Читать книгу A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic - Группа авторов - Страница 78

This chapter is a review of the different ways in which the Roman Republic’s political system and political culture have been interpreted since Ronald Syme published his The Roman Revolution in 1939. Out of the many relevant topics, one seems to be pivotal: the question of the power of the elite versus that of the wider public. The following review – of necessity, highly selective – will be focused on this issue. The story can be divided into two parts – before and after what may be defined as the watershed of the 1980s. This watershed was produced by a challenge to the then-prevailing oligarchic interpretation of Republican politics, which emphasised its popular features. This challenge has not been universally accepted – in fact, it has found more critics than supporters. It has, however, transformed the way the Roman political system is described and analysed. The importance of the popular aspect of Republican politics is nowadays much less likely to be dismissed or belittled. What is often asked is how the ruling class managed to preserve its overall control despite the people’s wide-ranging powers – sometimes, indeed, by harnessing these powers for its own advantage.