Transcript Party Politics

Roman Historiography
Republican
SEMINAR II:
Sallust BC 1-5
Party Politics ch1
Sallvst
Thucydidean Influence
• View of human nature
• View of historiography
– Concentration
– Selection
– Omission
– Emphasis on politics
• Analyses of human behavior
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
Sallvstian Style
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Archaism
Asyndeton
Parataxis
Hyperbaton
Inconcinnitas
Brevitas
– antithesis
Party Politics
Personalities & Programs
outline
• Sources
• Classes
• Constitution
– Magistracies
– Assemblies
– elections
• Factiones/Partes
• Roman Revolution
– Gracchi
– Marius v. Sulla
– Pompey, Crassus, Caesar
• Participants/scene
Party Politics
Personalities & Programs
• amazing primary sources
– Caesar’s commentarii
– Sallust’s BC, BJ, Historiae, Epistulae ad
Caesarem?
– Cicero’s speeches, essays, letters
• Taylor’s quellenforschungen
– In text
– In footnotes 2 & 3
• great example of modern scholarly evolution
– Compare Ramsey p.6
Party Politics
Personalities & Programs
• Roman Republican gov’t
– Checks & balances
– Aristocratic control
– Ti. Gracchus
• sword carried into assembly
– Liberty v. equality
• Class division based on landed property
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)
Ordines
• Plebeians: (plebeii)
– from plebs
– all Roman citizens not patrician
Struggle of the Orders
plebeian milestones
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494 BC: First Secession of the Plebs
– established their own assembly (the Concilium Plebis)
– elected their own magistrates, the Tribunes and the Plebeian Aediles.
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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
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
Roman Citizen Classes
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Patrician
Senatorial (Plebeian)
Equites (Plebeian)
Property Owners
(Plebeian)
• Capite Censi (Plebeian)
Money
Property Requirements
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Q u ic k T im e ™
a nd a
T I F F ( Un c o m p r e s s e d ) d e c o m p r e s s o r
a r e n e e d e d t o s e e t h is p ic t u r e .
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≈ 16 asses = 4 ƒ = 1 denarius
ƒ1,000,000 for Senatorial
ƒ400,000 for Equites
ƒ3,000 for 4th class
Qui ckTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this pictur e.
Party Politics
Cursus honorum jpg
Party Politics
Personalities & 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
Party Politics
Personalities & Programs
• Equites
– Cavalry/officer class
Party Politics
Personalities & Programs
• Pedites Foot Soldier Classes
– Class based on property rating
• ƒ50,000
• 4 classes for small farmers
• No landed property