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Optimates And Populares
Optimates (; Latin for "best ones", ) and populares (; Latin for "supporters of the people", ) are labels applied to politicians, political groups, traditions, strategies, or ideologies in the late Roman Republic. There is "heated academic discussion" as to whether Romans would have recognised an ideological content or political split in the label. Among other things, ''optimates'' have been seen as supporters of the continued authority of the Roman senate, senate, politicians who operated mostly in the senate, or opponents of the ''populares''. The ''populares'' have also been seen as focusing on operating before the Constitution of the Roman Republic#Assemblies, popular assemblies, generally in opposition to the Roman senate, senate, using "the populace, rather than the senate, as a means [for advantage]". References to optimates (also called ''boni'', "good men") and ''populares'' are found among the writings of Roman authors of the 1st century BC. The distinction bet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four verb conjuga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cato The Younger
Marcus Porcius Cato "Uticensis" ("of Utica"; ; 95 BC – April 46 BC), also known as Cato the Younger ( la, Cato Minor), was an influential conservative Roman senator during the late Republic. His conservative principles were focused on the preservation of what he saw as old Roman values in decline. A noted orator and a follower of Stoicism, his scrupulous honesty and professed respect for tradition gave him a powerful political following which he mobilised against powerful generals (including Julius Caesar and Pompey) of his day. Before Caesar's civil war, Cato served in a number of political offices. During his urban quaestorship in 63 BC, he was praised for his honesty and incorruptibility in running Rome's finances. He passed laws during his tribunate in 62 BC to expand the grain dole and force generals to give up their armies and commands before standing in elections. He also frustrated Pompey's ambitions by opposing a bill brought by Pompey's allies to transfer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Catilinarian Conspiracy
The Catilinarian conspiracy (sometimes Second Catilinarian conspiracy) was an attempted coup d'état by Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline) to overthrow the Roman consuls of 63 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida – and forcibly assume control of the state in their stead. The conspiracy was formed after Catiline's defeat in the consular elections for 62 (held in early autumn 63). He assembled a coalition of malcontents – aristocrats who had been denied political advancement by the voters, dispossessed farmers, and indebted veterans of Sulla – and planned to seize the consulship from Cicero and Antonius by force. In November 63, Cicero exposed the conspiracy, causing Catiline to flee from Rome and eventually to his army in Etruria. The next month, Cicero uncovered nine more conspirators organising for Catiline in the city and, on advice of the senate, had them executed without trial. In early January 62 BC, Antonius defeated Catiline in battle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (; 86 – ), was a Roman historian and politician from an Italian plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became during the 50s BC a partisan of Julius Caesar (100 to 44 BC). He is the earliest known Latin-language Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which ''Conspiracy of Catiline'' (on the eponymous conspiracy), ''The Jugurthine War'' (on the eponymous war), and the ''Histories'' (of which only fragments survive) remain extant. As a writer, Sallust was primarily influenced by the works of the 5th-century BC Greek historian Thucydides. During his political career he amassed great and ill-gotten wealth from his governorship of Africa. Life and career Sallust was probably born in Amiternum in Central Italy,.. though Eduard Schwartz takes the view that Sallust's birthplace was Rome. His birth date is calculated from the report of Jerome's ''Chronicon''.. But ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaius Gracchus
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus ( – 121 BC) was a reformist Roman politician in the 2nd century BC. He is most famous for his tribunate for the years 123 and 122 BC, in which he proposed a wide set of laws, including laws to establish colonies outside of Italy, engage in further land reform, reform the judicial system, and create a subsidised grain supply for Rome. The year after his tribunate, his political enemies used political unrest – which he and his political allies had caused – as an excuse to declare martial law and march on his supporters, leading to his death. After his death, his political allies were purged in a series of trials, but most of his legislation was undisturbed. His brother was the reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Both were the sons of the Gracchus who was consul in 177 and 163 BC. Background Gaius Gracchus was born into a very well-connected political family. His father, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, was a very successful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucius Opimius
