Roman History: Early to Republic
- LAST REVIEWED: 14 December 2009
- LAST MODIFIED: 14 December 2009
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0023
- LAST REVIEWED: 14 December 2009
- LAST MODIFIED: 14 December 2009
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0023
Introduction
The Roman Republic continues to intrigue researchers and students alike. The rise of a small city to become mistress of the Mediterranean provoked the great Greek historian Polybius already in the 2nd century BCE and still fascinates scholars, whose output consistently swells a bibliography that can only be very selectively surveyed here. The vision of the Republic left a deep impression upon medieval Europe, upon writers and thinkers like Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and the American Founding Fathers, and it resonates even with contemporary political theorists. The achievement of the Roman Republic and the foundations upon which it rested remain subjects of compelling interest.
General Overviews
The three volumes of the Cambridge ancient history in its second edition (Astin, et al. 1989–1994) constitute an invaluable survey of the whole period. Goldberg 2016 supplies convenient and reliable entries for swift reference. Broughton 1951–1986 boasts an extraordinary assemblage of data on every public official in the history of the Republic, representing a landmark that no Republican historian can do without. Two recent “Companions” to the Roman Republic provide essays by specialists on all aspects of the subject. Flower 2004 is readable and succinct and speaks successfully to both scholars and lay readers. Rosenstein and Morstein-Marx 2006 allows much more space to its contributors. The latter volume, whose analyses are lucid, penetrating, and wide-ranging, with thorough and up-to-date bibliographies, is easily the best example of this genre.
Astin, A. E., F. W. Walbank, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie, J. A. Crook, A. Lintott, and E. Rawson, eds. 1989–1994. The Cambridge ancient history, vol. VII, part 2: The rise of Rome to 220 B.C.; vol. VIII: Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 B.C.; vol. IX: The last age of the Roman Republic, 146–43 B.C. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
These volumes of the second edition of the Cambridge ancient history trace the history of Rome from its origins to the end of the Republic. They completely supersede the previous edition. The treatment is fresh and much more extensive. Account is taken of new scholarly insights and of the considerable amount of new evidence, much of it archaeological, that has become available since the 1st edition was published.
Broughton, T. R. F. 1951–1986. The magistrates of the Roman Republic. 3 vols. New York and Atlanta: American Philological Association.
Broughton collects all available testimony, citing references for every magistrate, public official, priest, and military commander in the whole of the Republic. Although he gives only few (and brief) discussions of problems, this is a reference tool of unrivaled value for the study of the Roman elite. Reprinted, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986.
Flower, Harriet I. 2004. The Cambridge companion to the Roman Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Flower's Companion is primarily addressed to those with interest but little background in Roman history, offering “an introduction to the Republic that tries not to privilege a particular time period or point of view,” but instead providing “a guide to a variety of areas, fields of study, and possible approaches that are currently being explored.”
Goldberg, Sander, ed. 2016. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Digital ed. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Goldberg supplies a first resource for students seeking an entry to a vast array of subjects in the broad realm of Classical Antiquity. He also points students and researchers to further sources and bibliography. As an introduction to countless topics, this compendium of basic information is invaluable.
Rosenstein, Nathan S., and Robert Morstein-Marx, eds. 2006. A companion to the Roman Republic. Oxford: Blackwell.
An authoritative and up-to-date overview of Roman Republican history as shaped by many of its most prominent practitioners. It looks at the role played by the physical geography and environment of Italy, offers a compact but detailed narrative of military, political, social, and economic developments from the birth of the Roman Republic to the death of Julius Caesar, and offers superb discussions of current controversies in the field.
