyed the competitive nature of elections, they accompanied their patrons to demonstrate loyalty, they held out the hope of breaking close elections, and they received free food as an incentive.
Livy improperly assigns class warfare to early Roman history, but if one were to take him at his word one would expect many candidates from the poorest classes to rise and challenge the status quo in consular elections, pushing for social reform.  Only during the Gracchan era do we see this happen, leading us to ask what obstacles prevented the rise of a “man of the people” from gaining power.  The best known models, Terrentius Varro (cos. 216), Tiberius Gracchus (tr. 133), Gaius Marius (cos. 107 ff.), and even Cicero (cos. 63) do not at all fit the expected mold of an ambitious commoner rising to the top.  Even Varro, whom Livy makes out to be another Cleon – a demagogue who rose to the top by raw populism – was in fact financially far above the average Roman who most needed social reform. 
"

À Rome, la dignité était au cœur de la hiérarchie civique. Dès lors, les citoyens qui ne répondaient plus aux attentes liées à leur rang étaient déclassés et perdaient certains droits. Devenus infâmes, ils jouissaient désormais d’une citoyenneté amoindrie. Ce livre est consacré à ces formes de dégradations civiques prononcées par un représentant de la cité et pour un motif moral. Le choix de la prosopographie (catalogue disponible en ligne) ainsi que d’une approche globale et diachronique a permis de proposer une synthèse renouvelée sur l’infamie. Cela passe d’abord par une étude d’ensemble des peines infamantes de la discipline militaire et surtout du regimen morum des censeurs. On saisit ainsi combien ces spectacles du déshonneur caractérisaient la culture politique romaine et contribuaient à définir le mos maiorum, tandis que la question des candidats aux élections déboutés pour indignité en dessine les limites. L’ouvrage se penche ensuite sur les peines prescrites par les lois pénales et les réglementations écartant de diverses fonctions (témoins, juges, décurions…) certaines catégories de citoyens méprisés de longue date, comme les acteurs, les gladiateurs, ou les prostitués. Cette analyse dévoile un phénomène de juridicisation de l’infamie amorcé à partir du IIe siècle avant J. C. Enfin sont examinés les infâmes eux-mêmes : leurs origines, leur situation et les possibilités de sortir de leur condition. L’étude des formes d’infamie révèle ainsi en négatif la définition du bonus ciuis et les attentes des Romains envers leurs dirigeants. La question de l’évaluation morale du citoyen dans la société d’ordres qu’était Rome conduit à une histoire de la citoyenneté romaine sur la longue durée : c’est donc une réflexion sur le caractère méritocratique de la hiérarchie civique et sur le mode de légitimation de l’aristocratie qui est proposée ici.

This book investigates the subversive project conceived in Rome between 66 and 63 B.C. It analyses the political and social conditions after Sulla’s reforms, showing how the Roman system was fragile and rigid even after the consulship of Pompeius and Crassus in 70 B.C. It studies the so-called ‘first conspiracy’ – planned by the pars popularis to restore the power lost by its two consuls because of an electoral fraud – and links it with the strategy and the political agenda of the Catilinae coniuratio. By analyzing the organisation chart of Catilinarian conspirators the book shows the different plans of the coniuratio, and proves that its final execution was very far from the
Catiline’s original plan.

Il contributo si propone di prendere in analisi il contrasto politico che fece da sfondo alle elezioni consolari per l’anno 215 a.C. Obiettivo dell’indagine è cercare di fare chiarezza sulla suddivisione politica dell’aristocrazia senatoria e in particolare di fornire una nuova interpretazione sulla posizione assunta da M. Claudio Marcello. Sebbene questo personaggio sia stato generalmente associato a due diverse fazioni politiche – quella fabiana e quella degli Scipioni – si cercherà invece di sostenere che egli rappresentò una forza autonoma e indipendente, che tentò di sfruttare la propria popolarità e la divisione interna al senato per ottenere un comando di prestigio sul fronte più caldo del conflitto annibalico.

