Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic

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Cambridge University Press, Feb 5, 2004 - Foreign Language Study - 313 pages
This book examines how public, political discourse shaped the distribution of power between the Senate and People in the Late Roman Republic (133 42 BC). It is the first work to analyze comprehensively the 'ideology' of Republican mass oratory and to situate it fully within the institutional, historical and physical contexts of the public meetings in which these speeches were heard. Against the background of the current debate between 'oligarchical' and 'democratic' interpretations of Republican politics, Professor Morstein-Marx emphasizes the perpetual negotiation and reproduction of power through communication. CBlurb This book examines how public, political discourse shaped the distribution of power between Senate and People in the Late Roman Republic. The 'ideology' of Republican mass oratory is analyzed comprehensively and situated fully within the institutional, historical and physical contexts of the public meetings in which these speeches were heard.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
Setting the stage
34
Setting the stage
35
Civic knowledge
68
Civic knowledge
118
The Voice of the People
119
The voice of the people
157
Debate
160
Debate
173
the invisible optimate
204
the invisible optimate
207
the political drama
241
Conclusion
255
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About the author (2004)

Robert Morstein-Marx is Professor of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Hegemony to Empire: The Development of the Roman Imperium in the Greek East, 149-62 B.C. (1995).