Search Results

This chapter considers the importation of megalomaniacal majesty into the Roman Republic. Over time, kingly conceit became more conspicuous in Rome, and particularly at times of communal festivity. In contrast to the manner in which the behaviour of kings such as Philadelphus or Epiphanes is remembered, there is rather more information in Roman sources about the sentiments of the urban audience, as is seen in reports about the employment of animals in order to advertise personal greatness.

This chapter contends that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's analysis and appropriation of the Roman Republic deliberately undermines Machiavelli's efforts to reconstruct and promote institutions that both maximize the participation of poor citizens in popular governments and facilitate their efforts to control or contain economic and political elites. Rousseau's radical revision of Machiavelli's appropriation of the ancient Roman Republic historically served to foreclose the possibility of an alternative, popularly participatory, and anti-elitist strand of modern republicanism that in subsequent centuries would have better served democratic theory and practice. Through the promulgation of sociologically anonymous principles like generality and popular sovereignty, and by confining elite accountability to elections alone, Rousseau's institutional analyses and proposals allow wealthier citizens and magistrates to dominate the politics of popular governments in surreptitious and unassailable ways.

This chapter examines Margaret Fuller’s experiences in Italy as foreign correspondent of the New York Tribune covering the local political situation related to the revolution. It suggests that Fuller failed to recognize the possibility of foreign intervention after Giuseppe Mazzini was installed as leader of the Roman Republic and the pope fled. In July 1899, Mazzini’s government was overthrown by the French. This chapter discusses the details of Fuller’s dispatches to her newspaper and her correspondence with Mazzini.

This chapter discusses how there is little of what economists call data on markets in Roman times, despite lots of information about prices and transactions. Data, as economists consider it, consist of a set of uniform prices that can be compared with each other. According to scholars, extensive markets existed in the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. Even though there is a lack of data, there are enough observations for the price of wheat, the most extensively traded commodity, to perform a test. The problem is that there is only a little bit of data by modern standards. Consequently, the chapter explains why statistics are useful in interpreting small data sets and how one deals with various problems that arise when there are only a few data points.

This chapter analyses the evidence for Roman integration in networks of trade and communication in the Adriatic Sea during the third century bc, and its impact upon modern interpretations of the Romans' military intervention in the Greek east. New archaeological evidence for the character and function of trans-Adriatic networks based around a regional cult to the Greek hero Diomedes confirms that the third century Adriatic was an interconnected entity whose polities enjoyed strong links with each other and the wider Mediterranean world. Numismatic finds and the occurrence of Roman and Latin names in the epigraphic record of the eastern Adriatic demonstrate that Romans were active participants in these networks, with individual Romans becoming substantially integrated in the civic life of the region. These findings demand a reassessment of recent scholarship which has argued that the Romans were unfamiliar with the eastern Adriatic at the time of their first military intervention there in 229 bc.

This chapter discusses Ancient Rome. It provides detailed readings of the writings of Julius Caesar and Cicero; the former treating the question of terrain and the military-geography terms he uses, and the latter the res publica. These are followed by a discussion of the Latin historians, with a specific focus on Tacitus. The chapter then proceeds with substantial analyses of two key terms: imperium and limes - boundaries or frontiers. It shows how the question of how we should translate territorium is not straight-forward: it means lands surrounding a place, usually a city. The lands so described are outside the city walls, predominantly agricultural lands. Yet on the other hand, the Romans had plenty of ways to describe lands belonging to people or towns: terra, ager, or the area within fines, boundaries. The discussion of the limes, the edges or limits of the empire, raises the question of how Rome saw the rest of the world. The chapter discusses the civil war, practices of land reform, the founding myth of Rome, the names of Octavian/Augustus, and ends with a discussion of practices of land surveying that are outlined in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum and of the later historian Ammianus Marcellinus.

Cola di Rienzo envisioned a clear and consistent foreign policy and diplomacy in order to manifest the deeply apocalyptic underpinnings and goals of his stato, to spell out the practical results of the buono stato in a language understood by the Italian communes, and to proclaim the renewal of the Roman Republic and of the ancient liberties and greatness of all Italy. The buono stato had attracted many in the professional and business classes of Rome, her best and brightest. Cola had established himself and Rome as a font of learning and political wisdom. Rienzo's coronation made clear his threefold political and religious program. Cola had declared himself the “lover of the world,” and now the world had begun to engage him. It was the barons who were to make the first pass.

This chapter examines the history of early voting and elections. It describes the functions and procedures of elections in four different settings. The purposes of the idea of election through history have included the prevention of tyranny in Athens, the confirmation of authority through consent in the Roman Republic, the discovery of a divinely ordained choice in the medieval Catholic Church, and the selection of attorneys to act for the community in 13th- through 18th-century England.