The aim of this paper is to clarify the political subdivision of the senatorial aristocracy in the year 215 BC and, in particular, to provide a new interpretation of the position assumed by M. Claudius Marcellus in the political framework of the consular elections for that year. During these elections, Marcellus was actually created consul with a great support by the people, but soon afterwards he was forced to abdicate due to a negative omen. His place in the consulship was taken by Q. Fabius Maximus, but nonetheless Marcellus received a prestigious pro-consular command to fight the Punic armies in Southern Italy. The political events of this year have been variably interpreted by modern scholars, especially in respect to the relationship between Fabius and Marcellus. According to some scholars, they should be considered fierce opponents, and Fabius manoeuvred the religious institutions of the Roman State in order to produce the negative omen that forced Marcellus to abdicate from his consulship. According to a second theory, however, Marcellus and Fabius secretly cooperated in order to put down the ambitions of the people and control the outcome of the consular elections (for this year and the one that followed, when both men were elected to the consulship). This paper shows, on the contrary, that Marcellus’ position during the first week of the year 215 (as during his entire career), far from being a fixed and steady one, was marked instead by more complex and fluctuating attitudes, especially in his dealings with Fabius Maximus.

Seeing how the idea of the ‘ruler cult’ and the necessary ‘myth-making’ to establish it exists to this day, as seen with the regime of a 21st century dictator like Kim Jong-il, it would be most interesting to see what parallels exist between cases of divine leadership and what we might learn about our contemporary cult rulers when looking at the dynamics of the two-millennia-old cult of the deified Emperor Augustus. As such, I have formulated a central question that focuses on the reign of Divus Augustus, and in doing so provides opportunity to extrapolate from it new insights in similar but contemporary figures of leadership. A clear case of 'to understand motives in the present, one must look at actions in the past.'

This is an uncorrected pre-proof version.

This paper offers a fresh interpretation of the role played by the Dream of Scipio in Cicero’s De re publica. It explores Cicero’s key distinction between the cosmic and the local levels of statesmanship and the problems he sees with localism, and it details fully for the first time the importance that Cicero attached to the virtue of magnitudo animi (“greatness of soul”). The paper makes the case that in De re publica Cicero promotes his own innovative cosmic model of politics, in which magnitudo animi is developed through an educational process situated in the traditional Roman mos maiorum.

In 27BCE Gaius Octavius (‘Octavian’) in effect became the first Emperor of Rome, although this was not of one his official titles.  As part of this process, his name was changed by Senate decree to Augustus.  For all practical purposes, the Roman Emperor became a monarch, yet throughout Rome’s republican period, the Senate had resolutely opposed any return to the previous monarchy.  Indeed, this opposition has been given as one of the main reasons for the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44BCE (Cicero, III 82-83).  The purpose of this essay is to explore the reasons for this apparent paradox, and to suggestion an explanation as to how Augustus was able overcome the Senate’s opposition to monarchy and become a king-like Emperor.

