Politics of the late republic scholars

“a lot of roman politics was short term” with “no vision” for the future (due to the nature of consulship being a single year of office)

Bispham

 “The basic principle of the Republic is that no individual can dominate the system.”

Wallace-Hadrill

“the key to Rome's power seemed to rest in her constitution”

Tempest

“the magistrates, the senate, and the people of Rome could only function for as long as they each supported the other”

Tempest

The senate had a “bunker mentality”

Bispham

“what’s scaring the Senate is the prospect of the Roman masses organising against them” (Catiline Conspiracy)

Wallace-Hadrill

“at their [the senate] core they are very distrustful of one man with too much power”

Haley

“[the senate] did not adequately recognise that without a state sponsored army, it would fall to individual generals to provide for their troops”

Marin

“the government of the Republic was a mixed constitution comprised of the best elements of a monarchy, an aristocracy, and a democracy”

Tempest

There was “a tug-of-war between politicians who claimed to act either in defence of the senate's authority or of the people's rights”

Tempest

“Caesar recognises that the people are going to be an important part of politics”

Malik

“Caesar hates the optimates”

Wallace-Hadrill

“Julia is, in a way, his [Caesar] most valuable possession”

Pandey

“For a conservative like Cicero … these leaders [Caesar etc]represented a threat to the ideals of the old days: liberty and the freedom from monarchy”

Tempest

Caesar’s running for Pontifex Maximus was “blatant flouting of convention”

Holland

“there’s a lot of pressure on his [Caesar] household to perform this ceremony [Bona Dea festival] right”

Pandey

“[Lex Campania] stood as a symbolic gesture of the importance and power of the military and the urban populace”

Cresswell

Almost everything in roman politics after the Ides of March was “a footnote to the assassination”

Sillet

The aftermath of Caesar’s assassination was a chance to repair what had been broken under Caesar’s dictatorship and “move forward”

Sillet

Cicero used the trial to “propel himself and his political career forward”

van der Blom

“[the Verres trial] This is a way in which he can boost his candidacy for this office [aedile]  without putting in a lot of money, but rather putting in his oratory.”

van der Blom

“There's Cicero, the politician. There's Cicero, the writer. And the two strands overlap, influence each other, but are also in some ways distinct.”

Steel

Marius had “opened up” a political carer in Rome for Cicero as they were both novus homos from Arpinum

Steel

“we think of the late republic as basically Cicero”

Bispham

“[Cicero in the consular election of 64] got lucky because both of his major rivals were sending warning flags out to the senatorial elite. And so Cicero was able to sneak in even though he was a new man”

Steel

“And at that point [losing two elections in a row], it looks as though Catiline decided to take slightly more direct action in support of his political ambitions. That is, he turned to armed uprising.”

Steel

“the Catilinarian conspiracy [starts], a trend that we'll see later in Ciceros' thinking, which is to describe his opponents, his political opponents a "hostis." there are two words for enemy in Latin. That is "inimicus," an opponent politically, and a hostis, which is an enemy of the state.”

Steel

“The cherished ideal of the unity between the senate and the people of Rome was rapidly descending into a political nightmare of strife and discord”

Tempest

“In his [Cicero’s] letters, the orator and philosopher is revealed with all his failings.”

Gwynn

Cicero’s letters “become the written equivalent of the speeches for which he was so celebrated”

Walsh

“[Cato] passionately tried to maintain the dying Republic”

Speake

“[Cato was] more concerned with being a good man than to be thought one”

Sallust

“Cato was worth a hundred thousand men” (Ad Atticus 5.1)

Cicero

“his speech has established him as a man with enormous moral authority”

Wallace-Hadrill

“his death symbolised the death of the Republic… he was idealised as a martyr of Republican liberty and a paragon of Stoic values”

Scullard

“[Cato] Unmoved by emotive arguments he attempted always to stick to his principles and political idealism, even when they may not have been in his own personal interest.”

Cresswell

“He [Cato] took care to put the proposal (corn-dole legislation 62 BC) before the Senate first … demonstrating how the office ought to work”

Cresswell

“While the people might have applauded Cato for his moral integrity… this did not translate to votes for his consulship”

Marin

“Pompey is a disrupter”

Holland

“The people of Rome adore Pompey. He is Rome’s greatest success story”

Haley

“Crassus likes to have people in his debt”

Santangelo

“Crassus hates Pompey”

Haley

The first triumvirate was “The three-headed monster”

Varro

“[first triumvirate] Caesar was the driving force behind the alliance”

Cresswell

“By [its] uncompromising refusal to meet the demands of Pompey, Caesar and Crassus, the Senate naturally drove them into each other’s arms”

Scullard

“Pompey needs Caesar, Caesar needs Pompey. Nothing was going to happen for either one of them unless they joined forces”

Haley

“Pompey’s marriage to Julia is absolutely essential to Caesar’s ambitions”

Pandey

“For Caesar it’s absolutely essential that the Triumvirate holds together”

Holland

“It [the first triumvirate] is against the spirit, the deep-seated political culture of the Republic”

Santangelo

“Cicero was deeply suspicious of Antony [post assasination]”

Steel

“Antony’s initial behaviour was arguably very statesmanlike”

Steel

“Clodius did not forget Cicero’s hostility” [post-Bona Dea]

Wiedmann

“Clodius was a good deal shrewder than Cicero imagined” (58 BC)

Murrel

“If the technical responsibility for war rested on the shoulders of Caesar, it was clearly neither desired by him, nor by Pompey, not by the vast majority of senators, and still less by the bulk of the population of Italy”

Scullard

“a wide conspiracy taking in a very large number of young romans” whose usual route to rising the cursus honorum was cut off by Caesar’s dictatorship

Sillet

“A politician could not expect to advance far without the power of persuasion”

Tempest

“to win the consulship, this is what dignitas is all about”

Holand

“[land] means dignity”

Haley

“the people's role was not without influence, and politicians did not get far without their support”

Tempest

“the cause of its [the Republic's] decline was the men … who had failed to preserve the customs of their elders”

Tempest

“Marriage was a tool for a roman politician”

Haley

“[Amicitia] a weapon of politics”

Syme

“[Amicitia] this was a system designed and perpetuated to establish the continued supremacy of the elite oligarchy at Rome, but it could also offer opportunities for outsiders to gain a foothold onto the more constitutional system of Roman politics”

Cresswell

“Rome's military and political success; the two were always connected”

Tempset

“Conquest is built into the Roman psyche”

Malik