The Late Roman Republic 133 – 43 BCE
A major review and
encyclopedic survey for this period is now the Cambridge Ancient History Vol IX (CAH IX 2008). The end point of the Republic is ascribed to
43 BCE because of the deaths of both Marc Antony in August and of Cicero on
December 7, 43 BC and because Cicero represents the cultural and philosophical
aspirations of the Republic as a representative form of elite administrative
power and rule by the wealthy landholders of the Late Republic. If Julius Caesar’s assassination on the Ides
of March in 44 was a crisis point for the Fall of the Republic, it is the total
ursurpation of power by Octavian (later to be called Caesar Augustus) in August
43 BC that also signals the Fall of the Republic. Thereafter we find a major
power shift away from the active role of the Senate as a body of consultation
and toward imperial rule as an institution reliant upon the strong man,
military command. Here one may see that
the needs of empire outweighed the more localist or regional homeland needs of
the Senate and Republic and that the form of the Empire called for a new and
more centralized system of command and control with the provinces. A study of whether or how Senators shift their interests to overseas landholdings and profit from the Empire would be worthwhile.
A survey of recent
methodologies and historical research of the Late Republic offers an attempt to
balance socio-economic, cultural and political sources with advances in
archaeological research (Lintott 2008). Of particular note are the Greek historical
accounts by Polybius and Posidonius, both of whom offer interpretive analysis
that move beyond the writing of history as annals of events. The chief Roman historian of the period was
Livy, whose works takes us through the period of Cicero. Unfortunately, Livy’s later works and volumes
have been lost. Two later Roman
historians, Appian and Cassius Dio also commented on the period of the Late
Republic. It is the substantial collection of essays,
speeches and letters of Cicero, the
contemporary Senator and master of rhetoric, and a prominent villa owner, that
renders the most vivid of insights into the politics and culture of the late
Republic. Some of his accounts of the
politics and intrigue are now regarded as politically charged and exaggerated,
but these problems actually may be read as insight into what we may call the
deep politics of Late Republic power and
conflict. What was the nature of secret
dealing and back handed compliments, of double dealing and bribery? A reading of Cicero provides both the
philosophical ideals and the questionable ethics and doubts of the times.
I would argue against this rather conservative approach to history and to read of the very ordinariness with which Cicero describes his own wealth and status. In his letter to his brother Quintus in Thessalonika, Greece, he casually discusses the arrangement of sending slaves to his brother (Cicero 1909). The geographic range of his letters to contacts and family, from Greece to Sardinia, and to Britain, as well as numerous letters to or from his country estate at Brundisium to Rome, also indicate the geographic range of his immediate contacts and interests.
Sallust is also highly
instructive to read, both for the Catiline, his chronicle of the complex
intrigue of the Catiline Conspiracy, and his Histories of the Jugurthine war in
Africa. From Sallust we derive much
about the nature of acquisition of sudden and vast wealth and the disparity of
rampant poverty throughout the empire (Lintott 2008, 8). The classic modern history of the Roman
Republic is the 19th century German historian Theodor Mommsen, who accepts
the inevitable rise of the military into power and the collapse of the
Republic. Later works by Münser and
Gelzer and Brunt take up more of the political struggle and question of
struggle between patricians and plebeians. It is certainly the latter who
suffer a loss of status with the demise of the Republic.
From the middle of the
2nd century BC, even after the sack of their archrival Carthage in
North Africa, the Roman Empire still faced challenges to the limits of its
power, particularly in Capadocia and Cyprus.
Despite this the Empire of the Roman Republic consolidated its gains in
Macedonia and in North Africa.
Bibliography
CAH IX. 2008. The Cambridge Ancient History: The Last Age of the Roman Republic, 146-43 B.C. Second. Edited by J.A. et al. Crook. Vol. IX. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Cicero. 1909. "Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero." In The Harvard Classics: Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicer and Letters of Gaius Plinius Caecilus Secundus, edited by Charles W. Eliot, translated by E.S. Schuckberg. New York: P.F. Collier & Son.
Lintott, Andrew. 2008. The Crisis of the Republic: Sources and Source-Problems. Vol. IX, in The Last Age of the Roman Republic, 146-43 B.C., by CAH, edited by J.A. Cook, 1. Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Livy, The History of Rome (multivolume link at Project Gutenberg
Mommsen, Theodor, The History of Rome (Römische Geschichte) multiple volumes at Project Gutenberg
Sallust, Conspiracy of Catiline and the Jugurthine War. (Project Gutenberg)
No comments:
Post a Comment