I fenomeni posti al centro dell’analisi corrispondono alle vicende del “falso Gracco” e del “falso Mario” e in certa misura, a quella del giovane Ottaviano. Di questi fenomeni, caratterizzati da un contestato richiamo onomastico e da una intensa partecipazione popolare, la storiografia moderna ha genericamente offerto una valutazione ricalcata sulla rappresentazione offertane dalle tradizioni antiche, le quali in età imperiale (in particolare augustea) finirono per elaborare una vera e propria fenomenologia della “frode onomastica”: una lettura incentrata sulla condanna morale dell’inganno, inteso come illecito tentativo di arrampicamento sociale o come fraudolento accaparramento ereditario del patrimonio materiale o morale del presunto antenato. Nella nostra analisi invece l’osservazione è slittata dalla ricerca delle motivazioni psicologiche o sociali del supposto truffatore allo studio delle ragioni che indussero settori della collettività a lasciarsi “ingannare” ed anzi a supportare vigorosamente la presunta impostura. Un approccio simile a quello sviluppato a partire da Y.M. Bercé negli studi di storia medievale e moderna; ma con le dovute differenze, dettate non solamente dalla diversità di documentazione. Le vicende dei “falsi” Gracco e Mario risultano infatti solo in parte abbinabili a quelle dei classici usurpatori al trono, moderni ma anche antichi: diversamente dai re scomparsi o dagli imperatori rimpianti, Tiberio Gracco e Gaio Mario junior (e in parte persino Giulio Cesare, al momento dell’assunzione del suo nome da parte del giovanissimo Gaio Ottavio) non sono sovrani di cui raccogliere l’eredità patrimoniale e il carisma regale, ma leader politici vinti, sconfitti, con le proprietà confiscate e la memoria ufficialmente condannata. Il lavoro è strutturato in due sezioni: la prima sostanzialmente teorica e metodologica, la seconda di ricostruzione storica. Nel primo capitolo, destinato a illustrare il dibattito storiografico relativo alla partecipazione popolare alla vita politica romana in età tardo repubblicana, si sottolinea come la polarizzazione fra sostenitori e negatori del carattere democratico della costituzione repubblicana possa essere superata a partire dall’osservazione delle mutate condizioni della vita politica contemporanea, che inducono a evidenziare il peso di alcuni elementi generalmente trascurati nella ricostruzione delle dinamiche della lotta politica antica. Uno di questi elementi è costituito dal senso di identità, inteso come fattore aggregante: una identità costruita non sui programmi né sulle ideologie ma sostanzialmente sulla condivisione della memoria di alcuni eventi traumatici percepiti come ingiusti e necessari di riparazione. Per ragionare su queste identità si è fatto ricorso anzitutto all’armamentario, ormai consueto fra gli storici, della sociologia della memoria. Tuttavia rispetto all’approccio abituale negli ormai cospicui studi sulla Roma repubblicana, sostanzialmente riservati all’analisi della relazione fra istituzioni, memoria e collettività, e che sembrano presupporre l’esistenza di una cultura politica unitaria, condivisa universalmente e senza riserve da tutta la cittadinanza, si è partiti dalla ipotesi dell’esistenza di una pluralità di memorie collettive: memorie “di parte” (testimoniate ad esempio dalle antitetiche tradizioni relative alla morte di Scipione Emiliano) e sommerse, di cui gli episodi analizzati testimonierebbero sintomaticamente un forte radicamento. Il ricorso alla categoria di “identità” ha consentito inoltre l’utilizzazione della griglia interpretativa dei fenomeni di partecipazione politica elaborata dalla politologia novecentesca in cui una parte significativa del valore dell’impegno politico viene spiegata in termini di “espressività”, “affettività”: in poche parole la partecipazione come atto di semplice autoaffermazione di un gruppo rispetto ad altri gruppi rivali o alla collettività, indipendentemente dalla efficacia e dalla natura dei risultati ottenuti. Un altro aspetto innovativo di questo approccio risiede nell’idea di poter pensare queste identità nei termini elaborati dalla psicologia politica contemporanea, cioè come identità al tempo stesso “volatili” e “latenti”, cioè come identità conviventi con altre identità (anche con esse conflittuali) e non sempre predominanti, ma particolarmente sollecitabili in determinanti frangenti di fibrillazione politica. La salienza, cioè la prevalenza di una particolare identità sulle altre, è di conseguenza da leggere come espressione di uno specifico contesto e non solo come risultato di logiche manipolatorie messe in atto dai leader politici. In questo quadro si è adottata la possibilità che l’efficacia politica dei richiami onomastici analizzati (cioè il richiamo al nome di Gracco, quello a Mario e parzialmente quello a Cesare) sia da valutare in termini di sollecitazione identitaria. Si è