N. Rosenstein – A Companion To The Roman Republic

Автор: N. Rosenstein
Название книги: A Companion To The Roman Republic
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Древний мир и Античность
Страницы: 756
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

This Companion provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of Roman Republican history as it is currently practiced.
Highlights recent developments, including archaeological discoveries, fresh approaches to textual sources, and the opening up of new areas of historical study
Retains the drama of the Republic’s rise and fall
Emphasizes not just the evidence of texts and physical remains, but also the models and assumptions that scholars bring to these artefacts
Looks at the role played by the physical geography and environment of Italy
Offers a compact but detailed narrative of military and political developments from the birth of the Roman Republic through to the death of Julius Caesar
Discusses current controversies in the field

When Al Bertrand first approached us about undertaking this volume in the Blackwell
Companions to the Ancient World series, in the spring of 2000, the need for it
seemed self-evident. Older works like the venerable surveys of H. H. Scullard were
very dated both in their overall approach to the subject and their presentation of
major controversies. Meanwhile, the continuing archaeological exploration of Italy
had vastly enriched our picture of early Rome as well as the Republic. Increasingly
sophisticated analysis of the literary aims and research methods of the Latin historiographical
tradition had heightened the challenge of confronting the great evidentiary
problems of republican history. A sociological approach and a reorientation of perspective
from Rome to the imperial periphery had combined to revitalize our understanding
of Roman imperialism. Even the study of politics had moved well beyond
prosopography and the play of factions; ‘‘political culture’’ had moved to the front
and center, and types of evidence formerly neglected were being scrutinized with
methods relatively new to the Roman historian. We felt that the time was ripe for a
book that could provide students, scholars, and general readers with an up-to-date,
one-volume companion to the history of republican Rome, comprising a series of
essays on central themes and debates by a number of leading scholars in the field.
Although we expected its primary readership to be undergraduate and graduate
students, we also hoped that the volume would highlight some of the best recent
work in various areas of specialization and thus be of interest to scholars both inside
and outside this particular area of study. In the meantime the Cambridge Companion
to the Roman Republic edited by Harriet Flower has appeared, boasting excellent
contributions by a number of distinguished scholars, a few of whom have also
contributed to our volume. That admirable work went far to meet the need just
described, yet we hope readers will agree that there is still room for another book of
this nature. In keeping with the generous parameters laid down for the series, the
Blackwell Companion to the Roman Republic is considerably larger, which should
allow for more exposition, analysis, and narrative over a wider variety of topics in
greater depth and detail.
Our broad goal has been to present a variety of important themes in republican
history as it is currently practiced while still retaining the narrative force and drama of
the Republic’s rise and fall. Our introductory section emphasizes the raw material of
ancient history – not simply the evidence of texts and physical remains, but broader
questions of the models and assumptions that scholars have brought to these artifacts,
whether consciously or not, and that continue to shape their interpretations of them.
The section opens with a broad historiographical survey of scholarship on the
Republic from the early twentieth century up to the present. Chapters 2 and 3 on
literary sources, and epigraphy and numismatics introduce readers to crucial types of
evidence for the Roman Republican historian, while Chapter 4 surveys the development
of the archaeological ‘‘face’’ of the Roman city from the beginning of the
Republic to its end. Scholars are also now more than ever aware of the role that the
physical environment and landscape have played in shaping the human actions that
have taken place within them: hence Chapter 5, ‘‘The Physical Geography and
Environment of Italy.’’ Part II consists of four chapters of compact but relatively
detailed narrative of military and political developments from the city’s origins to the
death of Julius Caesar. The central goal of this part of the book is to delineate clearly
the diachronic framework for the distinct thematic chapters to follow, where analysis
and problems of interpretation can be more fully treated. The remainder of the
volume is organized under several broad rubrics intended to highlight recent research
