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12 results

  • Chapter 5 - Caesar the Epicurean? A Matter of Life and Death

  • from Part I - Epicurus and Roman Identities
  • Edited by Sergio Yona, University of Missouri, Columbia, Gregson Davis, Duke University, North Carolina
  • Book:
    Epicurus in Rome
    Published online:
    13 January 2023
    Print publication:
    09 February 2023, pp 72-86
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  • Summary

    This chapter reexamines the question of Caesar’s putative Epicureanism. While there is no reason to believe that Caesar was a committed Epicurean, there exist tantalizing pieces of evidence that he may have adopted for himself a version of the tenet that “death is nothing to us.” These include his observation, in his speech about the convicted Catilinarians (as reported by Sallust), that death is not a punishment but the endpoint of all experience, and his late-in-life statement (versions of which are found in Cicero’s Pro Marcello and in Suetonius) that he had “lived enough.” The chapter concludes by considering the criteria scholars typically employ for gauging philosophical affiliation in antiquity, arguing for a broadening of definitions and for considering even a some-time Epicurean as Caesar as part of the history of Epicureanism.

  • Chapter 5 - Caesar the Epicurean? A Matter of Life and Death

  • from Part I - Epicurus and Roman Identities
  • Edited by Sergio Yona, University of Missouri, Columbia, Gregson Davis, Duke University, North Carolina
  • Book:
    Epicurus in Rome
    Published online:
    13 January 2022
    Print publication:
    27 January 2022, pp 72-86

  • Summary

    This chapter reexamines the question of Caesar’s putative Epicureanism. While there is no reason to believe that Caesar was a committed Epicurean, there exist tantalizing pieces of evidence that he may have adopted for himself a version of the tenet that “death is nothing to us.” These include his observation, in his speech about the convicted Catilinarians (as reported by Sallust), that death is not a punishment but the endpoint of all experience, and his late-in-life statement (versions of which are found in Cicero’s Pro Marcello and in Suetonius) that he had “lived enough.” The chapter concludes by considering the criteria scholars typically employ for gauging philosophical affiliation in antiquity, arguing for a broadening of definitions and for considering even a some-time Epicurean as Caesar as part of the history of Epicureanism.

  • Dismembering Cominius: Political Violence and Iambic Aggression in Catullus 108

  • Robert Cowan
  • Journal:
    Antichthon / Volume 55 / 2021
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    11 February 2022, pp. 53-73
    Print publication:
    2021

  • Carmen 108 is one of the most neglected and unloved in the Catullan corpus. When it is mentioned in scholarship, it is either as a distastefully extreme instance of iambic invective or the object of a prosopographical exercise in identifying the addressee, Cominius. Gnilka alone has tried to situate it in the context of late Republican political violence, in particularly public lynching. Instead of isolating these two aspects of the poem from each other, this article argues that c. 108 is a self-conscious exploration of the interaction between poetic form and hors-texte. The terms of the invective situate it firmly within the tradition of Archilochean and Hipponactean iambos and it may even allude directly to a fragment of the latter. Yet the threats of violence are transformed when recontextualized within the world of the late Republic, where such literary violence was very much a reality. The poem performs a symbolic dismemberment of Cominius’ body, but one that cannot be safely separated from acts of mob violence in the period. The pragmatics of Catullan iambos explores the limits of verbal violence as speech-act and the point at which hate-speech becomes indistinguishable from the violence it incites.

  • 2 - Competition, Legitimacy and Civil War (49–44 BC)

  • Clare Rowan, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    From Caesar to Augustus (c. 49 BC–AD 14)
    Published online:
    03 October 2018
    Print publication:
    25 October 2018, pp 23-56

  • Summary

    A discussion of the coinage struck by Julius Caesar after he crossed the Rubicon and before his assassination. The Gallic Wars, Venus and the accumulation of Caesar's titles form the focus of this discussion. The issues of Caesar's opponents (Scipio Metellus in Africa, and the sons of Pompey in Spain) are also explored in detail. An exploration of the reception of Caesar's ideology in the provinces is also provided, demonstrating the visual and ideological dialogue that took place on coins in this period.

From Caesar to Augustus (c. 49 BC–AD 14)
  • Using Coins as Sources
  • Clare Rowan
  • Published online:
    03 October 2018
    Print publication:
    25 October 2018
  • This unique book provides the student of Roman history with an accessible and detailed introduction to Roman and provincial coinage in the late Republic and early Empire in the context of current historical themes and debates. Almost two hundred different coins are illustrated at double life size, with each described in detail, and technical Latin and numismatic terms are explained. Chapters are arranged chronologically, allowing students to quickly identify material relevant to Julius Caesar, the second triumvirate, the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra, and the Principate of Augustus. Iconography, archaeological contexts, and the economy are clearly presented. A diverse array of material is brought together in a single volume to challenge and enhance our understanding of the transition from Republic to Empire.

