Prosopography Of Ancient Rome
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Prosopography Of Ancient Rome
The prosopography of ancient Rome is an approach to classical studies and ancient history that focuses on family connections, political alliances, and social networks in ancient Rome. The methodology of Roman prosopography involves defining a group for study—often the social ranking called ''ordo'' in Latin, as of senators and equestrians—then collecting and analyzing data. Literary sources provide evidence mainly for the ruling elite. Epigraphy and papyrology are sources that may also document ordinary people, who have been studied in groups such as imperial freedmen, lower-class families, and specific occupations such as wet nurses ''(nutrices)''. In German scholarship, Friedrich Münzer's many biographical articles for ''Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft'' took a prosopographical approach. Matthias Gelzer, one of the founders of prosopographical methodology in relation to ancient Rome, focused on the social institution of patronage and its effects o ...
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Classical Studies
Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek and Roman literature and their original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics may also include as secondary subjects Greco-Roman philosophy, history, archaeology, anthropology, architecture, art, mythology, and society. In Western civilization, the study of the Ancient Greek and Roman classics was considered the foundation of the humanities, and they traditionally have been the cornerstone of an elite higher education. Etymology The word ''classics'' is derived from the Latin adjective '' classicus'', meaning "belonging to the highest class of citizens." The word was originally used to describe the members of the Patricians, the highest class in ancient Rome. By the 2nd century AD the word was used in literary criticism to describe writers of the highest quality. For exampl ...
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Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire following the War of Actium. During this period, Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean world. Roman society at the time was primarily a cultural mix of Latins (Italic tribe), Latin and Etruscan civilization, Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements, which is especially visible in the Ancient Roman religion and List of Roman deities, its pantheon. Its political organisation developed at around the same time as direct democracy in Ancient Greece, with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by Roman Senate, a senate. There were annual elections, but the republican system was an elective olig ...
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Prosopography Of The Later Roman Empire
''Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire'' (abbreviated as ''PLRE'') is a work of Roman prosopography published in a set of three volumes collectively describing many of the people attested to have lived in the Roman Empire from AD 260, the date of the beginning of Gallienus' sole rule, to 641, the date of the death of Heraclius. Sources cited include histories, literary texts, inscriptions, and miscellaneous written sources. Individuals who are known only from dubious sources (e.g., the '), as well as identifiable people whose names have been lost, are included with signs indicating the reliability. A project of the British Academy, the work set out with the goal of doing The volumes were published by Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme .. ...
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Clodius Pulcher
Publius Clodius Pulcher ( – 18 January 52 BC) was a Roman politician and demagogue. A noted opponent of Cicero, he was responsible during his plebeian tribunate in 58 BC for a massive expansion of the Roman grain dole as well as Cicero's exile from the city. Leader of one of the political mobs in the 50s, his political tactics – combining connections throughout the oligarchy with mass support from the poor plebs – made him a central player in the politics of the era. Born to the influential patrician gens Claudia, he was embroiled early in his political career in a religious scandal which saw him develop a rivalry with the orator Cicero and become a plebeian in order to be eligible for the plebeian tribunate. He successfully stood as tribune of the plebs for 58 BC and passed six laws to restore Rome's collegia (private guilds and fraternities), expand the grain dole (making it free rather than subsidised while also using those collegia as means for distribu ...
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Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists and the innovator of what became known as "Ciceronian rhetoric". Cicero was educated in Rome and in Greece. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC. He greatly influenced both ancient and modern reception of the Latin language. A substantial part of his work has survived, and he was admired by both ancient and modern authors alike. Cicero adapted the arguments of the chief schools of Hellenistic philosophy in Latin and coined a large portion of Latin philosophical vocabulary via ...
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Proxy Wars
In political science, a proxy war is an armed conflict where at least one of the belligerents is directed or supported by an external third-party power. In the term ''proxy war'', a belligerent with external support is the ''proxy''; both belligerents in a proxy war can be considered proxies if both are receiving foreign military aid from a third party country. Acting either as a nation-state government or as a conventional force, a proxy belligerent acts in behalf of a third-party state sponsor. A proxy war is characterised by a direct, long-term, geopolitical relationship between the third-party sponsor states and their client states or non-state clients, thus the political sponsorship becomes military sponsorship when the third-party powers fund the soldiers and their ''matériel'' to equip the belligerent proxy-army to launch and fight and sustain a war to victory, and government power. However, the relationship between sponsors and proxies can be characterized by Principa ...
