Romans - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

About This Presentation
Title:

Romans

Description:

Flexibility of Roman law (Republic, Empire, recuperated after the ... invades Alexandria; Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide; Egypt becomes a Roman province ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:545
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 22
Provided by: guillermin
Learn more at: http://plaza.ufl.edu
Category:
Tags: cleopatra | romans

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Romans


1
Romans
  • Contribution to political thought
  • Law Administration
  • Flexibility of Roman law (Republic, Empire,
    recuperated after the 15th century to sustain
    Absolutist rule, inspired most legal systems in
    the West)
  • Public/Private realms

2
  • 750 BC Formation of (Etruscan and Greek)
    city-states in the Italian peninsula ( Sicily)
  • 735-510 Monarchy in Rome (seven kings)
  • c.500 Expulsion of the king Establishment of
    the Republic
  • c. 450 Laws of the Twelve Tables
  • 241-198 First Roman provinces (Sicily, Spain)
  • 168 (end of the Macedonian monarchy) Polybius is
    brought to Rome
  • 130s Introduction of secret ballot in assemblies
  • 133-122 Gracchi
  • 90-89 Roman citizenship extended throughout Italy
  • 82-1 Dictatorship of Sulla
  • 70 Cicero prosecutes Verres (governor of Sicily)
  • 63-2- Cicero becomes consul
  • 60-59 First Triumvirate (Caesar, Crassus, Pompey)
  • 59 Caesar becomes consul
  • 58 Clodious (tribune)
  • 51-50 Cicero becomes governor of Cilicia and
    Cyprus
  • 49 Caesar crosses Rubicon River, invades Italy
    and becomes consul and dictator (48) (Pompey
    leaves and is killed in Egypt)
  • 46 Caesar consul and dictator for 10 years
  • 44 Caesar is made perpetual dictator and
    assassinated

3
Roman Republic (509 B.C. to 44, 31, 27 B.C.)
Main Institutions
In 88 B.C. Sulla disempowered the popular
assemblies (ex created a judiciary)
4
Polybius interpretation(misses the assemblies)
5
Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
  • Born in a wealthy but plebeian family (landed
    gentry)
  • Studied philosophy (Athens Rhodes 79-77 B.C.)
    and law in Rome
  • Influenced by the Greek philosophers and Stoicism
  • Looked back into the past thinking of how to
    restore the Republic (which was collapsing under
    the expansion of Rome)
  • Aristocrat against popular rule and the
    democratic party
  • 75 B.C. Quaestor in Sicily (quaestors supervised
    state finances and had seats in the Senate)
  • 69 B. C. Aedile
  • 66 B. C. Praetor
  • 63 B. C. Consul
  • 62 B. C. Cicero testifies against Clodius
    (democratic leader)
  • 58 B. C. Cicero leaves Rome Clodius declares
    him exiled
  • 57 B. C. Recalled from exile
  • 51 B. C. Proconsul of Cilicia (until middle of
    following year)
  • De Republica, De Legibus
  • 43 B. C. Cicero (and Quintus) proscribed and
    killed

6
Stoicism
  • Thinking in the new world of Empire
  • -Dissolution of communities ? Individuals
  • -Zeno (300BC) from Cyprus
  • (Wrote an anti-Republic. Theorized on the need of
    an anti-Platonic world-state, without slavery,
    with universal citizenship, equality of ALL
    women, and one law)
  • -Epictetus (AD 50-120)
  • -a slave who came to Rome from Asia Minor. His
    master allowed him to study philosophy, then
    freed him, and he founded a school.
  • -Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180)
  • Emperor (161-180), philosopher-king

?
Reason, equality, asceticism, Nature, pantheism,
life as a play
7
Hegemony
Plato
Aristotle
Polybius
Cicero
Athens Macedon
Rome
Hellenism
8
The Roman Empire
9
Ciceros Works
  • Laws (De Legibus) and the Republic (De Republica,
    preserved in parts)
  • Book VI (Scipios dream while being in Africa)
  • Many Discourses
  • Ciceros discourses are still a classical
    reference in rhetoric
  • judicial genre (accusing and defending)
  • deliberative genre (the genre of parliamentary
    and popular politics)
  • demonstrative genre (ceremonies)

