dominant theme of political history, as the binding link between the Republic and the Empire: it is something real and tangible

sts through the War of Actium, from the ostensible restoration of the Republic in 27 B.C., or from the new act of settlement fou

o-operate in maintaining the new order, ostensibly as servants of the Republic and heirs to a great tradition, not as mere lieut

dulgence both the political orator who fomented civil war to save the Republic and the military adventurer who betrayed and pros

edge the drab merits of absolute rule: writing of the transition from Republic to Monarchy, he was always of the opposition, whe

d the Principate of Augustus: the work appears to have ended when the Republic went down at Philippi. That Pollio chose to write

axiom holds both for the political dynasts of the closing age of the Republic and for their last sole heir the rule of Augustus

omats, and financiers of the Revolution may be discerned again in the Republic of Augustus as the ministers and agents of power,

n 49 B.C. might appear to open the final act in the fall of the Roman Republic . That was not the opinion of their enemy Cato: he

Tacitus, writing imperial history in the spirit and categories of the Republic , begins his Annals with the words ‘urbem Romam’.

name had not been known for centuries as a part of the history of the Republic . Hence the novus homo (in the strict sense of the

true causes of his own elevation. 5 The political life of the Roman Republic was stamped and swayed, not by parties and progra

and governed an empire. Noble families determined the history of the Republic , giving their names to its epochs. There was an

n required to win power in Rome and direct the policy of the imperial Republic as consul or as one of the principes. Cicero lack

eir power were the Valerii and the Fabii. 1 To the Fasti of the Roman Republic these great houses each contributed forty-five co

years before, Pompeius had not even been a senator. The decay of the Republic , the impulsion towards the rule of one imperator,

Catilina, robbed the indispensable general of the glory of saving the Republic in Italy as he had vindicated its empire abroad.

sul Cicero and forbade by veto a great speech from the saviour of the Republic . 7 Abetted by the praetor Caesar, Nepos went on

Brutus joined a sacred vendetta against Pompeius. For Cato or for the Republic they postponed vengeance, but did not forget a br

. It was later claimed by their last survivor that the party of the Republic and camp of Pompeius embraced ten men of NotesP

k=>045 consular rank. 1 With the consuls of the last year of the Republic conveniently added, the array is impressive and i

he could recall such palpable and painful testimony. The party of the Republic was no place for a novus homo: the Lentuli were s

party that had attacked a proconsul who was fighting the wars of the Republic in the East. Sulla had all the ambition of a Roma

thing of the kind happened. Italy was apathetic to the war-cry of the Republic in danger, sceptical about its champions. The v

had sought armed domination. 1 Had Pompeius conquered in battle, the Republic could hardly have survived. A few years, and Pomp

54 State in his ambition and the modest magistrate who restored the Republic . In its treatment of Caesar the inspired literatu

he monarchic aristocrat, recalling the kings of Rome and fatal to any Republic . NotesPage=>058 1 As Caesar observed, ‘mag

or who had liberated Rome from the Tarquinii, the first consul of the Republic and founder of Libertas. Dubious history and irre

y clustered around Pompeius, from interest, from ambition, or for the Republic . The coalition party was the head and front of th

aesar (cos. 64) was a legate (BC 1, 8, 2), but his son fought for the Republic in Africa and was killed there. Another young kin

=>070 constitution did not matter they were older than the Roman Republic . It was the ambition of the Roman aristocrat to m

edged towards the more powerful attraction. In the last decade of the Republic there can have been few intrigues conducted and c

d these new Italians, whether belonging to ancient foundations of the Republic or to tribal capitals in the Transpadana recently

Vitellia through an ancient and extinct patrician house of the early Republic . 2 Some said that Cicero’s father was a dyer of c

e versions of the legend put the immigration in the sixth year of the Republic , others in the regal period. For the evidence, P-

in blood, who expelled the tyrants and became the first consul of the Republic . 4 Pride kept the legends of the patricians much

its degradation. Even Cato admitted the need of bribery, to save the Republic and secure the election of his own kinsman Bibulu

ed. He belonged to a class of Roman nobles by no means uncommon under Republic or NotesPage=>104 1 Apart from Plutarch, A

ir proud conviction that wherever they were, there stood Rome and the Republic . 2 Cassius, however, lingered in Italian waters f

Marcellus, repenting of his ruinous actions for Pompeius and for the Republic , and damaged in repute, surviving a cause for whi