ipotizzato cioè che in casi come questi, in cui l’onomastica evocasse personaggi assurti al rango di figure di ricordo della memoria collettiva di almeno alcuni settori della popolazione, il nome potesse svolgere una funzione di storytelling, un sorta di micro-racconto, di autorappresentazione attraverso il richiamo alla storia di quel personaggio associato, nella memoria collettiva, al nome stesso. In questo modo l’onomastica, almeno in questi specifici casi, si è potuta presentare come una sorta di scorciatoia cognitiva, in grado di risvegliare un feedback emotivo nella collettività. Ampio spazio è stato poi riservato alla illustrazione della duttilità del sistema onomastico romano, sulla cui funzione comunicativa si è insistito a fondo, segnalando in particolare la capacità di autorappresentazione pubblica espressa dall’assunzione di determinati nomi. Si è chiarito poi che l’impatto di una onomastica caricata di significato storico e politico (i “nomi pesanti”) gravasse non solo sul suo portatore (indotto ad attenersi ai paradigmi comportamentali inscritti nel nome stesso della sua famiglia, come nel ben noto caso di Bruto) ma anche sul resto della cittadinanza, almeno nei casi in cui il nome si collegasse a personaggi la cui storia rivestisse un ruolo significativo nel ricordo collettivo. Naturalmente si è rilevato come non tutte le assunzioni di “nomi pesanti” comportassero l’attivazione di un richiamo forte all’identità connessa nella memoria collettiva al nome stesso: affinché questo succedesse risultava infatti necessario dar vita a un complesso coerente di atteggiamenti e comportamenti pubblici espressamente ed evidentemente indirizzati a marcare la continuità col personaggio evocato nella propria onomastica; occorreva insomma “indossare il nome”. La seconda parte del lavoro presenta l’esplorazione delle identità politiche cresciute sul ricordo di esperienze traumatiche epocali (nella fattispecie la repressione antrigraccana degli ultimi anni Venti del II sec. e poi la guerra italica con l’annessa guerra civile degli anni Ottanta) e dei personaggi che ne avrebbero incarnato la memoria: Tiberio Gracco e Gaio Mario. Si tratta di uno degli contributi più originali di questa ricerca. Anzitutto si è ripercorso il processo di “semantizzazione” dei nomi di Tiberio Gracco e di Gaio Mario sr, per ricostruire il modo e i tempi con cui nella memoria collettiva di alcuni settori della società romana il ricordo e la percezione di questi personaggi, e delle loro vicende, abbia man mano riadattato i propri connotati a quello che è sembrato poter essere identificato come uno specifico modello, un frame, una cornice interpretativa particolare: quella cioè del campione popolare ucciso e umiliato dalla nobilitas arrogante, e rimasto invendicato. Un ruolo particolare nella genesi di questi processi è stato individuato nella rappresentazione di se stessi offerta rispettivamente da Gaio Gracco e Gaio Mario jr, i quali sembrano essersi adoperati da un lato a “martirizzare” le figure dei loro omonimi predecessori (Tiberio Gracco, Gaio Mario sr), dall’altro a farsene doppioni, creando una vera e propria sovrapposizione di immagini. ¬Dal punto di vista della comunicazione politica questo snodo costituisce il momento di nascita, o per meglio dire di attivazione delle identità: la mobilitazione emotiva delle folle sollecitata attraverso il racconto della tragica storia del predecessore evocato tramite la semplice identità onomastica. È questo il significato che si può attribuire alla diffusione del contenuto del famoso sogno premonitore di Gaio Gracco, attorno al 125 a.C.; e ugualmente alla leva di massa sponsorizzata da Mario jr nell’82 a.C. Fondamentale per la valutazione dei meccanismi di aggregazione identitaria risulta a questo proposito la negazione, per i primi decenni del I sec. a.C., del carattere di affiliazione clientelare fra gli imperatores e i loro soldati e veterani, affiliazione supposta da alcuni moderni sulla scorta di testimonianze letterarie cronologicamente posteriori, il cui giudizio appare orientato dall’esperienza delle più tarde guerre civili. Infine si è cercato di ricostruire lo sviluppo evenemenziale delle vicende dei due supposti truffatori. In definitiva il risultato più significativo della ricerca può essere considerato il riconoscimento dell’esistenza di processi di mobilitazione a carattere identitario, distinti (anche se talvolta intrecciati) da altri meccanismi di partecipazione, in particolare da quelli legati direttamente o indirettamente alla irregimentazione clientelare (su cui ha tanto insistito la storiografia “prosopografica” e in genere quella meno incline a valorizzare gli aspetti “democratici” della vita politica romana). Queste mobilitazioni non sembrano peraltro trovare sfogo esclusivo nei momenti istituzionalizzati di partecipazione politica ma tendono a manifestarsi anche in forma “espressiva”.