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Erich Gruen
Erich Stephen Gruen ( , ; born May 7, 1935) is an American classicist and ancient historian. He was the Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught full-time from 1966 until 2008. He served as president of the American Philological Association in 1992. Biography Born in Vienna, coming from a Jewish family, he received BAs from Columbia University and Oxford University, and a PhD from Harvard University in 1964. Gruen was a varsity lightweight rower at Columbia and valedictorian of his 550-man graduating class. From 1957 to 1960, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford. His earlier work focused on the later Roman Republic, and culminated in '' The Last Generation of the Roman Republic'', a work often cited as a response to Ronald Syme's '' The Roman Revolution''. Gruen's argument is that the Republic was not in decay, and so not necessarily in need of "rescue" by Caesar Augustus and the institutions of ...
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Lily Ross Taylor
Lily Ross Taylor (August 12, 1886 – November 18, 1969) was an American academic and author, who in 1917 became the first female Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Biography Born in Auburn, Alabama, Lily Ross Taylor developed an interest in Roman studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, earning an A.B. in 1906. She went to Bryn Mawr College as a graduate student that year, and received her Ph.D. in Latin in 1912. Her dissertation advisor was Tenney Frank. From 1912 until 1927, she taught at Vassar, and, in 1917, she became the fourth female Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. In 1927, Taylor became a professor of Latin and the chairman of that department at Bryn Mawr. She rose to become dean of the graduate school there in 1942. That same year, she served as president of the American Philological Association, and in 1947 as first female scientist she was named Sather Professor in the University of California. From 1943 to 1944, during World War II, s ...
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Gaius Norbanus
Gaius Norbanus, nicknamed ''Balbus'' (died 82 BC) was a Roman politician who was elected consul in 83 BC alongside Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus. He committed suicide in exile at Rhodes after being proscribed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla shortly after the latter's victory in the civil war. Life A novus homo, Gaius Norbanus first came to prominence when he was elected one of the plebeian tribunes for 103 BC. He achieved notoriety for his prosecution of Quintus Servilius Caepio, where he accused Servilius Caepio of incompetence and dereliction of duty at the catastrophic defeat of the Roman armies by the Cimbri at the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC. At the '' concilium plebis'' where Servilius Caepio was tried, two tribunes attempted to veto proceedings, but were driven off by force. Although the Senate vigorously tried to obtain his acquittal and he was defended by Lucius Licinius Crassus, Norbanus managed to secure Caepio's conviction. Caepio was forced into exile to Smyrna ...
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Municipium
In ancient Rome, the Latin term (: ) referred to a town or city. Etymologically, the was a social contract among ('duty holders'), or citizens of the town. The duties () were a communal obligation assumed by the in exchange for the privileges and protections of citizenship. Every citizen was a . The distinction of was not made in the Roman Kingdom; instead, the immediate neighbours of the city were invited or compelled to transfer their populations to the urban structure of Rome, where they took up residence in neighbourhoods and became Romans . Under the Roman Republic the practical considerations of incorporating communities into the city-state of Rome forced the Romans to devise the concept of , a distinct state under the jurisdiction of Rome. It was necessary to distinguish various types of and other settlements, such as the colony. In the early Roman Empire these distinctions began to disappear; for example, when Pliny the Elder served in the Roman army, the distinctio ...
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Principate
The Principate was the form of imperial government of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the Dominate. The principate was characterized by the reign of a single emperor (''princeps'') and an effort on the part of the early emperors, at least, to preserve the illusion of the formal continuance, in some aspects, of the Roman Republic. Etymology and anticipations 'Principate' is etymologically derived from the Latin word '' princeps'', meaning ''chief'' or ''first'', and therefore represents the political regime dominated by such a political leader, whether or not he is formally head of state or head of government. This reflects the principate emperors' assertion that they were merely " first among equals" among the citizens of Rome. Under the Republic, the '' princeps senatus'', traditionally the oldest or most honored member of the Senate, had the right to be ...
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Roman Revolution
''The Roman Revolution'' (1939) is a scholarly study of the final years of the ancient Roman Republic and the creation of the Roman Empire by Caesar Augustus. The book was the work of Sir Ronald Syme (1903–1989), a noted Tacitean scholar, and was published by the Oxford University Press. It was immediately controversial. Its main conclusion was that the structure of the Republic and its Senate were inadequate to the needs of Roman rule, and that Augustus was merely doing what was necessary to restore order in public life. Syme relies on prosopography, especially the work of German scholars Friedrich Münzer and Matthias Gelzer, to show the extent to which Augustus achieved his unofficial but undisputed power by the development of personal relationships into a "Caesarian" party and used it to defeat and diminish the opposition one by one. The process was slow, with the young Octavian initially just using his position as a relative of Julius Caesar to pursue Caesar's assassins, t ...
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