i, ambitious, treacherous, and often incompetent, were depressed by a recent catastrophe. 1 So, too, were the Aemilii:2 but ne

of consulars to guide public policy: only a few venerable relics, or recent consuls with birth but no weight. NotesPage=>

DOMINATION OF POMPEIUS PageBook=>028 THE Pompeii, a family of recent ennoblement, were of non-Latin stock, as the name

wn terms. Nor was Pompeius in any way to their liking. His family was recent enough to excite dispraise or contempt, even amon

2 Southern Gaul forgot the ancestral tie with the Domitii and saw the recent laurels of Pompeius wane before the power and glo

ed before they became Roman, whose citizenship, so far from being the recent gift of Caesar, went back to proconsuls a generat

en spoke indeed of tota Italia. The reality was very different. 2 The recent war of Italy against Rome must not be forgotten.

9 received more active assistance. 1 Atina’s first senator was very recent . 2 But Tusculum, and even Atina, had long been in

he recruits of his adversaries, with little resistance. Cingulum owed recent benefits to Labienus:1 yet Cingulum was easily wo

s, to which they give a regular and Latin termination not so the more recent , with foreign endings; and the local distribution

r was trouble likely to come from the other Caesarian military men or recent governors of provinces, few of whom possessed fam

and private, had hitherto been couched in a vein of conciliation; his recent speech was held to be distinctly amicable. 1 To t

f a well-ordered state and to corroborate it in the light of the most recent history. The De officiis is a theoretical treatme

he government, that was folly and certain extinction. Considering the recent conduct of his enemies at Rome and in Italy, he h

ate with a sincere fervour such as can have attended none of his more recent predecessors when they had liberated Rome from th

stood an array of consulars, impressive in number but not in dignity, recent creations almost all. By the end of the year 33 B

in earlier days. 2 There was no idealization in his account of a more recent period he knew it too well; and the immediate and

he Triumvirs men became intensely conscious of history, not merely of recent wars and monarchic faction-leaders like Sulla, Po

Of the Roman provinces which Antonius inherited in Asia, three were recent acquisitions. To Pompeius Syria owed its annexati

esentation and invective of Republican politics to say nothing of the recent ‘constitutional’ crisis of the consulate of Anton

ble Senate of the city, but all Italy. The phrase was familiar from recent history, whereas idea and practice were older sti

yet regard Rome as their own capital, for the memory of old feuds and recent wars took long to die; and the true Roman in just

imself perhaps no son of Italian stock, was conveniently oblivious of recent Italian history. The Marsi had no reason at all t

great fleet and good admirals. But his ships and his officers lacked recent experience of naval warfare. The admirals of Octa

distant conquest, for glory, for aggrandizement—and to extinguish the recent NotesPage=>301 1 Res Gestae 27, cf. Virgil

close to Italy, a menace from geographical position and the memory of recent civil wars: yet Augustus graciously resigned them

uls abroad. 2 For such cumulation of powers a close parallel from the recent past might properly have been invoked: it is pret

n eye for legal precedents as have the lawyers and historians of more recent times. Augustus knew precisely what he wanted: it

lic debate had languished for long years. Certain precedents of the recent past were so close as to be damaging. Pompeius Ma

epic record of Rome’s glorious past. Following an inspired vision of recent history, the shield of Aeneas allows a brief glim

4 From a distance the prospect is fairer. It has been maintained in recent times that Augustus not only employed Republican

uch for the consulate. In the manner of controlling the provinces the recent past could offer lessons, had Augustus stood in n

ris); 1 their garrison was a great army of twenty legions or more. In recent years these provinces had been governed by procon

men dangerously eminent, from family or from ambition. Crassus was a recent warning. Triumviral authority, succeeded by an en

there were presumably three nobiles in the prime of life; 2 and three recent novi homines. 3 Not to mention T. Statilius Tauru

curity, still to be detected in contemporary literature. The past was recent and tangible the Ides of March, the proscriptions

ebarred others. Active partisans clamoured to be rewarded, legates of recent service like M. Lollius and M. Vinicius; and a ne

n; which did not, however, debar marriage or discredit inheritance. A recent municipal taint could be detected in the most dis

‘municipalia ilia prodigia’(2, 6, 6). PageBook=>361 Some were recent upstarts, enriched by murder and rapine. Others c

ised diverse elements, the most ancient patrician houses and the most recent of careerists. But this was an order more firmly

perity polite arts returned to favour. Certain of the nobiles, old or recent , displayed some show of talent in oratory or lett

ost narrow type of Republican politician derived commonly from a more recent nobility, or from none at all. The firmest defend

e consulate, but the family was intact and influential. 4 Of the more recent novi homines, L. Tarius Rufus, though a personal

s Lepidus, P. Cornelius Dolabella and M. Furius Camillus, or heirs of recent consuls like the two Nonii L. Arruntius and A. Li

numerous branches and relatives of the Cornelii Lentuli, men of more recent stocks such as L. Nonius Asprenas (linked through

m nothing. He could wait for Lepidus’ death. Better that he should in recent history the dignity of pontifex maximus, in no wa

the Ptolemies for ages, or by apprehensive owners of property in the recent period of confiscation, quickened the pulse of tr

able to the Senate. If the later books of Livy with their record of recent and contemporary history had been preserved, they

istory of its own, with memories of ancient independence from Rome or recent hostility. As far as concerned the politics of

of their res gestae, from Aeneas and Romulus in the beginning down to recent worthies who had held triumphs or received the or

ivil peace. The Revolution made an end to many noble families old and recent . The dominant figures of the monarchic dynasts,

Aemilii and Claudii, the Domitii, a dynastic plebeian house of fairly recent nobility, would yet, to the contemporaries of Pom

called the earliest glories of the infant Republic. Other names, of recent and ruinous notoriety in the last generation of t

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Aristocracy’. Lucan, who narrated recent and authentic history in epic verse, a typical an