Leading Rome from a Distance, 300 BCE-37 CE

Asserting Autocracy through Absence

By: Ralph Lange

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Hardcover | 14 November 2024

At a Glance

Hardcover
248 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.4 x 15.6 x 2.54

Hardcover

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Roman political leaders used distance from Rome as a key political tool to assert pre-eminence.

Through the case studies of Caesarâs hegemony, Augustusâs autocracy, and Tiberiusâs reign, this book examines how these figuresâ experiences and manipulations of absence established a multipolar focus of political life centred less on the city of Rome, and more on the idea of a single leader.

The Roman expansion over Italy and the Mediterranean put the political system under considerable stress, and eventually resulted in a dispersal of leadership and a decentralization of power. Absent generals rivalled their peers in Rome for influence and threatened to surpass them from the provinces. Roman leaders, from Sulla to Tiberius, used absence as a mechanism to act autonomously, but it came at the cost of losing influence and control at the centre. In order to hold influence while being split off from the decision-making powers of the geographical nucleus that was Rome, communication channels to mitigate necessary absences were developed during this period, such as travel, intermediate meetings, letters (propaganda writings) and a complex network of mediators, ultimately forming the circle from which the imperial court emerged. Absent leadership, as it developed throughout the Late Republic, a hitherto neglected issue, eventually became a valuable asset in the institutionalising process of the autocracy of Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius.

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