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It is largely thanks to Zvi Yavetz that the Roman plebs has become “Salonfähig”. In numerous important studies Yavetz has focused his — and our — attention on the problem of the relationship between the ruler and the masses of the ruled. Thus, it seemed natural to choose various aspects of this relationship as the topic of a volume in his honour. The articles here contributed by thirteen eminent friends and colleagues deal with historical and theoretical questions of the relationship between “the one” and “the many”, covering a period from the second century B.C., through the times of the Late Republic and the Principate, to Late Antiquity and, finally, to an intriguing view at modern totalitarianism as perceived from an Enlightenment perspective.
A very readable introduction exploring much-contested issues and debates, and providing an original synthesis of this important topic.
This volume has its origin in the 14th University of South Africa Classics Colloquium in which the topic and title of the event were inspired by Josiah Ober’s seminal work Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989). Indeed the influence this work has had on later research in all aspects of the Greek and Roman world is reflected by the diversity of the papers collected here, which take their cue and starting point from the argument that, in Ober’s words (1989, 338): ‘Rhetorical communication between masses and elites... was a primary means by which the strategic ends of social stability and political order were achieved.’ However, the contributors to the volume have also sought to build further on such conclusions and to offer new perceptions about a spread of issues affecting mass and elite interaction in a far wider number of locations around the ancient Mediterranean over a much longer chronological span. Thus the conclusions here suggest that once the concept of mass and elite was established in the minds of Greeks and later Romans it became a universal component of political life and from there was easily transferred to economic activity or religion. In casting the net beyond the confines of Athens (although the city is also represented here) to – amongst others – Syracuse, the cities of Asia Minor, Pompeii and Rome, and to literary and philosophical discourse, in each instance that interplay between the wider body of the community and the hierarchically privileged can be shown to have governed and directed the thoughts and actions of the participants.
A preeminent classical scholar on the emergence of one of our most familiar social divisions.
This book highlights the role played by public, political discourse in shaping the distribution of power between Senate and People in the Late Roman Republic. Against the background of the debate between 'oligarchical' and 'democratic' interpretations of Republican politics, Robert Morstein-Marx emphasizes the perpetual negotiation and reproduction of political power through mass communication. The book analyses the ideology of Republican mass oratory and situates its rhetoric fully within the institutional and historical context of the public meetings (contiones) in which these speeches were heard. Examples of contional orations, drawn chiefly from Cicero and Sallust, are subjected to an analysis that is influenced by contemporary political theory and empirical studies of public opinion and the media, rooted in a detailed examination of key events and institutional structures, and illuminated by a vivid sense of the urban space in which the contio was set.
The inspiration for this volume comes from the work of its dedicatee, Brent D. Shaw, who is one of the most original and wide-ranging historians of the ancient world of the last half-century and continues to open up exciting new fields for exploration. Each of the distinguished contributors has produced a cutting-edge exploration of a topic in the history and culture of the Roman Empire dealing with a subject on which Professor Shaw has contributed valuable work. Three major themes extend across the volume as a whole. First, the ways in which the Roman world represented an intricate web of connections even while many people's lives remained fragmented and local. Second, the ways in which the peculiar Roman space promoted religious competition in a sophisticated marketplace for practices and beliefs, with Christianity being a major benefactor. Finally, the varying forms of violence which were endemic within and between communities.
The issue of leadership is crucial to Polybius’ desire to explain the rise of Rome over almost the entire known world and provide benefit and utility to readers who may have to assume positions of responsibility. This book focuses on descriptions of leadership behaviors in the Histories, aiming to identify regularly recurring patterns, motifs, and themes in the relevant passages, which could, precisely because of their persistence, heighten our sensitivity to the subtleties of Polybius’ treatment of the subject. Given that the interest in leadership permeates Polybius’ work and engages with his main thematic concerns, this study brings the reader face-to-face with questions of power and control, identity and nationality, the role of fortune, narrative strategies, thereby providing a basis for reading the Histories more generally. At the same time, a major concern throughout the book is with the ways Polybius’ representation of leadership seems to have been influenced by literary depictions of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Polybius’ interplay with his literary context and tradition deepens our understanding of what he is trying to accomplish in the narrative and how he is interacting with the expectations of his audiences.
This 2006 book examines hostage-taking in ancient Rome, which was a standard practice of international diplomacy. Hundreds of foreign hostages, typically adolescents, were detained as the empire grew in the Republic and early Principate.
The study of Roman society and social relations blossomed in the 1970s. By now, we possess a very large literature on the individuals and groups that constituted the Roman community, and the various ways in which members of that community interacted. There simply is, however, no overview that takes into account the multifarious progress that has been made in the past thirty-odd years. The purpose of this handbook is twofold. On the one hand, it synthesizes what has heretofore been accomplished in this field. On the other hand, it attempts to configure the examination of Roman social relations in some new ways, and thereby indicates directions in which the discipline might now proceed. The book opens with a substantial general introduction that portrays the current state of the field, indicates some avenues for further study, and provides the background necessary for the following chapters. It lays out what is now known about the historical development of Roman society and the essential structures of that community. In a second introductory article, Clifford Ando explains the chronological parameters of the handbook. The main body of the book is divided into the following six sections: 1) Mechanisms of Socialization (primary education, rhetorical education, family, law), 2) Mechanisms of Communication and Interaction, 3) Communal Contexts for Social Interaction, 4) Modes of Interpersonal Relations (friendship, patronage, hospitality, dining, funerals, benefactions, honor), 5) Societies Within the Roman Community (collegia, cults, Judaism, Christianity, the army), and 6) Marginalized Persons (slaves, women, children, prostitutes, actors and gladiators, bandits). The result is a unique, up-to-date, and comprehensive survey of ancient Roman society.
Miriam Griffin is unrivalled as a bridge-builder between historians of the Graeco-Roman world and students of its philosophies. This volume in her honour brings togetherseventeen international specialists. Their essays range from Socrates to late antiquity, extending to Diogenes, Cicero, Plinythe Elder, Marcus Aurelius, the Second Sophistic, Ulpian, Augustine, the Neoplatonist tradition, women philosophers, provision for basic human needs, the development of law, the formulation of imperial power, and the interpretation of Judaism and early Christianity. Emperors and drop-outs, mediastars and administrators, top politicians and abstruse professionals, even ordinary citizens in their epitaphs, were variously called philosophers. Philosophy could offer those in power moral support or confrontation, a language for making choices or an intellectual diversion, but they mightdisregard philosophy and get on with the exercise of power. 'Philosophy' means 'love of wisdom', but what was the power of philosophy?