Kingdom, Republic and Empire: the story of power in Rome

Two great narrative arcs dominate our understanding of Ancient Rome: the rise and fall of the Republic (509 BC - 31 BC) and the rise and fall of the Empire (31 BC - AD 476). At the heart of these narratives sits a vast complex of factors, our understanding of which will always be hampered by the paucity of information, measured by modern standards. Yet individuals also stand at the centre of these revolutionary transitions and we are lucky enough to possess several excellent accounts of events, many of them written by eye-witnesses (eg Polybius), the figures themselves (eg Caesar) or in some cases good researchers who had access to now-lost documentation (eg Plutarch).

The overwhelming bias in these accounts is in favour of the individual as an explanatory cause: the individual and in particular personal character is the blood that flows through the body of Roman historiography, no matter the author. Yet there can be no doubt that these historians (and above all their readers) sought the truth, or at least some kind of truth: they sought to understand where they came from and how they got there, all with a view to shaping the future, whether as a nation, a corporate senate or as an all-powerful princeps. This course will address not just the monumental events of Roman history that serve as the backdrop to European history, but we will also listen very carefully to those voices that tell us this story, chiefly Livy, Tacitus and Suetonius.