This paper offers a close analysis of the usage of the term circulus to refer to groups of Romans gathered together for various reasons. I identify such groupings as primarily non-elite in character and suggest that examination of their representation in our sources offers insight into popular sociability and communication at Rome. While circuli and the related figure of the circulator are often associated with what is considered to be a debased popular culture, they can also be seen as part (...) of a more general culture of popular sociability which is politically threatening to a Roman governing class that desired to monopolize and control speech and communication and in whose interest it was to channel popular political participation into the official political institutions of the city. This paper also looks at some of the strategies developed by Roman elites to maintain, in response to such unauthorized activity, their moral, intellectual, and political hegemony over the rest of the population. (shrink)

This essay examines the two means by which Machiavelli thought republics could address the political problem of predatory socio-economic elites: Healthy republics, he proposes explicitly, should consistently check the “insolence of the nobles” by establishing constitutional offices like the Roman tribunes of the plebeians; corrupt republics, he suggests more subtly, should completely eliminate overweening oligarchs via the violent actions of a tyrannical individual. Roman-styled tribunes, wielding veto, legislative and accusatory authority, contain the oppressive behavior of socio-economic elites during normal republican (...) circumstances. By contrast, having overthrown a republic grown corrupt through oligarchic encroachment on the commonweal, Machiavelli suggests that Greek-styled tyrants lay the foundation for a more robust—that is, more egalitarian and martial—republic down the road by eliminating elites entirely and by instituting economic redistribution and military reforms. (shrink)

The chapters of Rousseau’s Social Contract devoted to republican Rome prescribe institutions that obstruct popular efforts at diminishing the excessive power and influence of wealthy citizens and political magistrates. I argue that Rousseau reconstructs ancient Rome’s constitution in direct opposition to the more populist and anti‐elitist model of the Roman Republic championed by Machiavelli in the Discourses: Rousseau eschews the establishment of magistracies, like the tribunes, reserved for common citizens exclusively, and endorses assemblies where the wealthy are empowered to outvote (...) the poor in lawmaking and elections. On the basis of sociologically anonymous principles like generality and popular sovereignty, and by confining elite accountability to general elections, Rousseau’s neo‐Roman institutional proposals aim to pacify the contestation of class hierarchies and inflate elite prerogative within republics – under the cover of more formal, seemingly more genuine, equality. (shrink)