Introduction

Ennius Noster ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Jason S. Nethercut
Keyword(s):  

ENNIUS’ ANNALES WAS one of the most important hexameter epics written before Vergil’s Aeneid, and perhaps the most influential Latin poem of any period. Writing during the Republic, and covering Roman history from the fall of Troy through his own lifetime, Ennius was the first to write Latin hexameters. His ...

Author(s):  
Cody Smith

In the terms of this essay we discus the economic and societal shift that would be shown in Roman History, mainly in the vain of economic differences in the Republic and Empire rule of the Roman people. The two events that are compared are the economic strategies in the 2nd Punic War and the Catiline conspiracy, and how the different economic strategies would affect the societal rule of the Roman classes. This also explores the laws that where implemented by the senate and the new tax reforms that would then give the Roman society a new way of life with the raising of taxes and the increased need for Raw materials and chattel.


2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-35
Author(s):  
Victoria Jansson ◽  

This article argues that unfulfilled prayers to Ceres in Tibullus’ elegies are symptomatic of Rome’s grain crises at the end of the Republic and beginning of Empire. My approach includes philological, socioeconomic, and psychoanalytic analysis of the elegies, in which the poet examines the shifting definition of a ‘Roman’ in his day. I seek to demonstrate the ways in which the poet grapples with the political and economic forces at work during the most turbulent period of Roman history: a time when income inequality was roughly equivalent to that of the U.S. and E.U. today.1


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 309-328
Author(s):  
Nataša Deretić ◽  
Milan Milutin

The emergence of pre-election canvassing, for which the Roman state had a special term - ambitus - has outlived centuries, so that we find this phenomenon even today. We shall here try to answer the question as to whether the campaigning before elections is a type of corruption after analyzing laws dating from the period of the Roman Republic. Defining ambitus is no easy task. A very broad definition would define it as the use of illegal methods to persuade a voter to vote for a particular candidate. This definition applies to the entire period of the Republic, and even later, to the end of the Roman history. In an attempt to understand the meaning of ambitus, it is not completely clear what means are illegal. Is it recruiting voters, blackmailing, bribing, giving presents, rendering or promising favours, organizing free feasts, staging public games, etc.? What was the punishment? Who could be punished? These things varied both during the period of the Republic and throughout the entire Roman history.


2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-329
Author(s):  
James Corke-Webster

After a focus on social and cultural history in the last issue, this issue's offerings return us to more traditional subjects – political institutions, and historiography. That spring review ended with religion, which is where we start here: an apposite reminder that religion pervades all aspects of the Roman world. It is precisely that principle which undergirds our first book, Dan-el Padilla Peralta's Divine Institutions. Padilla Peralta is interested, at root, in how the Roman state became such through the third and fourth centuries bce. That is a story usually told – in a tradition going back to the ancient historians themselves – via a swashbuckling tale of successive military campaigns. Padilla Peralta, however, sets that anachronistic narrativization aside, and instead builds a careful case that between the siege of Veii and the end of the Second Punic War ‘the Roman state remade and retooled itself into a republic defined and organized around a specific brand of institutionalized ritual practices and commitments’ (1). Specifically, he shows that the construction of temples and the public activities they facilitated were a key mechanism – one as important as warfare – by which the consensus necessary to state formation was generated: the Republic more or less stumbles into a bootstrapping formula that proves to be unusually felicitous: high visibility monumental enterprises are paired with new incentives for human mobility in ways that dramatically and enduringly reorganize the rhythms of civic and communal experience. (17–18) In particular, Padilla Peralta argues that output was greater than input; that the genius – whether accidental or deliberate – of this formula was that it facilitated a confidence game whereby the res publica appeared more capable – via the apparent support of the gods whom its visible piety secured – than was in fact the case.


1933 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 112-121
Author(s):  
A. G. Russell

The greatest contribution which Rome made to the history of the world is perhaps to be found in her government, in her solution of political problems, and in the machinery she devised to carry out the hundred and one duties that fall to the lot of executive powers. No one institution of Rome is so interesting and intriguing in its origin and development as the Senate, which from the early days of the Republic down to the foundation of the Empire played an enormous part in moulding the whole political life of Rome; and even when the golden days of senatorial authority were over, its name and tradition remained to exercise a great influence and fascination on succeeding times. When we read of the Senate and its part in Roman history we try to think of parallels in our own government, and the first thing that suggests itself to us is the Houses of Parliament and more particularly the House of Commons. But there are so many differences between the two that it is worth while briefly to describe the Senate and in so doing compare it with our own system.