  • 5 - Warfare and the state

  • from Part I - The Late Republic and the Principate
    • By Dominic, Professor of Ancient History, King’s College London, Richard, Professor of Ancient History, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 158-197

  • Summary

    The extant literature of the Roman world of the late Republic and Principate has occasional brief references to soldiers' pay, preparations for particular campaigns and the burden of military expenses. The four centuries of the late Republic and Principate are supposed to have seen two major changes in Roman military provisioning: introduction of a civil administration supplying the dispersed units of the army of the Principate; and the abandonment of this system in the third century AD in favour of direct requisitioning of supplies by the army. The lack of ancient statistics makes it difficult to assess the overall impact of the Roman army and warfare on the economy of the Roman world. Six decades of regular civil wars ushered in a period of two centuries in which civil political conflicts did not escalate into war. The chapter also discusses this Roman revolution and the removal of the soldiery from the politics of the imperial centre.

  • 2 - Military forces

  • from Part I - The Late Republic and the Principate
    • By Boris Rankov, Professor of Roman History, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 30-75

  • Summary

    The period of the late Republic and early Principate is one in which Rome's military forces underwent a transformation in almost all aspects. C. Marius, a senator, used the popular revulsion against the aristocratic mismanagement of Rome's armies, obtained the command in Africa for himself. The army he employed to win his African victories had been subject to better individual training than before. In the course of Augustus' reign, a standing Roman army was set up on a permanent basis, under the command of the reigning emperor and the direct control of his appointed legates. The legions of the Principate were equipped with 120 cavalry. In the middle Republic, each legion had had 300, drawn from the very wealthiest members of society, including senators. Octavian, Caesar's great-nephew, stationed troops in Rome on a standing basis for the first time, although both he and his successors were careful as far as possible not to offend lingering Republican sensibilities.

  • 3 - War

  • from Part I - The Late Republic and the Principate
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 76-121

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the types of war fought by the Roman army in the late Republic and Principate. It examines the context in which these conflicts occurred, their frequency, duration, decisiveness and results. Much of the chapter deals with strategy, or the practical factors such as intelligence, communications and logistics which impose limits upon it. It is convenient to divide the foreign wars fought by the army in this period into four broad groups: wars of conquest, wars to suppress rebellion, punitive expeditions, and wars fought in response to invasions or raids. Beyond the desire of the emperor to prevent the movement of troops for one operation causing problems in other areas, it is hard to see how any form of grand strategy could have coped with so many local, ever-changing problems. The strategy in civil wars was always simple and wars ended with the death of one of the rival leaders. Compromises were inevitably temporary.

  • 6 - War and Society

  • from Part I - The Late Republic and the Principate
    • By Colin Adams, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, University of Liverpool
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 198-232

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses two themes related to Roman warfare in the late Republic and early Principate: the impact of society and social structures on the conduct of war, and the reciprocal effect of war on society. It focuses on the changing character of external wars in the late Republic, the pressures which this caused in Rome and Italy, both socially and politically, and how these were eventually to lead to internal or civil wars which tore the Roman Republic apart. No matter what the causes of wars were, there is no doubt that there was a massive influx of public and private wealth and slaves into Italy in the second century BC and beyond. The human cost of wars in Italy, and throughout the Mediterranean world, must have been great. The effect of Roman imperialism in the Mediterranean and beyond was determined not just by events on the ground, but in the political developments in the city of Rome itself.

  • 19 - The Late Republic

  • from Part V - Early Italy and the Roman Republic
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 511-540

  • Summary

    This chapter answers questions about economic growth in the late Republic, with a focus on the per capita GDP growth, and the reasons behind the growth or the lack of it. It examines the features of the Roman world which assisted growth or impeded it. The most important thing the Roman government did for the Roman economy was to conquer vast territories; the next most important thing, in this period, was probably to found colonies. Proof positive that the traditional understanding of Roman money is mistaken appears in 49 when the credit system tottered under the impact of civil war: nervous creditors began to seek payment even of the principal in silver, that is, coin. The conditions of labor, at least in the central parts of the Roman world, were dominated by slavery. It is estimated that in the very late Republic there were always four to eight million slaves and serfs in the Roman empire.

  • 11 - The army and the navy

  • from PART II - THE GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE
  • Edited by Alan K. Bowman, University of Oxford, Edward Champlin, Princeton University, New Jersey, Andrew Lintott, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 February 1996, pp 371-396

  • Summary

    By the middle of the first century BC the Roman army had developed over centuries of all but continuous warfare into a professionally minded force. By the middle of Augustus' reign the number of legions in service stood at twenty-eight. Almost all had seen service in the civil wars. Throughout the late Republic the length of service required of a man joining the legions had been a minimum of six years. Initially the cohorts were responsible directly to Augustus himself, but in 2 BC he appointed two equestrians as praefecti praetorio, i.e. prefects of the praetorium. These were men of administrative ability rather than military expertise. Normally, throughout the Julio-Claudian period, there continued to be two prefects, but on occasion a single individual held sole command. The Roman army of the later first century AD could still look on occasion to forward movement, but for the most part it was settling to a static role of frontier defence.