Cultural memory and political change in the public speech of the late Roman Republic

Steel, C. (2023) Cultural memory and political change in the public speech of the late Roman Republic. In: Dinter, M. T. and Guérin, C. (eds.) Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge ; New York, pp. 203-217. ISBN 9781009327756 (doi: 10.1017/9781009327749.012)

Abstract

Sulla’s dictatorship transformed Rome politically, socially, and physically.1 The changes which he imposed created winners as well as losers; but collectively the experience of his rule was traumatic, combining unprecedented violence directed at individuals with continuing uncertainty around fundamental citizen rights.2 The trauma persisted, in the transformation in the operation of the res publica, the Roman state, which was regularly repeated through the annual political cycle; in the reshaping of the fabric of the city, including Sulla’s self-memorialisation and the elimination of memorials to his chief rival Marius; and in the ongoing marginalisation of the descendants of his victims, not simply deprived of their property which had been transferred to new owners but also deprived of their citizen rights.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Steel, Professor Catherine
• Authors: Steel, C.
• Subjects: D History General and Old World > DE The Mediterranean Region. The Greco-Roman World
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > Classics
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISBN: 9781009327756
• Published Online: 11 May 2023