A Companion To The Political Culture Of The Roman Republic

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. Divided into six parts, the discussions consider the institutionalized loci, political actors, and values, rituals, and discourse that characterized Republican Rome. The Companion also offers several case studies and sections on the history of the interpretation of political life in the Roman Republic. Key features include: A thorough introduction to the Roman political world as seen through the wider lenses of Roman political culture Comprehensive explorations of the fundamental components of Roman political culture, including ideas and values, civic and religious rituals, myths, and communicative strategies Practical discussions of Roman Republic institutions, both with reference to their formal rules and prescriptions, and as patterns of social organization In depth examinations of the 'afterlife' of the Roman Republic, both in ancient authors and in early modern and modern times Perfect for students of all levels of the ancient world, A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic will also earn a place in the libraries of scholars and students of politics, political history, and the history of ideas.

"The decision to dedicate an entire volume to the study of the political culture of the Roman Republic reflects what is currently the most comprehensive approach to the subject traditionally labelled as Roman Republican politics (for a definition of the concept of 'political culture' and its history in the field of Roman studies see Hölkeskamp, ch. 1). This volume analyses the Roman political world through the wider lenses of 'Roman political culture', in full recognition that, alongside the working of the political and religious institutions and their related officers, a system of shared values, traditions, and communicative strategies played a fundamental role in the social and political life of Rome throughout the Republic. The subject has been at the centre of an intensely contested debate for centuries and Part 1 (supplemented by chapter 1) traces the modern history of this. Needless to say, the subject goes right back to contemporary discourse, beginning for us with Polybius, whose account perhaps already foreshadows some of the wider approaches now being advocated - and it is to the ancient accounts that Part 2 is dedicated. More recently, modern historians have broadly approached the study of the Republican political life of Rome following three main strands: first, the study of its legal system, its institutions, and rules and regulations; second, the investigation of the social interactions amongst the members of the elite (which, under the impetus of neo-Marxist approaches of the later 20th century, extended to a growing interest in their interactions with the wider Roman people and the latter's socio-economic demands); and finally, the analysis of the 'political grammar', as Meier (1980) called it, which put an emphasis on shared beliefs, values, myths, traditions, and symbolic communication of the political system. Each of these approaches has yielded important results, which, however, taken separately, provide a somewhat fragmented view of Roman political world"--

In recent decades, scholars have argued that the Roman Republic's political culture was essentially democratic in nature, stressing the central role of the 'sovereign' people and their assemblies. Karl-J. Hölkeskamp challenges this view in Reconstructing the Roman Republic, warning that this scholarly trend threatens to become the new orthodoxy, and defending the position that the republic was in fact a uniquely Roman, dominantly oligarchic and aristocratic political form. Hölkeskamp offers a comprehensive, in-depth survey of the modern debate surrounding the Roman Republic. He looks at the ongoing controversy first triggered in the 1980s when the 'oligarchic orthodoxy' was called into question by the idea that the republic's political culture was a form of Greek-style democracy, and he considers the important theoretical and methodological advances of the 1960s and 1970s that prepared the ground for this debate. Hölkeskamp renews and refines the 'elitist' view, showing how the republic was a unique kind of premodern city-state political culture shaped by a specific variant of a political class. He covers a host of fascinating topics, including the Roman value system; the senatorial aristocracy; competition in war and politics within this aristocracy; and the symbolic language of public rituals and ceremonies, monuments, architecture, and urban topography. Certain to inspire continued debate, Reconstructing the Roman Republic offers fresh approaches to the study of the republic while attesting to the field's enduring vitality.

This second edition examines all aspects of Roman history, and contains a new introduction, three new chapters and updated bibliographies.

Publisher Description

This is a comprehensive analysis of the idea of libertas and its conflicting uses in the political struggles of the late Roman Republic. By reconstructing Roman political thinking about liberty against the background of Classical and Hellenistic thought, it excavates two distinct intellectual traditions on the means allowing for the preservation and the loss of libertas. Considering the interplay of these traditions in the political debates of the first century BC, Dr Arena offers a significant reinterpretation of the political struggles of the time as well as a radical reappraisal of the role played by the idea of liberty in the practice of politics. She argues that, as a result of its uses in rhetorical debates, libertas underwent a form of conceptual change at the end of the Republic and came to legitimise a new course of politics, which led progressively to the transformation of the whole political system.

Examines the clash between political systems and political action as the Roman Republic disintegrated.

A very readable introduction exploring much-contested issues and debates, and providing an original synthesis of this important topic.