Roman Political Culture

This volume offers an innovative analysis of Roman political culture in Italy from the first to the sixth century AD on the basis of seven case studies. Its main contention is that, during the period in which Italy was subject to single rule, political culture took on a specific form, being the product of the continued existence of two traditional political institutions: the senate in the city of Rome and the local city councils in the rest of Italy. Under singlerule, the position of both institutions was increasingly weakened and they became part of a much wider institutional landscape, although the fact that they continued to function until the end of the sixth century AD must imply that they retained meaning for their members, even while society as a wholewas undergoing radical changes. As their powers and prerogatives shrank considerably, their significance became social rather than political as they allowed elites to enact and negotiate their own position in society. However, the tension between the participatory nature of these institutions and the restriction of their power generated complex social dynamics: on the one hand, participants became locked in mutual expectations about each other's behaviour and were compelled to enact particularsocial roles, while on the other hand they retained a degree of agency. They were encapsulated in an honorific language and in a set of conventions that regulated their behaviour, but that at the same time offered them room for manoeuvre: this degree of autonomy provides a compelling basis on whichto challenge the prevailing view among historians that deliberative and participatory politics effectively ended with the institution of the Roman monarchy under Augustus.

Tacoma (Leiden Univ., Netherlands) examines Roman political culture in Italy in a series of case studies spanning the first to sixth centuries AD. All studies address either the Roman senate or town councils in Italy, and each centers on a text or group of texts: Seneca's Apocolocyntosis; election campaign inscriptions from Pompeii; Pliny the Younger's letters on election jokes; an acclamation of the senate on the death of Emperor Commodus, preserved in the Historia Augusta; an inscription recording the grant of privileges to the community of Hispellum by Constantine; documents from Cassiodorus's Variae and inscriptions on draining the Pontine Marshes; and local council records preserved in the Ravenna papyri. ... Tacoma draws a number of cogent original conclusions, some going against received scholarly opinion., In essence, the work... offers such a range of topics to render itself useful to many more than those interested in politics... This work, therefore, is a welcome addition to the many tomes on Roman politics, as it comprises an initial first step into considering the wider role of political life beyond the capital itself.

Laurens E. Tacoma is Lecturer in Ancient History at Leiden University. His research and teaching interests centre on the field of Roman social history and he has published on the urban elites of Roman Egypt, social and economic relations, Roman migration and mobility, and Roman political culture.