Saxa. 2 The fact that Octavianus was deemed to be on the side of the Republic precluded a full and revealing account of his ass

them as torpid and bibulous. 2 Hirtius and Pansa might yet save the Republic , not, as some hoped, by action, but by preventing

s that could be brought into play, for the Caesarian cause or for the Republic . 6 Whatever the rumours or likelihood of secret

into the open at last, and made history by a resolute defence of the Republic . But Cicero as yet had not committed himself to a

een his hope to act as political mentor to one of the generals of the Republic . When Pompeius had subdued the East to the arms o

imself on his refusal to be lured into a premature championing of the Republic . He resolved to wait until January 1st before app

dge of his own inadequacy. He knew how little he had achieved for the Republic despite his talent and his professions, how shame

ory: the ideal derived its shape from his own disappointments. In the Republic he set forth the lineaments and design, not of an

but never published, perhaps never completed, this supplement to the Republic . After the Ides of March, however, came a new imp

sman in his last and courageous battle for what he believed to be the Republic , liberty and the laws against the forces of anarc

open debate. The Senate listened to speeches and passed decrees; the Republic , liberated from military despotism, entered into

ance were at their old games. Cicero and the ambiguous contest of the Republic against a recalcitrant proconsul occupy the stage

tent but seldom noticed, and Balbus never even named. In Cicero the Republic possessed a fanatical and dangerous champion, bol

’ Ch. XI POLITICAL CATCHWORDS PageBook=>149 IN Rome of the Republic , not constrained by any law of libel, the literat

tive and lampoon. Crime, vice and corruption in the last age of the Republic are embodied in types as perfect of their kind as

ntrol for the moment of the legitimate government, was oppressing the Republic and exploiting the constitution in its own intere

. PageBook=>156 It is the excuse of the revolutionary that the Republic has succumbed to tyranny or to anarchy, it is his

ct, and the traditional phrases were useful and necessary had not the Republic been rescued from tyranny and restored to vigour?

of Cicero, despite their own exemplary professions of loyalty to the Republic , their attitude was ambiguous and disquieting: it

te dispatches and letters protesting love of peace and loyalty to the Republic who did not? But Plancus, it is clear, was coolly

istasteful. But Pollio was to play his part for peace, if not for the Republic : his uncompromising honesty was welcome in politi

ions in Egypt. Yet the East was not altogether barren of hope for the Republic . Of the whereabouts of the Liberators there was s

y practised by the party of the constitution when it ‘established the Republic upon a firm basis’. While consul, Antonius was cl

the Caesarian generals to be assailed. They protested loyalty to the Republic , devotion to concord. To that end they urged an a

all the provinces of the East in the hands of Brutus and Cassius, the Republic appeared to be winning all along the line. The

Lepidus and Plancus held firm in the West, the combined armies of the Republic in northern Italy would have an easy task. So it

Nor was this all. Sextus Pompeius had already promised his aid to the Republic against Antonius. He was rewarded by a vote of th

made a semblance of intervening in northern Italy on the side of the Republic . On April 26th he crossed the Rhône and marched s

property-tax had been levied to meet the demands of the armies of the Republic . The return was small and grudging; 3 and the age

of mustering the armies of the East, invading Italy and restoring the Republic through violence. He did not believe in violence.

ro answered with a rebuke. 4 Octavianus was a greater danger to the Republic than Antonius; that was the argument of the sombr

or a moment a delusive ray of hope shone upon the sinking hulk of the Republic . Two veteran legions from Africa arrived at Ostia

the Flaminian Way and entered the city unopposed. The legions of the Republic went over without hesitation. A praetor committed

ia, ‘heavenly legions’ as Cicero described them, had declared for the Republic . The Senate met in haste. A tribune friendly to C

inals a convenient fiction reckoned Sex. Pompeius, the admiral of the Republic . The ambitious or the shameless made show of high

carried his messages to Antonius, soon fell away to the cause of the Republic . 2 The others were of no importance. Lepidus hims

rly or with the energy of despair. Six years earlier the cause of the Republic beyond the seas was represented by Pompeius, a gr

tor P. Lentulus, the son of Spinther, was active with a fleet for the Republic . 10 Most of the assassins of Caesar had no doubt

of any person called Marcius. 4 L. Staius Murcus was active for the Republic until killed by Sex. Pompeius. A. Allienus disapp

nd rallied promptly. That was the only weak spot in the forces of the Republic : would the legions stand against the name and for

lculable hazard, the loss of Cassius, that brought on the doom of the Republic . Brutus could win a battle but not a campaign. Pr

ious and forgotten in Rome or commanded the armies that destroyed the Republic along with their new allies and peers in rank, Ve

cilable or hopeless, made their escape and joined the admirals of the Republic , Murcus and Ahenobarbus on the Ionian Sea and Sex

