{"title":"Caesar’s First Consulship and Rome’s Democratic Decay","authors":"David Rafferty","doi":"10.1515/klio-2021-0027","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Summary This article argues for the usefulness of recent scholarship on democratic decay (especially in the disciplines of political science and constitutional law) for explaining the breakdown of Rome’s res publica during the 50s BCE, with a particular focus on Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s “How Democracies Die” (2018). Using “democracy” in the neo-republican sense of government free from domination, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how the actions and reactions of political actors can damage a political system without any intention to overthrow it. This article combines their insights with concepts from Christian Meier’s “Res Publica Amissa” (2nd edition 1980) to analyse Caesar’s first consulship in 59 BCE. After explaining how the theory can responsibly be applied, it closely examines the major events of the year, especially the contest over the agrarian law. Caesar’s actions throughout the year demonstrate Levitsky and Ziblatt’s warning signs for a potential authoritarian, as do those of the opposition. This analysis helps us more clearly understand just how the events of “the consulship of Julius and Caesar” (Suet. Iul. 20.2) contributed to Rome’s democratic decay in succeeding years. The article connects to much recent work on late-republican political institutions. It also helps make this dramatic period of Roman history comprehensible to political scientists by analysing it in their own theoretical terms.","PeriodicalId":17832,"journal":{"name":"Klio","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Klio","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/klio-2021-0027","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Summary This article argues for the usefulness of recent scholarship on democratic decay (especially in the disciplines of political science and constitutional law) for explaining the breakdown of Rome’s res publica during the 50s BCE, with a particular focus on Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s “How Democracies Die” (2018). Using “democracy” in the neo-republican sense of government free from domination, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how the actions and reactions of political actors can damage a political system without any intention to overthrow it. This article combines their insights with concepts from Christian Meier’s “Res Publica Amissa” (2nd edition 1980) to analyse Caesar’s first consulship in 59 BCE. After explaining how the theory can responsibly be applied, it closely examines the major events of the year, especially the contest over the agrarian law. Caesar’s actions throughout the year demonstrate Levitsky and Ziblatt’s warning signs for a potential authoritarian, as do those of the opposition. This analysis helps us more clearly understand just how the events of “the consulship of Julius and Caesar” (Suet. Iul. 20.2) contributed to Rome’s democratic decay in succeeding years. The article connects to much recent work on late-republican political institutions. It also helps make this dramatic period of Roman history comprehensible to political scientists by analysing it in their own theoretical terms.
本文认为,最近关于民主衰败的学术研究(特别是在政治学和宪法学科领域)对于解释公元前50年代罗马共和政体的崩溃是有用的,并特别关注史蒂文·列维茨基和丹尼尔·齐布拉特的《民主政体是如何消亡的》(2018)。列维茨基和齐布拉特使用新共和主义意义上的“民主”,即摆脱统治的政府,展示了政治行为者的行为和反应如何破坏政治制度,而无意推翻它。本文将他们的见解与Christian Meier的“Res Publica Amissa”(1980年第二版)中的概念结合起来,分析凯撒在公元前59年的第一次执政官任期。在解释了如何负责任地应用这一理论之后,它仔细研究了一年中发生的重大事件,特别是关于土地法的争论。凯撒一整年的行动证明了列维茨基和齐布拉特对潜在独裁的警告,反对派也是如此。这种分析有助于我们更清楚地理解“朱利叶斯和凯撒的执政官”(Suet。(《古兰经》20.2)导致了罗马在随后几年的民主衰败。这篇文章与最近许多关于共和后期政治制度的研究有关。这也有助于政治学家用他们自己的理论来分析这段戏剧性的罗马历史。
期刊介绍:
KLIO is one of the oldest journals in the German-speaking area and contains contributions on the history of ancient Greece and Rome. The essays present new interpretations of traditional sources concerning problems of political history as well as papers on the whole field of culture, economy and society.