and current debates in the field. Part III, ‘‘Civic Structures,’’ examines the fundamental
underpinnings of the Republic (religion, law, the constitution, and the army)
while Part IV (social structure, demography, and Roman women) surveys the wealth
of studies that have enriched these topics in recent years. Part V, ‘‘Political Culture,’’
examines the city of Rome, aristocratic values, popular power, patronage, rhetoric and
public life, and reflects the important, new research on these subjects that has
energized and enlarged the study of the Republic’s political history. Included here
is Chapter 21, ‘‘The Republican Body,’’ which exemplifies how contemporary studies
of republican cultural history are opening important new perspectives on the ways in
which power and authority were constructed and wielded in the political arena at
Rome. The contemporary focus on the process by which a collective sense of
‘‘Romanness’’ was forged out of the rich diversity of Italy (Romans and ‘‘others,’’
history and collective memory, art, literature) is examined in ‘‘The Creation of a
Roman Identity’’ (Part VI). The final, seventh part treats a selection of perennial
‘‘controversies’’ (imperialism, agrarian change, Rome’s relations with Italy, and the
Republic’s ‘‘fall’’).
While the seven parts of the book group obviously related themes or types of study,
readers should not allow this structure to obscure the many connections that exist
between chapters that appear in different sections. We have attempted to mark the
more direct interconnections by cross-referencing, but it may also be helpful to
highlight in advance a few such points of contact that may not be immediately
obvious from a mere perusal of the list of contents. The physical remains, topography,
and monuments of the city of Rome during the Republic are discussed in some detail
in various parts of the volume: not only Chapters 4 and 16, those most explicitly
focused on the urban environment, but 23 (on Roman ‘‘collective memory’’) and 24
(art and architecture) as well. A reader exploring ‘‘political culture’’ or the current
debate about Roman ‘‘democracy’’ would do well to start with Chapter 1, which
contains an extensive critical review of recent work in this area, before moving on to
Part V; and Chapter 23 relates just as closely with this group as it does with those in
its immediate proximity. Similarly, readers particularly interested in Part IV’s exploration
of society should look also to Chapters 13 (on the army), 16 (city of Rome), 19
(patronage) and 27 (economy). Chapters 4 (archaeology) and 20 (rhetoric and public
life) contribute notably in their own right to the topic of Part VI, ‘‘The Creation of a
Roman Identity.’’ Finally, the special problems posed by the literary sources for the
early Republic are discussed extensively in the relevant narrative chapter (6) as well as,
rather more briefly, the introduction to literary sources in Chapter 2.
Inevitably, some topics and issues are more fully explored than others. Certain
omissions proved impossible to remedy within the limitations of time and space under
which we were working: so, for example, we regret the lack of an introduction to
archaeological methods and approaches to Republican history, and also of a study of
the provinces as such. Yet we hope that in sum these chapters will convey the wide
interest of much of the work currently being done in Roman Republican history,
broadly defined. We are particularly pleased to present here the work of a number of
leading international scholars who normally write in languages other than English,
and we hope that one of the chief merits of this volume will be to introduce
Anglophone students (and perhaps some scholars) to this important body of work.
We warmly thank all of our contributors for their good humor, mostly good
timing, and tolerant submission to our occasional editorial hectoring. Those who
submitted contributions in foreign languages were very generous with their time in
responding to our many queries. We also wish to thank the many others who
lightened the burden of bringing this project to fruition. The series editor, Al
Bertrand, was responsible for the inception of this book and has remained a constant
source of help and encouragement throughout its long and at times difficult gestation.
We also thank Angela Cohen and the production staff at Blackwell for their
responsiveness and patience. Translations of Chapter 1 by Benjamin Wolkow and of
Chapters 19 and 29 by Robert Martz served as the basis for the final versions, and
Denice Fett ably shouldered much of the enormous burden of compiling the bibliography.
Mark Pobjoy assisted us enormously by correcting a number of potentially
confusing slips in the bibliography. Finally, and most importantly, we would like to
thank our families, Sara, Eric, and Matthew, Anne and Zoe¨, for their understanding
and support through this project which consumed so much of our time and attention.
Robert Morstein-Marx