The Crisis of the Republic in Political Discourse - Einzelansicht

The course will introduce the students to the period of the so-called crisis of the Roman Republic (146-43 BCE), pinpointing the general political and social tendencies as well as some capital episodes and figures of the age. After considering the very notion of the crisis, special emphasis will be put on the political rhetoric and discourse arousing in the last decades before the creation of the principate under Augustus. Students will get acquainted with three main actors and witnesses of these years, who will be considered for their literary endeuveurs as well as for their political roles: Cicero, Caesar and Sallust. The different rhetoric and imagery employed in their works manifest a different political stance and provide evidence for a different perspective on the crisis, its nature and the possible solutions to it.

V. Arena, Libertas and the Practice of Politics in the Late Roman Republic. Cambridge 2012.·       K. Büchner, Sallust, Heidelberg 19822.·       E. Fantham, Comparative Studies in Republican Latin Imagery, Toronto-Buffalo 1972.·       H.I. Flower, Roman Republics, Princeton 2010.·       I. Gildenhard, Creative Eloquence. The Construction of Reality in Cicero’s Speeches. Oxford 2011.·       L. Grillo-C. Krebs (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Writings of Julius Caesar, Cambrdige 2018.·       E.S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 19952.·       K.-J. Hölkeskamp (Hrsg.), Eine politische Kultur (in) der Krise? Die “letzten Generation” der römischen Republik, München 2009.·       Id., Rekonstruktionen einer Republik. Die politische Kultur des antiken Rom und die Forschung der letzten Jahrzehnte, München 2004.·       R. Koselleck, ‘Krise’, in O. Brunner-W. Conze-R. Koselleck (Hrsg.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, III, Stuttgart 1982, 617-650.·       A. Lintott, ‘The Crisis of the Roman Republic: Sources and Source-Problems’, in J. A. Crook-A. Lintott- E. Rawson (eds.), Cambridge Ancient History IX (The last age of the Roman Republic, 146 - 43 B.C.), Cambridge 19942, 1-15.·       J. M. May, Brill’s Companion to Cicero. Oratory and Rhetoric, Leiden-Boston-Köln 2002.·       C. Moatti, The Birth of Critical Thinking in Republican Rome, Cambridge 2015.·       R. Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, Cambridge 2004.·       J. von Ungern-Sternberg, The Crisis of the Republic, in H. Flower (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic, Cambridge 20142, 78-99.·       C. Steeel (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Cicero, Cambridge 2013.·       R. Syme, The Roman Revolution, Oxford 1939.

Aktive Beteiligung an der Diskussion im Kurs

Referat / Vortrag im Seminar

schriftliche Hausarbeit (12-15 Seiten)