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Morals, Politics, and the fall of the Roman Republic*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Barbara Levick
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Extract

Ancient writers ascribed Rome's political difficulties during the last century of theRepublic to failures of character, specifically to ambitio, avaritia, luxuria, and libido. Sallust gives the clearest and best known account in the introductions to his monographs on Catiline and Jugurtha. The danger of decline had already been noticed by Polybius, and he indicated one point for the beginning of the process: the destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C. (6.57; 38.21 f.). No longer confronted by the external threat, Romans could relax and give themselves up instead to greed, luxury, and personal ambition. Livy seems to have accepted the same turning point: the first fifty books were devoted to the expansion of Rome down to the destruction of Carthage; those that followed paid more attention to Rome's internal problems. At the same time, Livy was not unaware of the importance of Cn. Manlius Vulso's campaigns in the east and his return in 187 B.C. laden with the spoils which marked the beginning of foreign luxury, including such unmentionable instruments of corruption as pedestal tables and sideboards (39.6, 7).

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , April 1982 , pp. 53 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

Notes

1. Smith, R. E., The Failure of the Roman Republic (New York, 1955)Google Scholar; Badian, E., Lucius Sulla the Deadly Reformer, Todd Memorial Lecture (Sydney, 1970), pp. 28ffGoogle Scholar.

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7. See Momigliano's paper ('An interim report on the origins of Rome') cited in n. 5; for detailed comment on a major source, Ogilvie, R. M., A Commentary on Livy Books 1–5 (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar; and see the same author's Early Rome and the Etruscans (London, 1976)Google Scholar. For a recent judicious exposition, see Scullard, H. H., A History of the Roman World 753–146 B.C. (ed. 4, London and New York, 1980), pp. 42ffGoogle Scholar.

8. Dumézil, G., Archaic Roman Religion (tr. Krapp, P., Chicago, etc., 1970), ii. 413Google Scholar; cf. Momigliano, , JRS 56 (1966), 22Google Scholar: ‘The by now famous inscription of the Dioscuri of Lavinium (Degrassi, ILLR ii, 1271a) confirms the diffusion of the cult of the Dioscuri in Latium in the early fifth century'.

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18. Tac, Ann 3.26, puts the golden age before the foundation of the state by Romulus; see Koestermann ad loc.