The ancient world is often shrouded in mystery. We have incomplete literary artifacts that claim to be representations of true history, while at the same time, we have complete literary artifacts which vary between works of mythology, works of poetry (some incomplete), works of law and socio-political guidance, and works of socio-political commentary. In this paper, I will address seven literary artifacts from four different ancient time periods, which represent the respective civilization's views on humanism and the sacred. The civilizations consist of Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome. The artifacts consist of the Ancient Mesopotamian texts: The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Code of Hammurabi, the Ancient Egyptian text " Guidelines for the Ruler, the Ancient Greek lyrical poetry of Sappho, the Ancient Greek play by Aristophanes Lysistrata, the Ancient Greek philosophical influence within Ancient Rome with Lucretius' " Denunciation of Religion, " and the Ancient Roman essay by Tacitus " The Imposition of One-Man Rule. The famous Ancient Sumerian text The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is the oldest literary work of which we currently know, is extremely important to the humanities, because it addresses man's ancient and current fear of their own mortality. As this subject never seems to leave the human psyche, we can conclude that this fear is central to the human condition. The Epic of

According to the mos maiorum, any noble Roman woman ('matrona') should respect the matronal rule established by ancestral tradition. One of the features of this model required her to be domiseda, namely circumscribing her action within a domus ('house'), not only physically, but also in the fulfilment of her domestic duties.
The late Roman Republic is a period studded with civil strives, in which a lot of men, often exiled or proscribed, were distant from Rome, and thus absent from her political scene. This particular condition allowed many women to act on behalf of their men, and entitled them to violate the traditional model.
Servilia, Brutus’ mother and Caesar’s mistress and close friend, can rightly be viewed as one of the most remarkable cases of this change. After Caesar’s assassination, Servilia acted in different ways in the interest of her son, and movement played an important role in shaping her behaviour. Ancient sources, first of all Cicero’s letters, show how this woman moved between Rome and many places in Latium, and how, through her movement from one side to another, she operates in political sphere. Moreover, when domiseda, Servilia violated the matronal rule, taking politically charged decisions, thus acquiring new prerogatives traditionally reserved to men. Along with her active movement, Servilia communicated with Brutus and Cassius, who had escaped to the Greek East, as well as with Cicero and Atticus, who had remained in Rome: within this web of communication, which did not require her to physically move, she created new dynamic connections, using letters and messengers to convey and spread important information.
Servilia’s movements, as well as the movement of other contemporary matrons, are the mirror of a changing political situation, which marks the troubled passage between the declining republican order and the rising of the imperial one.

Bristol University, Classical Association Conference 2015 - 11/04/2015

Livy 45 .35-39 and Plutarch Life of Aemilius Paulus 31 .1-32 .1 relate an incident in 167 BCE, in which M. Servilius Geminus Pulex (cos. 202) attempts to break a political deadlock regarding the vote to grant a triumph to Aemilius Paulus. Addressing soldiers within the assembled citizenry who are following the disruptive lead of Servius Sulpicius Galba, Servilius strips back his clothing to reveal the numerous scars he has received from years of service in the Roman army. When he accidentally reveals a tumour about the groin he opens himself to ridicule from the assembled spectators, only to retort that he received this too from excessive horse use in service of the state. His intervention clears the way for a positive vote.

Servilius’ scars/disfigurement are a proof of his history of participation in warfare, specifically framing them as the right kind of scars (e.g. front of body) to attest to ideologically approved manner of involvement. Some scars and other disfigurements risked negative values being applied, which here was coupled by the breaking of Roman taboos about displays of nudity to other citizens. Servilius breaks the taboo of showing ‘what should have remained concealed’ (Liv. 49 .39 .17). The verbal narrative of Servilius’ noble service to the state was testified to by his scars and disfigurement, but also necessary to prevent negative values being ascribed by spectators and political opponents, particularly as it related to his manhood. The verbal narrative frames the values given to the disfigurements, legitimating them within an ideologically intelligible construct of military service. Servilius successfully exhorts that audience to action in service of the state, transmuting the virtue of battle to another form of societal obligation, in this case passing the vote for Paulus’ triumph. Servilius’ self-display reiterates, enforces and replicates ideologies of imperialism and militarism.

