scholarly journals Velleius Paterculus and the Roman Senate at the Beginning of the Principate

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 259-269
Author(s):  
Andrei Y. Markelov
Keyword(s):  
Roman History ◽  
Previous Period ◽  
Velleius Paterculus ◽  
The Republic

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.

Economics Of Rome

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cody Smith
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Tax Reforms ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Economic Strategies ◽  
Roman People ◽  
The Republic

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.

scholarly journals Towards a ‘Political’ Tibullus: Ceres and Grain in Elegies Books 1 and 2

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-35
Author(s):  
Victoria Jansson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Roman History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The U.S

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

scholarly journals An attempt at legal regulation of ambitus (canvassing before Roman elections) in the period of the Roman Republic

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 309-328
Author(s):  
Nataša Deretić ◽  
Milan Milutin
Keyword(s):  
Roman Republic ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Entire Period ◽  
Broad Definition ◽  
Easy Task ◽  
The Republic

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.

Roman History

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-329
Author(s):  
James Corke-Webster
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Roman History ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Second Punic War ◽  
Military Campaigns ◽  
The Republic

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.

Los capitulos como unidades textuales. Enunciados temáticos + quippe en Veleyo Patérculo, H.R. 2.1-57

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Ruit Castellanos
Keyword(s):  
Roman History ◽  
Velleius Paterculus ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Opening And Closing ◽  
Argumentative Texts ◽  
Textual Critic

SummaryThis study stays at the crossroads of Rhetoric, Text Grammar and Textual Critic. It studies the division of chapters (made firstly by Gruter in 1607) of the Roman History (Historic Romwia: H.R.) of Velleius Paterculus: the old Rhetoric text types, the opening and closing marks, the characters and personages and the thematic sentences as cohesive devices. These thematic sentences are used as introductions of chapter, and they are followed by confirmatives with quippe and with demonstrative relatives. They constitute a mark similar to the propositions of the argumentative texts, with special syntactic characteristics in the text of Velleius. The studied corpus are the first 57 chapters of the second book of the Historia Romana.

Avdaces: A Study in Political Phraseology

1961 ◽  
Vol 51 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 12-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ch. Wirszubski
Keyword(s):  
Roman History ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Bellum Civile ◽  
Critical Juncture ◽  
Political Career ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
Velleius Paterculus

‘Audax venali comitatur Curio lingua’ wrote Lucan in a familiar line of his Bellum Civile, at a time when C. Scribonius Curio the younger had been a hundred years in his grave. Lucan was not the first to describe Curio as audax; Velleius Paterculus did so before him: ‘bello autem civili … non alius maiorem flagrantioremque quam C. Curio tribunus plebis subiecit facem, vir nobilis, eloquens, audax,’, 11, 48, 3. It seems, indeed, that the attribute audax was traditional for Curio and, if this is so, the tradition may well have originated in Curio's own time. His title to a place in Roman history rested on the fact that he changed sides at a critical juncture—‘momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum’ (Lucan IV, 819). And what earned him, whether in his lifetime or posthumously, the derogatory attribute audax was, I think, his political career, notably the record of his tribuneship, no less, if not more, than his character. Audax, as originally applied to Curio, was very probably a conventional partisan appellation which classified him more effectively as a political type than it characterized him as an individual. For the derogatory audax, as I shall presently try to show, belongs in the late Republican period to the current phraseology of political backbiting and it carries a distinctly political connotation. It is the purpose of this paper to consider what audax denotes in the vocabulary of Roman political life in the late Republic as well as who are regarded as audaces in Roman politics.

The Procedure of the Senate

1933 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 112-121
Author(s):  
A. G. Russell
Keyword(s):  
Great Influence ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Political Life ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic

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.

scholarly journals Caput in iecore non fuit. La ‘cabeza’ de los cónsules por la salvación de la República

2018 ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
José Antonio Delgado Delgado
Keyword(s):  
Political Leadership ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Civic Life ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
La Paz ◽  
The Social ◽  
Military Campaigns ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The City

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.

scholarly journals Limits to Freedom of Speech in the Republic of Latvia During the Parliamentary Period (1918–1934)

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 241-261
Author(s):  
Elīna Grigore-Bāra ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The State ◽  
Freedom Of The Press ◽  
Previous Period ◽  
The Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Law ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Constitutional Identity

The article is dedicated to the analysis of one element of the constitutional identity of the Latvian State – freedom of speech – during the initial democratic period in the State’s existence. The author analyses the rules on the protection of honour and supervision of the press as limits to freedom of speech. It is concluded in the article that the boundaries between one person’s freedom of speech and another person’s honour in the Republic of Latvia changed little compared to the previous period in the history of law and that honour as a legal benefit was prized more highly. The framework of freedom of the press, in turn, was constantly expanded. However, the creation of the lists of prohibited books and third-rate and obscene literature proves that the State did not rely on individuals exercising freedom of speech properly. Paternalistic treatment of its citizens was not unknown to the new democratic republic.

Roman History: Early to Republic

Classics ◽  
2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erich S. Gruen
Keyword(s):  
Roman Republic ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Small City ◽  
American Founding ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Deep Impression

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.

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