Roman Historiography

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Roman Historiography

• Republican
• SEMINAR II
• Sallust BC 1-5
• Party Politics ch1

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Sallvst
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Thucydidean Influence

• View of human nature
• View of historiography
• Concentration
• Selection
• Omission
• Emphasis on politics
• Analyses of human behavior

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Thucydidean Influence

• Style-Thucydides
• poetic language
• variety of grammatical usage
• inconcinnity
• rapidity

• Style- Sallust
• Poetic/archaic vocab
• unusual grammatical turns
• inconcinnity
• rapidity
• of thought expression
• compression omission
• variatio

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Sallvstian Style

• Archaism
• Asyndeton
• Parataxis
• Hyperbaton
• Inconcinnitas
• Brevitas
• antithesis

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Party Politics Personalities Programs
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outline

• Sources
• Classes
• Constitution
• Magistracies
• Assemblies
• elections
• Factiones/Partes
• Roman Revolution
• Gracchi
• Marius v. Sulla
• Pompey, Crassus, Caesar
• Participants/scene

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Party PoliticsPersonalities Programs

• amazing primary sources
• Caesars commentarii
• Sallusts BC, BJ, Historiae, Epistulae ad
  Caesarem?
• Ciceros speeches, essays, letters
• Taylors quellenforschungen
• In text
• In footnotes 2 3
• great example of modern scholarly evolution
• Compare Ramsey p.6

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Party Politics Personalities Programs

• Roman Republican govt
• Checks balances
• Aristocratic control
• Ti. Gracchus
• sword carried into assembly
• Liberty v. equality
• Class division based on landed property

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Ordines

• Patricians (patricii)
• from patres
• title applied to members of Senate
• patrician clans claimed descent from earliest
  Senators
• highly privileged aristocratic class
• hereditary membership
• only by birth (until end of Republic)

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Ordines

• Plebeians (plebeii)
• from plebs
• all Roman citizens not patrician

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Struggle of the Ordersplebeian milestones

• 494 BC First Secession of the Plebs
• established their own assembly (the Concilium
  Plebis)
• elected their own magistrates, the Tribunes and
  the Plebeian Aediles.
• 450 BC Law of the Twelve Tables, first
  codification of Roman law
• 445 BC patricians and plebeians permitted to
  intermarry
• 367 BC plebeians became eligible for the
  consulship
• 342 BC one of the two Consuls must be a plebeian
• 339 BC one of the two Censors must be a plebeian
• 300 BC half of the priesthoods (also state
  offices) must be plebeian
• 287 BC Third Secession of the Plebs
• won concession that all plebiscites (measures
  passed in Concilium Plebis) had the force of law
  for entire Roman state

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Struggle of the Orders

• non-violent methods
• Reshaped Aristocracy
• Aristocracy of birth replaced with aristocracy
  based on political office and wealth,
  particularly land-based wealth.
• Society remained hierarchical, class-based
• Large gap between top and bottom citizen classes

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Roman Citizen Classes

• Patrician
• Senatorial (Plebeian)
• Equites (Plebeian)
• Property Owners (Plebeian)
• Capite Censi (Plebeian)

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Money Property Requirements

• 16 asses 4 ƒ 1 denarius
• ƒ1,000,000 for Senatorial
• ƒ400,000 for Equites
• ƒ3,000 for 4th class

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Party Politics

• Cursus honorum jpg

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Party PoliticsPersonalities Programs

• Nobiles
• Military service requirements class determined
• Cavalry/officer class
• Centuriate Assembly
• Vote for consuls praetors
• Vote in order by class
• Senate
• Ex-magistrates life-time membership
• Subdivisions based on rank (highest office held)
• Asked to speak in order of rank
• Election to office influenced by family
  hereditity
• novus homo

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Party PoliticsPersonalities Programs

• Equites
• Cavalry/officer class

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Party PoliticsPersonalities Programs

• Pedites Foot Soldier Classes
• Class based on property rating
• ƒ50,000
• 4 classes for small farmers
• No landed property