In his work ‘The deified Julius’, the Roman biographer Suetonius dedicated a chapter to Caesar’s habitus (‘appearance’). According to his account, the young Caesar was very careful and remarkable in his clothing: indeed, when he was eighteen, he wore a senator tunic with fringed sleeves reaching the wrist, and had a girdle over it, though rather a loose one. Suetonius also reports a dictum (‘saying’) of Sulla addressed to the members of his own faction: ‘male praecinctum puerum cauerent’ (‘beware the ill-girt boy’) (Suet. Iul. 45.3). This specific sentence as well as the characterisation of a young Caesar having an effeminate appearance also recurs within the works of Plutarch (Caes. 4.8-9), Cassius Dio (43.43.4-5), and Macrobius (sat. 2.3.9).
This paper focuses on two aspects. First, the recurrence of this theme from the 1st to the 5th century CE shows the evolution of its surrounding features – who pronounces the statement, the addressees, the historical background – and the mention of Cicero as the author of some sayings referring to Caesar, therefore one can suppose a declamatory origin of part of this topic. Secondly, the occurrence of other themes relating to a loose clothing and youth – especially in Cicero’s works on Catiline’s supporters (Cat. 2.10.22), Clodius (Clod. Cur. frgg. 21-23), and Mark Antony (Phil. 2.18.44-45) – highlights, on one hand, how ‘effeminate’ appearance was perceived as a violation of the Roman dress code par excellence, the toga, and, on the other, how young age was meant to mark males who, at least temporarily, were not allowed to be politically active. Lastly, these two elements were connected to the politically charged presentation of such those men as threats for the proper order of the res Publica.

This paper argues that the character of Curiatius Maternus in Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus is consistent throughout the dialogue in his attitude to the imperial regime.  Maternus begins the dialogue in outright dissent, while in the second half he appears to be an apologist for the regime.  Accepting the ironic reading of Maternus’ concluding speech, this paper asserts that Maternus shifts to figured speech in reaction to M. Aper, who expresses solidarity with the political values and rhetorical style of the delatores, and Vipstanus Messalla, the half-brother of the delator M. Aquilius Regulus.  Confronted with such individuals, Maternus recognizes he must change the tenor of his language.  Thus, his concluding speech is ironic critique consistent with his earlier dissent.

Intervention au séminaire de J.-L. FERRARY, « Histoire des institutions et des idées politiques du monde romain » (EPHE), mai 2012.

Seul le président des comices électoraux pouvait écarter un candidat soit en ne comptant pas les suffrages exprimés en sa faveur (nomen non accipere puis rationem non habere avec le vote des lois tabellaires) soit en ne le proclamant pas vainqueur (non renuntiare). Cependant, il se contentait le plus souvent de menacer le candidat de ces refus pour le dissuader. En de rares occasions, le candidat, sûr de sa popularité, se maintenait et espérait faire céder le président des élections et le Sénat qui le soutenait généralement. La menace proférée par le président des comices servait à instaurer un dialogue, se transformant parfois en épreuve de force, qui visait à l’abandon d’une des parties pour préserver le consensus et éviter l’installation de la discorde. Pour la même raison, les patres ne pouvaient jouir, pour la période concernée, du droit de repousser des candidatures. Au mieux, le Sénat dans son ensemble, disposant d’une légitimité bien supérieure, pouvait émettre un avis défavorable sur certaines candidatures et demander au président de proclamer qu’il les refuserait lors du vote, voire de les refuser effectivement. Le président était le seul à disposer encore du pouvoir d’origine royale de s’opposer à la volonté populaire alors qu’elle s’exprimait ou s’était exprimée. En effet, ni le président, ni les patres ne pouvaient refuser une candidature avant les opérations électorales, le premier pouvant seulement déclarer qu’il utiliserait son imperium pour empêcher l’élection. Il me semble donc que le refus ne fut jamais préalable aux élections. Toutefois, les sources sont bien silencieuses à ce propos et les rares cas de candidats rejetés concernent tous des problèmes « constitutionnels ».
A la fin de la République, des personnages dégradés par les censeurs briguèrent des magistratures et n’en furent pas empêchés par les présidents des comices. Ceux-ci ne concevaient pas leur rôle comme un prolongement de la censure et laissaient le peuple infirmer ou confirmer la décision des censeurs . La tradition ne les avait d’ailleurs pas préparés à cela et il était impensable de conférer à un magistrat agissant sans le frein de la collégialité un pouvoir qui aurait pu devenir une arme politique majeure. Néanmoins les présidents des comices électoraux veillaient et pouvaient parfois, comme le fit C. Sentius Saturninus en 19, s’assurer que les normes, anciennes ou récentes, juridiques ou non, étaient respectées.
Bien que le pouvoir de refuser un candidat restât entre les mains du président des élections sur l’ensemble de la période envisagée, il restait théorique et fut, à mon avis, ainsi que le suggère le silence des sources, très rarement employé car bien trop dangereux pour la res publica. L’annonce d’un refus suffisait dans la plupart des cas.

