Remembering the Roman People: Essays on Late-Republican Politics and Literature

by T. P. Wiseman

Overview

In the Roman republic, only the People could pass laws, only the People could elect politicians to office, and the very word republica meant 'the People's business'. So why is it always assumed that the republic was an oligarchy? The main reason is that most of what we know about it we know from Cicero, a great man and a great writer, but also an active right-wing politician who took it for granted that what was good for a small minority of self-styled 'best people' (optimates) was good for the republic as a whole. T. P. Wiseman interprets the last century of the republic on the assumption that the People had a coherent political ideology of its own, and that the optimates, with their belief in justified murder, were responsible for the breakdown of the republic in civil war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191617010
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	06/30/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	20 MB
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About the Author

T. P. Wiseman is Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Exeter

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations viii

Abbreviations ix

Introduction 1

1 Roman History and the Ideological Vaccum 5

2 The Fall and Rise of Gaius Geta 33

3 Licinius Macer, Juno Moneta, and Veiovis 59

4 Romulus' Rome of Equals 81

5 Macaulay on Cicero 99

6 Cicero and Varro 107

7 Marcopolis 131

8 The Political Stage 153

9 The Ethics of Murder 177

10 After the Ides of March 211

Epilogue 235

Bibliography 239

Chronological Index 255

Index Locorum 258

General Index 264