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Oligarchy At Rome: a Paradigm for Political Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Ronald Syme
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Extract

The language of politics knows “good words” and “bad”. One criterion is obvious. The former lend themselves to fraud and deception, the latter mean what they say. The prime specimen is oligarchy.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 36 , Issue 141 , March 1988, pp. 56 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1 Voltaire, Le siècle de Louis XIV, ch. II.

2 Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. XI.

3 L.B. Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III, 1929; England in the Age of the American Revolution, 1939. Hence much controversy. For a fair and lucid summary, see J.P. Kenyon, The History Men, 1983, p. 251 ff.

4 Cicero, De re publica III. p. 23.

5 Sallust, cat. 52. II. "vera vocabula rerum amisimus".

6 P.A. Brunt, ltalian Manpower, 1971, p. 566.

7 F. Münzer, Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien, 1920. For Gelzer, see now The Roman Nobility, 1969: translation and a perceptive introduction by R. Seager.

8 The Roman Revolution. Published on September 7, 1939.

9 Thus several contributors to La Rivoluzione Romana. Biblioteca di Labeo, Napoli, 1982.

10 The second edition, begun in 1933, has now reached the letter M.

11 See now The Augustan Aristocracy, Oxford, 1986.

12 The process was set forth in Tacitus, 1958, ch. XLIV.

13 L. Febvre, Combats pour l'Histoire, 1953, 115.

14 And in one aspect their age can be regarded as the rise of "néo-paganisme". Thus P. Gay, The Enlightenment, 1967.

15 For English reservations about the ruler himself, see H.D. Weinbrot, Augustus Caesar in "Augustan" England, 1978.

16 See, for example, "Marriage Alliances and Avoidances at Rome", Diogenes n. 135, Fall 1986.

17 As presentation in clear and detailed exposition by L. Stone, The Past and the Present, 1981, ch. 2, "Prosopography".

18 Benefit can be got from consulting R. Wilkinson (ed.), Governing Elites. Training and Selection, 1969.

19 The epigraph to Le Rouge et le Noir, ch. XXVII. He cited Télémaque as the source.

20 Leviathan, ch. XIII.

21 Thucydides I. 75.3; 76.2.

22 The translation preceded the publication of Leviathan by thirteen years. Influence on the author is seldom recognised in modern books. See the pertinent remarks of G.E.M. de Sainte Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War, 1972, 26 ff.

23 L. Stone, The Past and the Present, 1981, ch. 3, "The Revival of Narrative".