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- Academy, The
- Acropolis of Athens, The
- Aeschylus
- Aeschylus’s Oresteia
- Aesthetics, Greek and Roman
- Africa, Roman
- Agathias
- Agriculture in the Classical World
- Agriculture, Roman
- Alcibiades
- Alexander of Aphrodisias
- Alexander the Great
- Amicitia
- Ammianus Marcellinus
- Amyklaion
- Anatolian, Greek and
- Anaxagoras
- Ancient Classical Scholarship
- Ancient Greek and Latin Grammarians
- Ancient Greek Terracotta Sculpture
- Ancient Mediterranean Baths and Bathing
- Ancient Olympia
- Ancient Skepticism
- Ancient Thebes
- Antisthenes
- Antonines, The
- Aphrodite
- Apollodorus
- Apollonius of Rhodes
- Appendix Vergiliana
- Apuleius
- Apuleius's Platonism
- Ara Pacis Augustae
- Arabic “Theology of Aristotle”, The
- Aratus
- Archaeology, Greek
- Archaeology, Roman
- Archaic Latin
- Architecture, Etruscan
- Architecture, Greek
- Architecture, Roman
- Arena Spectacles
- Aristophanes
- Aristophanes’ Clouds
- Aristophanes’ Lysistrata
- Aristotle
- Aristotle, Ancient Commentators on
- Aristotle's Categories
- Aristotle's Ethics
- Aristotle's Metaphysics
- Aristotle's Philosophy of Mind
- Aristotle’s Physics
- Aristotle's Politics
- Art and Archaeology, Research Resources for Classical
- Art, Etruscan
- Art, Greek
- Art, Late Antique
- Artemis
- Asconius
- Athena
- Athenaeus of Naucratis
- Athenian Agora
- Athenian Economy
- Attic Middle Comic Fragments
- Augustine
- Augustus
- Aulularia, Plautus’s
- Aulus Gellius
- Ausonius
- Bacchylides
- Banking in the Roman World
- Bilingualism and Multilingualism in the Roman World
- Biography, Greek and Latin
- Birds, Aristophanes'
- Boethius
- Britain, Roman
- Bronze Age Aegean, Death and Burial in the
- Caecilius Statius
- Caere/Cerveteri
- Callimachus of Cyrene
- Carthage, Punic
- Casina, Plautus’s
- Cato the Censor
- Cato the Younger
- Catullus
- Christianity, Early
- Chronicles
- Cicero
- Cicero's Catilinarian Orations
- Cicero’s Philosophical Works
- Cicero's Pro Archia
- Cicero's Rhetorical Works
- Cicero's Speeches: Individual Speeches
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- Cities in the Roman World
- Classical Architecture in Europe and North America since 1...
- Classical Architecture in Renaissance and Early Modern Eur...
- Classical Art History, History of Scholarship of
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- Corpus Tibullianum Book Three
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- Crete, Ancient
- Critias of Athens
- Death
- Death and Burial in the Roman Age
- Declamation
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- Demography, Ancient
- Demosthenes
- Dio, Cassius
- Diodorus Siculus
- Diogenes Laertius
- Dionysus
- Donatus
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- Drama, Latin
- Economy, Roman
- Education
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- Emotions
- Empedocles
- Ennius
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- Epicureanism
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- Epigrams, Greek Poetry
- Epigraphy, Greek
- Epigraphy, Latin
- Eratosthenes of Cyrene
- Etruscans
- Etymology, Greek Lexicon and
- Euripides
- Euripides' Alcestis
- Euripides’ Bacchae
- Euripides’ Electra
- Euripides' Orestes
- Euripides’ Trojan Women
- Fabius Pictor
- Family, Roman
- Federal States, Greek
- Festus
- Fishing and Aquaculture, Roman
- Flavian Literature
- Fragments, Greek Old Comic
- Frontiers of the Roman Empire
- Galen
- Gardens, Greek and Roman
- Gaul, Roman
- Geography
- Gracchi Brothers, The
- Greek and Roman Logic
- Greek Colonization
- Greek Domestic Architecture c. 800 bce to c. 100 bce
- Greek Epic, The Language of the
- Greek New Comic Fragments
- Greek Originals and Roman Copies
- Greek Prehistory Through the Bronze Age
- Greek Vase Painting
- Hellenistic Tragedy
- Heracles
- Heraclitus
- Herculaneum (Modern Ercolano)
- Herculaneum Papyri
- Heritage Management
- Hermes
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- Herodotus
- Hesiod
- Historia Augusta
- Historiography, Greek
- Historiography, Latin
- History, Greek: Archaic to Classical Age
- History, Greek: Hellenistic
- History of Modern Classical Scholarship (Since 1750), The
- History, Roman: Early to the Republic
- History, Roman: Imperial, 31 BCE–284 CE
- History, Roman: Late Antiquity
- Homer
- Homeric Hymns
- Homo novus/New man
- Horace
- Horace's Epistles and Ars Poetica
- Horace’s Epodes
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- Horace's Satires
- Imperialism, Roman
- Indo-European, Greek and
- Indo-European, Latin and
- Intertextuality in Latin Poetry
- Isocrates
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- Jews and Judaism
- Juvenal
- Knossos, Prehistoric
- Koine, The
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- Latin Paleography, Editing, and the Transmission of Classi...
