Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors
- The republic and its highest office: some introductory remarks on the Roman consulate
- Part I The creation of the consulship
- Part II Powers and functions of the consulship
- Part III Symbols, models, self-representation
- Part IV Ideology, confrontation and the end of the republican consulship
- Chapter 12 Consular appeals to the army in 88 and 87: the locus of legitimacy in late-republican Rome
- Chapter 13 Consules populares
- Chapter 14 The consulship of 78 bc. Catulus versus Lepidus: an optimates versus populares affair
- Chapter 15 Consulship and consuls under Augustus
- Bibliography
- Index of persons
- Subject index
Chapter 13 - Consules populares
from Part IV - Ideology, confrontation and the end of the republican consulship
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors
- The republic and its highest office: some introductory remarks on the Roman consulate
- Part I The creation of the consulship
- Part II Powers and functions of the consulship
- Part III Symbols, models, self-representation
- Part IV Ideology, confrontation and the end of the republican consulship
- Chapter 12 Consular appeals to the army in 88 and 87: the locus of legitimacy in late-republican Rome
- Chapter 13 Consules populares
- Chapter 14 The consulship of 78 bc. Catulus versus Lepidus: an optimates versus populares affair
- Chapter 15 Consulship and consuls under Augustus
- Bibliography
- Index of persons
- Subject index
Summary
The populares and the crisis of the republic
The optimates–populares conflict is one of the distinctive events of the last century of republican Rome. From the mid-second century until the civil wars of the 40s, the ancient authors describe a series of critical episodes that allow a degree of continuity to be established.
At relatively regular intervals, we witness popular movements led by the plebeian tribunes, socio-economic demands (whether to do with agrarian reform, the corn supply or the founding of colonies), disputes between the senate and the assemblies about their respective powers, an abundance of laws and proposals as well as of assemblies (especially contiones), and even repressive mechanisms of doubtful “constitutionality,” such as the so-called senatus consultum ultimum. In this sense, the harmony (concordia), real or imaginary, that the ancient authors attribute to other republican periods appears to have been lost: the citizens and the ruling classes frequently appear divided and the mechanisms of consensus and social cohesion function less effectively.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Consuls and Res PublicaHolding High Office in the Roman Republic, pp. 279 - 298Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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