This paper focuses on the topic of patriotism in the rhetorical exempla dating from the Late Roman Republic. The aim is to demonstrate how the charge of military betrayal ( proditio hostibus patriae ) is connected to the conflicts between factiones after the fall of the Gracchi. The objective is achieved by analysing this matter from the perspective of the populares, reported by the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium .

When exploring the importance of oil-lamps as every-day functional items or small works of art, their use as bearers of political propaganda has often been overlooked. Many of depicted scenes can only be interpreted in terms of political symbolism, for example the corona civica, Victoria in the globe, or clipeus virtutis. Putting aside questions of initial impetus for using certain images instead of others, thanks to the mass produced copies of them the spread of this imagery was vast. In the poster, we present and discuss one example of oil lamp conveying political message. The lamp was found in Ljubljana, in the outskirts of Roman town Emona, in 2010, and bears an image of armed horseman, raising his hand with wreath.

In the last decades of the Roman Republic, Rome came very close to collapse. Augustus brought an end to the civil wars that were tearing the state apart. He did bring peace. But there are still many who see him as a monster and a tyrant. I see him as a product of his time. In this second part of my 20,000+ examination of Augustus' early career I examine Octavian's early moves from his return to Italy after Caesar's assassination up to just after his arrival in Rome.  In this paper I look at the people he met on his travels to Rome, his formal acceptance of his adoption by Caesar, and his inheritance, his first meeting with Mark Antony.

This paper also looks at some of the problems of chronology in the surviving accounts, and the circumstances and possible content of Octavian's first public speech in Rome.

L. Iulius Ursus (cos. III 100) y L. Iulius Ursus Servianus (cos. ord. III 134) fueron dos figuras claves de la política imperial de finales del siglo I y comienzos del II. Sin embargo, las fuentes son parcas al respecto, de modo que su origen ha suscitado cierto debate. Pero tras un detallado análisis se puede afirmar que probablemente provinieran de Barcino, la actual Barcelona. Ambos formarían parte de un destacado grupo de Iulii que partiendo del conventus Tarraconensis supo llegar a los círculos más próximos al emperador.

L. Iulius Ursus (cos. III 100) and L. Iulius Ursus Servianus (cos. ord. III 134) were two of the more important political figures at the end of the I Century and the beginning of the II. However, the sources are scarce about them. As a consequence, their origin has been cause of debate. After a thorough analysis we can state that they were born probably in Barcino, today Barcelona. Both of them belong to an important group of Iulii from the conventus Tarraconensis who knew how to reach the inner circle of the emperor.

In the article two main historiographical approaches to the examination of Roman politics of 70s B.C.E. are traced. The first approach goes back to Mommsen, and researchers adhering to it characterize the politics of 70s B.C.E. as a confrontation between heterogeneous groups dissatisfied with Sullan constitution, from the one hand, and, of a powerful nobility exercising control over the senate and state in general from the other hand,. According to this view, the confrontation resulted in the victory of former over the latter as Pompey and Crassus in 70 abrogated main Sullan laws. The second approach, however, characterize the politics of 70s as a struggle between different factions within the nobility and the reforms of 70 as a compromise measures intended to strengthen the control of the nobility over the state affairs. The analysis carried out in the article shows that at least for the main issue of the struggle – the powers of plebeian tribunes --  the first approach corresponds better to the ancient evidence.