- Latin Particles and Word Order
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- Law, Greek
- Law, Roman
- Lexicography, Greek
- Lexicography, Latin
- Linguistics, Indo-European
- Literary Criticism, Ancient
- Literary Languages of Greek, The
- Literary Letters, Greek
- Literary Letters, Roman
- Literature, Hellenistic
- Literature, Neo-Latin
- Livy
- Looting and the Antiquities Market
- Lucan
- Lucilius
- Lucretius
- Lysias
- Macedonia
- Macrobius
- Maecenas
- Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World
- Maps
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- Marcus Cornelius Fronto
- Marcus Manilius
- Maritime Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean
- Marius and Sulla
- Martial
- Maximianus
- Mechanics
- Medea, Seneca's
- Menander of Athens
- Metaphysics, Greek and Roman
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- Middle Platonism
- Military, Greek
- Military, Roman
- Miltiades of Cimon
- Minor Socratics
- Mosaics, Greek and Roman
- Mythography
- Mythology
- Narratology and the Classics
- Neoplatonism
- Neoteric Poets, The
- Nepos, Cornelius
- Nonius Marcellus
- Nonnus
- Novel, Roman
- Novel, The Greek
- Numismatics, Greek and Roman
- Onomastics
- Optimates/Populares
- Orosius
- Orpheus and Orphism
- Ovid
- Ovid’s Exile Poetry
- Ovid’s Love Poetry
- Ovid's Metamorphoses
- Painting, Greek
- Panaetius of Rhodes
- Panathenaic Festival, the
- Pantheon
- Papyrology: Literary and Documentary
- Parmenides
- Parthenon
- Parthian Empire, The
- Pausanias
- Performance Culture, Greek
- Perikles (Pericles)
- Petronius
- Philo of Alexandria
- Philodemus of Gadara
- Philoponus
- Philosophy, Dialectic in Ancient Greek and Roman
- Philosophy, Greek
- Philosophy of Language, Ancient
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- Philosophy, Roman
- Philostratus, Lucius Flavius
- Pindar
- Plato
- Plato’s Apology of Socrates
- Plato’s Crito
- Plato's Laws
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- Plato’s Phaedo
- Plato’s Philebus
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- Plato’s Theaetetus
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- Plautus
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- Plautus’s Curculio
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- Pliny the Elder
- Pliny the Younger
- Plotinus
- Plutarch's Moralia
- Poetic Meter, Latin
- Poetry, Greek: Elegiac and Lyric
- Poetry, Greek: Iambos
- Poetry, Greek: Pre-Hellenistic
- Poetry, Latin: From the Beginnings through the End of the ...
- Poetry, Latin: Imperial
- Polis
- Political Philosophy, Greek and Roman
- Polybius
- Pompeii
- Porphyry
- Posidippus of Pella
- Posidonius
- Poverty in the Roman World
- Proclus
- Prometheus
- Prometheus, Aeschylus'
- Propertius
- Prosopography
- Protagoras
- Prudentius
- Pyrrho of Elis
- Pythagoreanism
- Quintilian
- Religion, Greek
- Religion, Roman
- Rhetoric, Greek
- Rhetoric, Latin
- Roman Agricultural Writers, The
- Roman Consulship, The
- Roman Italy, 4th Century bce to 3rd Century ce
- Roman Kingship
- Roman Legion, The
- Roman Patronage
- Roman Roads and Transport
- Sacrifice
- Sallust
- Samnites
- Samothrace
- Sappho
- Sardis, Ancient
- Scholia
- Science, Greek and Roman
- Sculpture, Etruscan
- Sculpture, Greek
- Sculpture, Roman
- Seneca the Elder
- Seneca the Younger's Philosophical Works
- Seneca’s Oedipus
- Seneca's Phaedra
- Seneca's Tragedies
- Severans, The
- Sexuality
- Silius Italicus
- Simplicius
- Slavery, Greek
- Slavery, Roman
- Socrates
- Solon
- Sophocles
- Sophocles’ Ajax
- Sophocles’ Antigone
- Sophocles’ Electra
- Sophocles’ Fragments
- Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus
- Sophocles’ Oedipus the King
- Sophocles’ Philoctetes
- Sophocles’ Trachiniae
- Sosipatra
- Spain, Roman
- Sparta
- Sport
- Statius
- Stesichorus of Himera
- Stoicism
- Strabo
- Suetonius
- Symposion, Greek
- Tacitus
- Technology, Greek and Roman
- Terence
- Terence’s Adelphoe
- Terence’s Eunuchus
- Tertullian
- The Sophists
- The Tabula Peutingeriana (Peutinger Map)
- Theater Production, Greek
- Theocritus of Syracuse
- Theoderic the Great and Ostrogothic Italy
- Theophrastus of Eresus
- Thucydides
- Tibullus
- Topography of Athens
- Topography of Rome
- Tragic Chorus, The
- Translation and Classical Reception
- Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature
- Valerius Flaccus
- Valerius Maximus
- Varro, Marcus Terentius
- Veii
- Velleius Paterculus
- Virgil
- Vitruvius
- Wall Painting, Etruscan
- Xenophanes
- Xenophon
- Zeno of Elea
- Zeus