Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic

This book highlights the role played by public, political discourse in shaping the distribution of power between Senate and People in the Late Roman Republic. Against the background of the debate between 'oligarchical' and 'democratic' interpretations of Republican politics, Robert Morstein-Marx emphasizes the perpetual negotiation and reproduction of political power through mass communication. The book analyses the ideology of Republican mass oratory and situates its rhetoric fully within the institutional and historical context of the public meetings (contiones) in which these speeches were heard. Examples of contional orations, drawn chiefly from Cicero and Sallust, are subjected to an analysis that is influenced by contemporary political theory and empirical studies of public opinion and the media, rooted in a detailed examination of key events and institutional structures, and illuminated by a vivid sense of the urban space in which the contio was set. "This book highlights the role played by public political discourse in shaping the distribution of power between Senate and People in the late Roman Republic. Against the background of the current debate between "oligarchical" and "democratic" interpretations of Republican politics, Robert Morstein-Marx emphasizes the perpetual negotiation and reproduction of political power through mass communication. It is the first work to offer an extensive analysis of the ideology of Republican mass oratory and to situate its rhetoric fully within the institutional and historical context of the public meetings (contiones) in which these speeches were heard."--Jacket Examining how public political discourse influenced the distribution of power between the Senate and people in the Late Roman Republic (133-42 BC), this work analyzes comprehensively the "ideology" of Republican mass oratory. Robert Morstein-Marx analyzes it within the institutional, historical and physical contexts of the public meetings in which these speeches were heard. Morstein-Marx emphasizes the perpetual negotiation and reproduction of power through communication. This book examines how public, political discourse shaped the distribution of power between Senate and People in the Late Roman Republic. The 'ideology' of Republican mass oratory is analysed comprehensively and situated fully within the institutional, historical and physical contexts of the public meetings in which these speeches were heard. This book examines how public, political discourse shaped the distribution of power between Senate and People in the Late Roman Republic. The 'ideology' of Republican mass oratory is analyzed comprehensively and situated fully within the institutional, historical and physical contexts of the public meetings in which these speeches were heard

examines How Public, Political Discourse Shaped The Distribution Of Power Between Senate And People.