This chapter provides a discussion on the beginning of the Roman Republic. It is shown that the Roman chronology is basically accurate for the beginning of the republic and the Gallic occupation of Rome. The difference between patricians and plebeians within the Roman ruling class is discussed. Various aspects of the plebeian tribunate indicate that the office was urban and civilian, whereas the original nature of the consulship seems to have been extra-urban and military. It is noted that in later times there existed in popular tradition the recollection of a Roman military reversal at the Cremera during the early years of the republic, but apart from this single fact nothing was securely known about it. Even before the discovery of the Lapis Satricanus, the Fabian defeat at the Cremera was regarded by many scholars as belonging to an early stage in Roman social development.

The election of Pius IX in 1846 aroused great enthusiasm among liberals and nationalists in Italy, and the evidence indicates that for the first two years of his papacy, until the Roman Revolution of 1848, Pius's liberalism was genuine. But his refusal to join the war against Austria in 1848 highlighted the contradiction between his role as an Italian political leader and his office as an international spiritual leader who had to retain the support of conservative Catholics throughout Europe, including Austria. When revolution broke out in Rome and a republic was declared, the pope had to flee to Neapolitan territory, and he was only restored to the papal states by French and Austrian arms. The experience changed Pius's outlook to that of a resolute conservatism as he lost any belief that papal authority could be reconciled with constitutional government. Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli emerged as the dominant figure in papal government.

This chapter asks, why consider Roman defeats in the first place? After all, Rome’s victories dominate both ancient and modern representations of Roman culture and the military history of both the Republic and the Empire. By way of answer, the chapter introduces the scholarly background of the book, discusses the importance that defeats held for the Romans themselves, surveys Roman commemorative practices, and offers a case study (in the form of a close reading of Livy’s “Alexander Digression”) into the potential of texts to serve as monuments to defeat. This chapter also situates the thesis of the book in the context of current debates over the definition of victory and the use of the past in the articulation of modern military policy.

When the Law of the Twelve Tables was promulgated, the Roman economy was overwhelmingly agricultural. As social and economic conditions became more complicated, the formalistic law of early republican times no longer sufficed. The rise of the ius honorarium can be seen as a response to these new circumstances. While scholars have tended to assign all important developments to the praetors of the second and first centuries BC, at least some important changes in the law took place earlier. The bigger picture that emerges is that, contrary to the tenets of institutionalism, Roman law developed pari passu with the economy. Roman law functioned as an autonomous discipline, governed by its own rules and principles. Law-making magistrates and jurists certainly responded to new juridical challenges created by the emergence of an increasingly sophisticated economy, but their principal aim was not to create legal rules that were conducive to economic development or growth but to find practical solutions to juridical problems created by economic developments. Finally, the Principate, to which a large proportion of the surviving evidence belongs, saw far fewer legal innovations than the last centuries of the Republic. The explanation must be that there was less need for legal innovation because most of the economic developments creating a need for new legal remedies had already taken place. Ironically, the period in which the pace of legal change had slowed down has produced most of the surviving evidence.

This chapter shows how the Roman constitutional theme established a framework for later discussions, with special reference to the classical Roman jurist Pomponius, Ptolemy of Lucca around 1300, and Mario Salamonio of Rome in the 16th century. Pomponius’ discussion of institutions such as the Ten Men who gave Rome its first law code, the dictatorship, and the office of Emperor shows an awareness of the sovereignty of the People. An admirer of the liberty of the Roman Republic, Ptolemy of Lucca justified Roman expansion on the grounds of its civilizing effects and as the expansion of constitutional justice. Mario Salamonio, on the other hand, was interested in the Emperor’s position: was he immune to the laws (legibus solutus) or subject to them? For these thinkers it was higher-order constitutional norms that set the Roman Republic apart from other models, not virtue or glory.

The rhetoric of security and stability was powerful among all levels of imperial society, focusing particularly on the emperor as a symbol of peace and order. This symbolism was crafted during the lengthy reign of the first emperor, Augustus, who also had a profound impact on the shaping of actual police institutions in Rome, Italy, and the provinces. Augustus’ extensive policing initiatives were somewhat influenced by earlier Republican precedents, but were shaped even more by the chaotic civil wars preceding the foundation of the Principate in 27 bc. Augustus’ greatest impact was in the city of Rome, where he instituted vigiles, urban cohorts, and praetorian cohorts (in addition to other specialized military bodyguards), along with commanders for each of these new institutions. This growth amounted to 100,000 men policing Rome around one per hundred inhabitants, a level of coverage well beyond what one finds in most modern cities. Augustus also established military posts throughout Italy to counter brigandage and disorder there; Augustus may also have expanded military policing in the provinces. Augustus’ provincial involvements were sometimes indirect, reactive, or performed through intermediaries, but the so-called cursus publicus strengthened Augustus’ hold on the provinces, as did loyalty ceremonies.

This chapter begins by considering the origins of the intellectual tradition that shaped Western law, which can be traced back to the late Roman Republic in the second century bc when the Romans began to produce jurists. The discussions then turn to the method used by Roman jurists; Roman law and Greek philosophy; Roman law and later civil law; and Roman law and common law.