Abstract
This thesis offers a comprehensive critical analysis of Livy's portrayal of Roman politics in Books 21-45. Although Livy's history provides the most detailed account of politics in the 'middle' or 'classical' Republic, as yet there has been no major study devoted to this important topic specifically. Books 21-45 cover a period of Roman history usually identified in antiquity as Rome’s apogee: the republic faced, and overcame, its greatest external threat in the form of Hannibal during the Second Punic War (covered in Books 21-30), then began a period of unhindered overseas conquest (the beginning of which is recounted in Books 31-45). In Roman historiography, success in these ventures was predicated on domestic stability and political harmony. As such, politics plays a relatively small part in a narrative devoted primarily to foreign affairs and warfare.This thesis is intended in part to explicate how order and cohesion – concordia – is maintained in these books, but it also examines cases in which the political order is disrupted, and considers the implications of this discordia for Livy’s conception of the Roman polity. It concludes that these books of Livy’s history illustrate Roman politics at its best, and offer lessons on how the state can function efficiently and peacefully. The era that Livy describes is not without conflict, but these conflicts are typically confronted and dealt with successfully, with the different organs of state (the senate, the consulate, and the tribunate) working together with due deference to the wisdom of worthy individuals and to the collective authority of the senatorial order. But these books represent only a fragment of Livy’s narrative, and this thesis argues that they also serve to foreshadow the disorders that will beset the res publica in later books.
| Date of Award | 1 Sept 2019 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Henrik Mouritsen (Supervisor) & Dominic Rathbone (Supervisor) |