, who had fought for Caesar against Pompeius, for L. Antonius and the Republic in the War of Perusia. With her husband and the c

ticus and Balbus. 2 One of them, C. Peducaeus, fell at Mutina for the Republic or for Octavianus. 3 Sex. Peducaeus, who had serv

gies in the years 35 and 34 B.C. Antonius might fight the wars of the Republic or of private ambition far away in the East; Octa

legions, should the dynasts, fulfilling a solemn pledge, restore the Republic after the end of all the wars. Though a formidabl

rian, orator and poet, perished in Africa, commanding an army for the Republic ; neither Valerius Cato, the instructor of young p

phers into the army of the Liberators. He fought at Philippi, for the Republic but not from Republican convictions: it was but t

mpeius, recognized a greater danger and hoped to use Pompeius for the Republic against Caesar. Failing in that, it conspired wit

ht at Philippi. Then, refusing either to agree with Messalla that the Republic was doomed, or to trust, like Murcus, the allianc

pire, and especially the empire in the East, had been the ruin of the Republic . NotesPage=>272 1 Dio 42, 35, 5. 2 Phil

eady professed readiness to lay down office and join in restoring the Republic . 3 Octavianus evaded the charge of breach of co

fettered to the policy of a military despot. To liberty itself the Republic was now recalled, bewildered and unfamiliar, from

plea was the contest to be fought? For Rome, for the consuls and the Republic against the domination of Octavianus, or for Egyp

onal pride revolted. Was it for this that the legions of the imperial Republic had shattered and swept away the kings of the Eas

last of the dynasts might desire to outshine all the generals of the Republic , Pompeius, Crassus and Antonius, in distant conqu

‘dux’ was familiar from its application to the great generals of the Republic ; and the victor of Actium was the last and the gr

always sole primacy, was ready to hand. The leading statesmen of the Republic had commonly been called principes, in recognitio

re other principes in the State, there could not fail to be such in a Republic . So Horace addresses him, maxime principum. 4

. 3 This meant a certain rehabilitation of the last generation of the Republic , which in politics is the Age of Pompeius. In his

ian support by guile and coolly betrayed his allies, overthrowing the Republic and proscribing the Republicans: in his mature ye

ars who could be called up and enlisted in the service of the revived Republic . Cicero might be more remunerative for every purp

egibus (3, 4, cf. 12) to be legislating for the state depicted in the Republic . The traditional constitution of Rome barely requ

e new order was the best state of all, more truly Republican than any Republic , for it derived from consensus Italiae and concor

s. Only a robust faith can discover authentic relics of Cicero in the Republic of Augustus:2 very little attention was paid to h

could have been deceived. The Princeps speaks of a restoration of the Republic , and the historian Velleius Paterculus renders an

torical sense. He states that Augustus twice thought of restoring the Republic — not that he did so. 3 To Suetonius, the work of

under the new order. The position of the Princeps and his restored Republic was by no means as secure and unequivocal as offi

, he could revive the imperium consulare, ostensibly reduced when the Republic was restored. Such were the powers of Augustus

l concord or vested interests there was work to be done. The restored Republic needed a friendly hand to guide its counsels and

f the year. Two centuries had elapsed since the armies of the Roman Republic first invaded Spain: the conquest of that vast pe

xecution of a consul cast a glaring light on the character of the new Republic and the four cardinal virtues of the Princeps ins

rowing up, the sons of men who had fallen in the last struggle of the Republic , or the descendants of families to which the cons

l with Cicero’s bibulous son in the year after Actium: no pretence of Republic then. Nor was the consulate of a Marcellus (Aeser

res that appeared to provide solid confirmation of the renewal of the Republic . As a testimony of the efficiency of his mandate

uncils of the government. The constitution is a façade as under the Republic . Not only that. Augustus himself is not so much a

where, open or concealed. When the Caesarian armies prevailed and the Republic perished, three dynasts divided and ruled the Rom

rulers over a long period of years. The extended commands of the late Republic and the Triumviral period, once extraordinary and

f the Senate. Over three hundred senators had chosen Antonius and the Republic at the time of the coup d’état of 32 B.C Some mad

at Actium. 1 Nobiles were required to adorn the Senate of a revived Republic there were far too many novi homines about. From

assembly that received from the hands of Italy’s leader the restored Republic did not belie its origin and cannot evade histori

t of a violent redistribution of power and property. The aristocratic Republic had disguised and sometimes thwarted the power of

