Competition and Crisis in Mid-Republican Rome

Bibliographic Data

ID3938144
AuthorsNathan Rosenstein (corresponding author)
Year1993
Volume47
Issue4
Pages313
Publication date1993-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhoenix (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1088728
OpenAlexW2323684962
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited1

ARISTOCRATIC COMPETITION lay at the heart of the Roman Republic. No professional bureaucracy directed public affairs; no salary accompanied political office. Instead, the city harnessed individual ambition to meet its essential needs. Contention among the ruling elite for glory and renown, for public offices, and for the honor, rank, and authority that attended them regulated Rome's markets and built its roads, saw to the worship of the gods, crafted laws, led the city's armies and conducted its foreign affairs. These struggles were vital to the success of the res publica. Yet what aristocratic competition could serve it could also subvert. The pursuit of success at any cost or in any manner or even at the wrong moment could bring aristocratic ambition into conflict with the vital interests of the Republic. Limits were essential-but what were they and how did they work? In the ceaseless rivalry of a small group of highly contentious men within an increasingly wealthy and potent imperial city, how could the Republic's vital interests be defined and means be found to curb ambition when the two clashed? No authority existed outside the senatorial class to make such determinations and exert the necessary compulsion; the impetus would have to come from within. Yet the aristocracy's own closely-knit and semi-exclusive character ensured that many if not most of its members would be highly partisan observers of any political contest the outcome of which would in some way affect their aspirations and interests or those of relatives and friends. How then were they able to impose limits on themselves? War perhaps afforded an easy and obvious means of doing so. Military

Biology · Competition (biology · Political science · Classical Antiquity Studies

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