Politics of the late republic- scholars

Cicero

‘The year 63BC was a turning point of his career’- Mary Beard

‘He did not hate the dictator as a man. But he did hate the fact that Caesar had no desire to restore the Republic’- Tempest

‘But it is wrong to simply call Cicero selfish. He and his colleagues genuinely that peoples issues and problems could be dealt with through private patronage solutions rather than unnecessary state intervention’- Jeremy Paterson

Cicero vs Verres

‘The case launched Cicero’s career’- Mary Beard

‘Cicero certainly exaggerated the wickedness of Verres … in a sometime misleading combination of moral outrage, self-promotion and jokes’- Mary Beard

Caesar

‘Caesar was always daring and ambitious’- Rex Warner

[Pompey and Caesar] had flouted Republican principles even more comprehensively that Sulla or Marius’- Mary Beard

‘Caesar crossed the Rubicon to save himself and defend his dignatas… not to save the republic’- Jeffery Paterson

Cato

‘One of the foremost leaders of the nobility’- Brunt

‘The most influential leader of the optimates’- Brunt

‘Cato’s defeat was due to exasperation of the common folk, who were angry at his aloofness and refusal to partake in the usual bribery’- Marin

‘One of Caesar’s more compromising enemies’- Mary Beard

General Politics

The First Triumvirate ‘the ultimate origin of the civil war in 49’- Scullard

‘It was the personalities not the policies which counted for most in the political world’- Jeremy Paterson

‘Politicians in the early stages of their career might well use populares technique to further their chances’- Paterson

‘Populace were not designed to change the political system’- Paterson