41, 1. PageBook=>352 The Roman Commonwealth in the days of the Republic was composed of three orders, each with definite

ims of the armed proletariat of Italy menaced and shattered the Roman Republic : none the less, when offered some prospect that t

or the common soldier. Under the military and social hierarchy of the Republic he could rise to the centurionate, but no higher.

sons of freedmen soon occupy military posts; 7 and, just as under the Republic , they are attested as senators in the purified Se

d political structure of the New State. In the last generation of the Republic the financiers had all too often been a political

ears on end, won merit and experience with the army commanders of the Republic . Such a man was Caesar’s officer C. Volusenus Qua

, traditional and conservative party that had superseded the spurious Republic of the nobiles. No mere stabilizing here, but a c

ffices and commands to their partisans. The dynasts had destroyed the Republic and themselves, down to the last survivor, Caesar

all their power and all their patronage, he conveniently revived the Republic to be used as they had used it. To the People Aug

cy. From one fraud Augustus was debarred. He had already restored the Republic once he could not do it again. NotesPage=>37

Rufus was a cheap victim. Public disturbances recalled the authentic Republic , something very different from the firm order tha

B.C., eight come of new families against five nobles. 3 The restored Republic , it is evident, meant no restoration of the nobil

he public and official dignity of the supreme magistracy of the Roman Republic . The Fasti in the middle years of his Principate

l instructions. 1 The year A.D. 14 marks the legal termination of the Republic . It remains to indicate the ostensible qualific

ment in the Principate and the real working of patronage. Under the Republic nobility of birth, military service, distinction

rk all the time women and freedmen. The great political ladies of the Republic , from the daughters of consular families such as

lay idle or was dissipated in politics. The principes of the dying Republic behaved like dynasts, not as magistrates or serva

n the hierarchy of administration. In a sense, the consulars of the Republic might be designated as the government, ‘auctores

ctium filled up the gaps. The Senate which acclaimed Augustus and the Republic restored could show an imposing roll of consulars

ed in its results and patronage was no new thing at Rome. Under the Republic the command of an army was the reward of birth, a

an active part in administration. 1 In the past the generals of the Republic had commonly devoted the profits of victory to th

ask of the historian has been aggravated beyond all measure under the Republic the great questions of policy had been the subjec

t at most deliberations. Whether the rule of Augustus be described as Republic or Monarchy, these advisory bodies were indispens

In the elaborate fiction of Cassius Dio, the decision to restore the Republic , or rather, as that historian believed, to consol

an official poet like Horace. The precaution seems excessive. In a Republic like that of Pompeius, Livia would have been a po

for two days and in the Senate men debated about a restoration of the Republic , with rival candidates already asserting their cl

tender emotions to the advancement of the family and the good of the Republic . But was Augustus’ design beneficial to the Roman

e descendants of ancient houses, glorious in the history of the Roman Republic or more recently ennobled. But nobiles, and espec

ollio and Tacitus, whose writings breathe the authentic spirit of the Republic and the Republican virtues, were all sons of Roma

ojourn with Sex. Pompeius and memories of trials in adversity for the Republic . 5 Cn. Calpurnius Piso (cos. 23 B.C.) had been a

s power, could have prevailed over the youthful vigour of the martial Republic . They were emboldened to doubt it. 2 More than th

character. Augustus paid especial honour to the great generals of the Republic . To judge by the catalogues of worthies as retail

remained her ancient self. In the aristocracy of the last age of the Republic marriage had not always been blessed with either

e but inculcated from early days at Rome by the military needs of the Republic , namely readiness to admit new members to the cit

Palatine. Neither god had failed him. Divus Julius prevailed over the Republic at Philippi, Apollo kept faith at Actium: vinci

. Tradition remembered, or romance depicted, the consuls of the early Republic as identical in life, habit and ideals with the r

tus did not merely idealize consul and citizen of the ancient peasant Republic , thus adding a sublime crown to the work of earli

XXX. THE ORGANIZATION OF OPINION PageBook=>459 IN Rome of the Republic the aristocracy guided literature through individ

army had made one emperor and could make another; and the change from Republic to Empire might be described as the provinces’ re

provoked local disturbances. 1 The proconsuls and publicani of the Republic took a heavy toll from the provinces. The Empire