Lucius Opimius was a Roman politician who held the consulship in 121 BC, in which capacity and year he ordered the execution of 3,000 supporters of popular leader Gaius Gracchus without trial, using as pretext the state of emergency declared after Gracchus's recent and turbulent death. Biography He is first mentioned for crushing the revolt of the town of Fregellae in 125 BC. He was elected consul in 121 BC with Quintus Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, and while Fabius was campaigning in Gaul, he took part in perhaps the most decisive event of Roman history to that point. When Gaius Gracchus and M. Fulvius Flaccus were defeated for re-election by Opimius and Fabius, Gracchus organized a mass protest on the Aventine Hill. Alarmed by this action, the Senate passed the motion ''senatus consultum ultimum'', which Opimius understood as an order to suppress their activities by any means necessary—including force. He gathered an armed force of Senators and their supporters, and confron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio (182/181–132 BC) was a politician of the Roman Republic best remembered today for leading a mob that assassinated the tribune Tiberius Gracchus, and hunted and killed Tiberius' supporters afterwards. A member of the great patrician ''gens'' Cornelia, he was the son of Scipio Nasica Corculum, the pontifex maximus and princeps senatus. As with many other Cornelii Scipiones, Serapio obtained several prominent offices; he notably succeeded his father as pontifex maximus in 141 BC, and became consul in 138 BC. A firm conservative, like his father and his cousin Scipio Aemilianus, he led the opposition to the tribune of the plebs Tiberius Gracchus, whom he finally murdered in 133 BC. However, he was sent to Asia by the senate to avoid his prosecution by Gracchus' supporters, and died in Pergamum soon after. Family background Not much is known about the early life of Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio. He was a member of the ''gens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philippicae
The ''Philippics'' ( la, Philippicae, singular Philippica) are a series of 14 speeches composed by Cicero in 44 and 43 BC, condemning Mark Antony. Cicero likened these speeches to those of Demosthenes against Philip II of Macedon; both Demosthenes’s and Cicero's speeches became known as Philippics. Cicero's Second Philippic is styled after Demosthenes' ''De Corona'' ('On the Crown'). The speeches were delivered in the aftermath of the assassination of Julius Caesar, during a power struggle between Caesar's supporters and his assassins. Although Cicero was not involved in the assassination, he agreed with it and felt that Antony should also have been eliminated. In the Philippics, Cicero attempted to rally the Senate against Antony, whom he denounced as a threat to the Roman Republic. The Philippics convinced the Senate to declare Antony an enemy of the state and send an army against him. However, the commanders were killed in battle, so the Senate's army came under the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equites
The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an ''eques'' (). Description During the Roman kingdom and the first century of the Roman Republic, legionary cavalry was recruited exclusively from the ranks of the patricians, who were expected to provide six ''centuriae'' of cavalry (300 horses for each consular legion). Around 400BC, 12 more ''centuriae'' of cavalry were established and these included non-patricians (plebeians). Around 300 BC the Samnite Wars obliged Rome to double the normal annual military levy from two to four legions, doubling the cavalry levy from 600 to 1,200 horses. Legionary cavalry started to recruit wealthier citizens from outside the 18 ''centuriae''. These new recruits came from the first class of commoners in the Centuriate Assembly orga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Publius Clodius Pulcher
Publius Clodius Pulcher (93–52 BC) was a populist Roman politician and street agitator during the time of the First Triumvirate. One of the most colourful personalities of his era, Clodius was descended from the aristocratic Claudia gens, one of Rome's oldest and noblest patrician families, but he contrived to be adopted by an obscure plebeian, so that he could be elected tribune of the plebs. During his term of office, he pushed through an ambitious legislative program, including a grain dole; but he is chiefly remembered for his scandalous lifestyle, which included violating the sanctity of a religious rite reserved solely for women, purportedly with the intention of seducing Caesar's wife; and for his feud with Cicero and Milo, which ended in Clodius' death at the hands of Milo's bodyguards. Background Born Publius Claudius Pulcher in 93 BC, Clodius was the youngest son of Appius Claudius Pulcher, who became consul in 79 BC. His mother's name is uncertain; she may have b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiberius Gracchus
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus ( 163 – 133 BC) was a Roman politician best known for his agrarian law, agrarian reform law entailing the transfer of land from the Roman state and wealthy landowners to poorer citizens. He had also served in the Roman army, fighting in the Third Punic War and in Spain. Against substantial opposition in the Roman Senate, senate, his land reform bill was carried through during his term as tribune of the plebs in 133 BC. Fears of Tiberius' popularity and willingness to break political norms, incited by his standing for a second and consecutive term as tribune, led to his being killed, along with many supporters, in a riot instigated by his enemies. A decade later, his younger brother Gaius Gracchus, Gaius proposed similar and more radical reformist legislation and suffered a similar fate. The date of his death marks the traditional start of the Roman republic's decline and eventual collapse. Background Tiberius Sempronii, Sempronius ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
