Author: Andrew Lintott Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191584673 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 313
Book Description
There is no other published book in English studying the constitution of the Roman Republic as a whole. Yet the Greek historian Polybius believed that the constitution was a fundamental cause of the exponential growth of Rome's empire. He regarded the Republic as unusual in two respects: first, because it functioned so well despite being a mix of monarchy, oligarchy and democracy; secondly, because the constitution was the product of natural evolution rather than the ideals of a lawgiver. Even if historians now seek more widely for the causes of Rome's rise to power, the importance and influence of her political institutions remains. The reasons for Rome's power are both complex, on account of the mix of elements, and flexible, inasmuch as they were not founded on written statutes but on unwritten traditions reinterpreted by successive generations. Knowledge of Rome's political institutions is essential both for ancient historians and for those who study the contribution of Rome to the republican tradition of political thought from the Middle Ages to the revolutions inspired by the Enlightenment.
Author: Benjamin Straumann Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019995092X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 433
Book Description
The crisis and fall of the Roman Republic spawned a tradition of political thought that sought to evade the Republic's fate--despotism. Thinkers from Cicero to Bodin, Montesquieu, and the American Founders saw constitutionalism, not virtue, as the remedy. This study traces Roman constitutional thought from antiquity to the Revolutionary Era.
Author: Henrik Mouritsen Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1107031885 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 215
Book Description
A very readable introduction exploring much-contested issues and debates, and providing an original synthesis of this important topic.
Author: Karl-J. Hölkeskamp Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691140383 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 207
Book Description
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.
Author: Fergus Millar Publisher: UPNE ISBN: 9781584651994 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 220
Book Description
An experienced scholar explains why the legendary early Republic, rather than the historical Republic of Cicero, has most influenced later political thought.
Author: Harriet I. Flower Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1107032245 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 519
Book Description
This second edition examines all aspects of Roman history, and contains a new introduction, three new chapters and updated bibliographies.
Author: Andrew Lintott
Author: Thomas Marris Taylor
Author: Benjamin Straumann
Author: Henrik Mouritsen
Author: Christopher S. Mackay
Author: T. M. Taylor
Author: Karl-J. Hölkeskamp
Author: Fergus Millar
Author: Harriet I. Flower
Author: Jed W. Atkins