Empire represented no miraculous conversion from a brutal and corrupt Republic to an ideal dispensation of justice and benevolen

year 67 B.C. Pollio, however, set himself to describe the fall of the Republic from the compact of Pompeius, Crassus and Caesar

he generation that grew to manhood in the happy prime of the restored Republic makes a poor enough showing, with Ovid to sustain

honour and commemorating the glory of the great houses that were the Republic and Rome. The faction-wars of Marius and Sulla

perpetuated their compacts and their feuds over the body of the dying Republic and under the shadow of the Monarchy. Caesar, wit

house of the Claudii had been an integral part of the history of the Republic . Tiberius, doubly Claudian, for the line ran thro

i: prominent among the Liberators and himself the last admiral of the Republic , Cn. Domitius stood next to Antonius for leadersh

ent patrician houses that recalled the earliest glories of the infant Republic . Other names, of recent and ruinous notoriety i

r: if they went on long enough, they would disappear, so a wit of the Republic observed. 3 Yet this family survived the alliance

o received the citizenship from proconsuls of the last century of the Republic and from Caesar the Dictator even admission to th

ven admission to the Roman Senate. To explain the fall of the Roman Republic , historians invoke a variety of converging forces

oo often arrogant, selfish and licentious, the governing class of the Republic was fertile in talent of the most varied orders.

ates and steadily thinned by a progressive proscription. As under the Republic , the normal method for an ambitious man to secure

, enthroned at Rome, was arrayed in robes torn from the corpse of the Republic . Libertas, as has been sufficiently shown, may

o Tiberius, remarks that few men were still alive that remembered the Republic ’quotus quisque reliquus qui rem publicam vidis

s qui rem publicam vidisset? ’1 His purpose was expressly to deny the Republic of Augustus, not to rehabilitate anarchy, the par

eir ambition and their feuds, had not merely destroyed their spurious Republic : they had ruined the Roman People. There is som

dely diffused in the Senate. Yet while this process was going on, the Republic itself became the object of a sentimental cult, m

picious emperors or by artful and unscrupulous prosecutors. While the Republic still maintained for a season its formal and lega

onventions. Like Sallustius and Pollio, he had no illusions about the Republic . The root of the trouble lay in the nature of man

r domination. 1 Empire, wealth and individual ambition had ruined the Republic long ago. Marius and Sulla overthrew libertas by

egret the grand and untrammelled eloquence of the closing days of the Republic . 4 He might pause when he reflected that great or

ble to propaganda. Augustus claimed to have restored Libertas and the Republic , a necessary and salutary fraud: his successors p

eption of civic virtue, derived from the non-political classes of the Republic and inherent in the New State from the beginning,

dom been possible in the political dissensions of the last age of the Republic . Few were the nobiles who passed unscathed throug

ed, with constitutional monarchy as a guarantee of freedom such as no Republic could provide: nunquam libertas gratior exstat

ther, Founder and Guardian. Sulla had striven to repair the shattered Republic ; and Cicero, for saving Rome in his consulate, ha

ery moment when he was engaged upon the ostensible restoration of the Republic , he constructed in the Campus Martius a huge and

pillars of his rule, firm and erect behind the flimsy and fraudulent Republic . In the employment of the tribunes’ powers and of

lections, 370 f. Consuls, after Sulla, 22; in the last years of the Republic , 94; under Caesar’s Dictatorship, 94 f.; Triumvir

442, 515; on Libertas, 155; on Augustus, 3; on the Restoration of the Republic , 324 f.; on moral legislation, 455; on virtue and

ublic, 324 f.; on moral legislation, 455; on virtue and vice, 105; on Republic and Monarchy, 512 ff.; on the decline of oratory,

ifficulty of imperial history, 407; composes a debate on Monarchy and Republic , 413. Dionysus, 256, 263, 273 f. Diplomacy, u

ncipate, 461. Epicureans, 135 f., 149 f. Eprius Marcellus, on the Republic , 514. Equality, political, 352. Equites, see Fi

ry service, 458. Freedom, see Libertas. Freedom of speech, in the Republic , 149 ff.; an essential part of Libertas, 152; und

, 42, 74 ff., 261 ff. His character, 26 f., 137; as a champion of the Republic , 50 f.; as a popularis, 29, 65; a partisan of Sul

ics, 93, 364; of Italy at Rome, 91, 93, 364 f.; indirect, 364, 519. Republic , Restoration of, 3, 313 ff., 323; true character

27 B.C., 314, 328 f.; loses provinces, 394, 406; prerogatives in the Republic , 153, 160, 167 f.; under the Principate, 406, 412

urunca, 30. PageBook=>564 Suetonius, on the Restoration of the Republic , 324. Sulla, see Cornelius. Sulmo, 90, 289, 363

f.; dishonesty of his history, 393, 488 f.; on the Restoration of the Republic , 324; on the departure of Tiberius, 420; M. Lolli

lcanius, haruspex, 190, 218. Wealth, of senators and knights in the Republic , 12, 14; transference through the proscriptions,