Cicero Homepage http//www.utexas.edu/depts/classi
cs/documents/Cic.htmlImages
10
Philosophy Law ( Rhetoric)
  • Men are naturally gifted for virtue
  • (but) Virtue needs to be practiced/used, and its
    noblest use is the government of the State, and
    the realization in fact of those very things
    that the philosophers are continuously dinning
    in our ears. For there is no principle enunciated
    by the philosophersat least none that is just
    and honourablethat has not been discovered and
    established by those who have drawn up codes of
    law for States. (131)
  • Virtue (prudentia) is linked to rhetoric.

11
Turning virtue wisdom into law
  • Therefore the citizen who compels all men, by
    the authority of magistrates and the penalties
    imposed by law to follow the philosophers
    rules must be considered superior even to the
    teachers who enunciated these principles. For
    what speech of theirs is excellent enough to be
    preferred to a State well provided with law and
    custom? (132)

12
The philosopher/the statesman
  • For if the philosophers are repaid for the
    dangers of travel by the knowledge they gain,
    statesmen surely win a much greater reward int he
    gratitude of their fellow-citizens. (132)

13
(Against Epicurean) philosophers
  • How can it be reasonable, therefore, for them to
    promise to aid the State in case they are
    compelled by an emergency to do so, when they do
    not know how to rule the State when no emergency
    threatens it, though this is a much easier task
    than the other? (133)

14
Citizens must engage public life
  • Because it is a duty towards the country.
  • not to be ruled by wicked men and not to allow
    the republic to be destroyed by them (133)

15
Commonwealth
  • a commonwealth is the property of a people. But
    a people is not any collection of human beings
    but an assemblage of people in large numbers
    associated in an agreement with respect to
    justice and a partnership for the common good.
    (134)
  • For what is a State except an association or
    partnership in justice? (136)
  • Foundation of the city

16
Origins of the Commonwealth
  • The first cause of such an association is the
    social spirit which nature has implanted in man.
    (134)

17
Auctoritas (the city)
  • Foundation
  • For there is really no other occupation in which
    human virtue approaches more closely the august
    function of the gods than that of founding States
    or preserving those already in existence. (134)
  • Auctoritas/imperium
  • Auctoritasauctorbased upon the foundation of
    the city of Rome (magistrates did not use force
    they were invested with auctoritas)

18
Natural Equality
  • if bad habits and false beliefs did not twist
    the weaker minds all men would be like all
    others. there is no difference in kind between
    man and man (139)
  • there is no human being of any race who, if he
    finds a guide, cannot attain to virtue. (137)

19
Translates into legal equality
  • For if we cannot agree to equalize mens wealth,
    and equality of innate ability is impossible, the
    legal rights at least of those who are citizens
    of the same commonwealth ought to be equal.
    (136)

20
Law
  • True law is right reason in agreement with
    nature it is of universal application,
    unchanging and everlasting (138)

21
Justice
  • Justice is one it binds all human society, and
    is based on one Law, which is right reason
    applied to command and prohibition. Whoever knows
    not this Law, whether it has been recorded in
    writing anywhere or not, is without justice.
    (139)
  • the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law a
    silent magistrate.. (140)
  • If all men knew the Law, we all would live in
    peace and friendship with each other, which
    originate in our natural inclination to love our
    fellow-men (139) which lies at the foundation of
    Justice

22
Universal Commonwealth of God/s Men
  • ...since there is nothing better than reason,
    and since it exists both in man and God, the
    first common possession of man and God is reason.
    But those who have reason in common must also
    have right reason in common. And since right
    reason is Law, we must believe that men have Law
    also in common with the gods. Further, those who
    share Law must also share Justice Hence we must
    now conceive of this whole universe as one
    commonwealth of which both gods and men are
    members. (138)
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com