Author(s):  
José Antonio Delgado Delgado

Resumen: Los dioses de Roma eran tenidos por los romanos como sus conciudadanos y sus intereses se identificaban plena y totalmente con los de la ciudad. A ellos les correspondía el papel de guías y consejeros de las acciones de los hombres, particularmente de los hombres de estado. Cuando la guerra alteraba el curso natural de la vida cívica y amenazaba la paz social, las divinidades tomaban las riendas de la situación previniendo a los romanos de las grandes y graves calamidades que se avecinaban y advirtiendo de los esfuerzos extraordinarios que habrían de hacer para acometerlas y minimizar sus efectos. En el curso de determinadas campañas militares contra pueblos extranjeros o en periodos de disputa por el liderazgo político, los dioses consideraron que la preservación de Roma pasaba por el sacrificio de sus cónsules. Su anuncio venía ‘impreso’ en el hígado de una víctima animal y su sentido fatídico afectaba al destino personal de los principales magistrados del estado. Este signum se reconocía en la ausencia de la cabeza del hígado (caput iecoris) del animal sacrificado. La investigación de los once casos conocidos bajo la República –entre ellos los del propio Julio César– y el estudio de la naturaleza del signum mortis son los objetivos principales de este trabajo.Abstract: The Gods of Rome were regarded by the Romans as their fellow citizens and their interests were fully and completely identified with those of the city. Their role was to serve as guides and counsellors on the actions of the men, particularly the statesmen. When war altered the natural course of civic life and threatened the social peace, the gods took over control of the situation, preventing the Romans from the major and serious calamities that were looming and warning of the extraordinary efforts that they would have to make in order to tackle them and minimize their effects. In the course of certain military campaigns against foreign peoples or during periods of struggle for political leadership, the gods considered that the key to preserving Rome was through sacrificing their consuls. Such announcement came ‘imprinted’ on the liver of an animal to be sacrificed and its fatal end affected the personal fate of the chief magistrates of the state. This signum was recognized in the absence of the ‘head’ of the liver (caput iecoris) of the animal sacrificed. Research on the eleven known cases in the Republic— including that of Julius Caesar himself—and the study of the nature of the signum mortis are the main objectives of this paper.Palabras clave: Historia de Roma, Roma republicana, magistrados romanos, cónsules de Roma, Religión romana, adivinación pública romana, extispicina, miedo.Key words: Roman History, Roman Republic, Roman magistrates, Roman consuls, Roman Religion, Roman public divination, Extispicy, fear.


2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 259-269
Author(s):  
Andrei Y. Markelov

The “Roman history” by Velleius Paterculus is the sole historiographical work written by a contemporary of Augustus and Tiberius. The paper deals with representation of the Roman Senate of Velleius’ time in his work. I argue that in his compendium the historian reflected the ambivalent position of the Senate under the first two Roman Emperors. He depicts the institution as more passive in comparison with its description in the previous period and as depending on the Princeps. At the same time this Roman author characterizes the Senate as having maiestas, the notion which was not connected with this authority under the Republic. Assigning of maiestas to the Senate by Velleius reflects a deep change in the position of the curia due to decline of the popular assemblies’ significance at the beginning of the Principate.


Classics ◽  
2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erich S. Gruen

The Roman Republic continues to intrigue researchers and students alike. The rise of a small city to become mistress of the Mediterranean provoked the great Greek historian Polybius already in the 2nd century bce and still fascinates scholars, whose output consistently swells a bibliography that can only be very selectively surveyed here. The vision of the Republic left a deep impression upon medieval Europe, upon writers and thinkers like Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and the American Founding Fathers, and it resonates even with contemporary political theorists. The achievement of the Roman Republic and the foundations upon which it rested remain subjects of compelling interest.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 257-270
Author(s):  
Andrzej Gillmeister

The figure of the first Roman emperor in many ways had an impact on the Polish culture, especially in historiography and literature. In my paper I focus on some issues connected with the subject. I discuss the ideas presented by Tadeusz Zieliński, one of the most eminent researchers of the ancient world in Europe in the first part of 20th century. He devoted a significant part of his opus to present his own vision of Augustus seen as a reformer of the Roman state religion. Zieliński built the emperor’s image as the saviour of the Roman world in the face of „the end of times”. This term played significant role in Zieliński’s thinking about Roman history at the end of the Republic. For the Polish scholar celebration of the secular game in 17 BC was the final task done by Augustus. This task Zieliński defined as the sacred mission and connected with the figure of Sibyl and the impact of the Etruscan theory of saeculum. For Zieliński, Augustus belonged to the most important men of providence in Roman history. In the same way I discuss the ideas presented by Ludwik Piotrowicz and Mieczysław St. Popławski. Both scholars analised the question of imperial cult in depth. Popławski expressed original view on Augustus apotheosis seen as the development of imperial cult in transcendental perspective. Piotrowicz instead saw this problem as a purely political phenomenon. Last part of my paper is devoted to short resentation of the echos of Augustus’ bimillenium in Polish scholar activity.


Author(s):  
Gianpaolo Urso
Keyword(s):  

For Cassius Dio, there was no continuity between Republic and Principate. The Republic ended between 43 (institution of the triumvirate) and 42 BC (battle of Philippi); the ‘monarchy’ was established between 29 (Octavianus Imperator) and 27 (speech to the senators in January). The founder of the imperial monarchy, however, was not Augustus, but Caesar: his dictatorship was already a means to exert the same monarchic power of his adoptive son. In its inner complexity, such a representation of the transition from the Republic to the Principate is consistent with the way Dio reconstructed the origins of the Republic, in the first (lost) books of his Roman History.


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