Table Of ContentS
ROMAN REPUBLICS
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ROMAN REPUBLICS
harriet i. flower
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PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2010 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Flower, Harriet I.
Roman republics / Harriet I. Flower.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-14043-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Rome—Politics and government—265–30 B.C.
2. Rome—History—Republic, 265–30 B.C. I. Title.
DG231.F567 2010
937’.02—dc22 2009004551
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed on acid-free paper. b
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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This book is dedicated to the memory of my father
Michael G. Dealtry
(September 5, 1925–November 25, 2005)
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nostra vero aetas, cum rem publicam sicut picturam accepis-
set egregiam sed iam evanesentem vetustate, non modo eam
coloribus eisdem quibus fuerat renovare neglexit, sed ne id
quidem curavit ut formam saltem eius et extrema tamquam
lineamenta servaret.
In truth, our own generation, although it inherited the res pu-
blica as if it were a master painting, yet one that was now
fading as a result of age, not only failed to restore it with the
same colors that had been there before, but did not even see
to it that at least its design and as it were its basic outlines
were preserved.
Cicero De republica 5.2, written in the late 50s BC
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xv
PART ONE: FRAMEWORK
I Introduction
Periodization and the End of the Roman Republic 3
II Toward a New Paradigm: “Roman Republics” 18
III Early Republics (Fifth and Fourth Centuries) 35
PART TWO: CHANGE
IV Political Innovations: A Community in Transition
(Second Century) 61
V Violence and the Breakdown of the Political Process
(133–81) 80
VI External Pressures on Internal Politics (140–83) 97
PART THREE: AFTERMATH
VII An Alternative to a Crisis: Sulla’s New Republic 117
VIII After the Shipwreck (78–49) 135
IX Implications 154
Appendix
An Assortment of Timelines, the Hellenistic Age and
Republican Time, Temple Time 173
Bibliography 181
Index 201
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PREFACE
Crisis n., point or time of deciding anything, the decisive moment
or turning point.
Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1973)
A vitally important or decisive stage in the progress of anything,
a turning-point, a state of affairs in which a decisive change for
better or worse is imminent, now applied esp. to times of difficulty,
insecurity and suspense in politics or commerce.
Compact Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1991)
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his book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Michael
Gerald Dealtry, who planted the first seeds of the central idea
that inspired its writing. Some years ago, when I was editing
The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cam-
bridge, 2004), he questioned me about the use of the word
“crisis” in the title of a chapter that described the period in
Roman republican history between 133 and 49 BC (chap. 4).
He felt that the term “crisis” was being misused, since a crisis
was by definition an acute event of short duration with a mea-
surable outcome. How could there be a crisis that went on
for over eighty years? He advised me simply to use a different
word in this chapter heading.
At first I was resistant to his suggestion, which I did not act
upon, thinking that I simply needed to explain to him more
clearly the traditional periodization and classification of the
Late Republic, which has often been described as a crisis.
Later the force of his argument came home to me, at a time
when I was working in more detail on the time of Marius and
Sulla (ca. 120–78 BC), a period that in modern discussions has
often been overshadowed by subsequent events. Meanwhile, a
decade of teaching undergraduate surveys of Roman history
has made me acutely aware of the challenges of framing and
summarizing the essentials of republican politics in terms that
are accessible to beginners.
Description:From the Renaissance to today, the idea that the Roman Republic lasted more than 450 years--persisting unbroken from the late sixth century to the mid-first century BC--has profoundly shaped how Roman history is understood, how the ultimate failure of Roman republicanism is explained, and how republ
