{"product_id":"the-crowd-in-rome-in-the-late-republic","title":"The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt has often been thought that Roman politics was dominated by a governing class  or even aristocracy  and it has sometimes been presumed that the Senate was a legislative body. The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic takes a dramatically new tack  and explores the consequences of a democracy in which public office could be gained only by direct election by the people. And while the Senate could indeed debate public matters  advise other office-holders  and make some administrative decisions  it could not legislate. An office-holder who wanted to pass a law had to step out of the Senate-house and propose it to the people in the Forum--where there were few guarantees. In this important study  Fergus Millar explores the development of the Roman Republic  which  as it drew to a close in the middle decades of the first century B.C.E.  had come to cover most of Italy. There were nearly a million adult male voters in the time of Cicero  but there were no constituencies  and no absentee ballots. To exercise their rights  voters had to come in person to Rome and to meet in the Forum. Millar takes the period from the dictatorship of Sulla to Caesars crossing of the Rubicon and shows how the politics of the crowd was central to the great changes that took place year after year  and altered the Republic forever. The originality of Millars highly accessible work lies first in its serious treatment of the importance of open-air oratory in Roman public life  and second  in its use of the narratives of events that evidence provides. Third  it refuses to interpret these narratives in the light of modern theories about the importance of the client-patron system  or the domination of the Senate. This work questions how we should understand the Roman Republic: as a network of aristocratic families dominating the people  or an erratic and volatile democracy in which power was exercised by the tiny proportion of citizens who actually came to listen to speeches and to vote. This work speaks to those interested in ancient history and its consequences in the modern world. Fergus Millar is Camden Professor of Ancient History  Brasenose College  Oxford University.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946750701621,"sku":"ByrdShop_0472108921","price":45.3,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780472108923.jpg?v=1769964732","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-crowd-in-rome-in-the-late-republic","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}