Spectacular Power In The Greek And Roman City

SPECTACULAR POWER IN THE GREEK AND ROMAN CITY This page intentionally left blank Spectacular Power in the Greek and Roman City ANDREW BELL 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜o Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß A. Bell 2004 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0–19–924234–8 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Typeset by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn. PREFACE This book is designed so that the chapters can be read independently of one another yet together show the significance of spectacular self-advertisements in Greek and Roman cities over a long period, from early Greece to the end of the Roman Republic. The argument is simply that crowds watching and judging pre-eminent individuals in cities were a vital presence in ancient political history. The importance of the dynamics between spectacular actors and their audiences is set out in the introductory first chapter, which acknowledges some theoretical approaches. The second chapter is also somewhat introductory in nature. Caesar, in gesturing to impress, reveals the fluidity of assumptions governing political life in Rome. His complex styles of self-definition correlate with the mixed nature of the Roman polity, in which elements of both demotic populism and kingliness are to be found in his more spectacular behaviour. The other chapters provide something of a genealogy of such spectacular styles. Chapter Three, examining the democracy of classical Athens, shows the remarkable power of a citizenry to restrict overweening individuality in its ceremonial life but also lingering potential for infatuation with kingly charisma. This can be seen in abundance in the broader Hellenistic world. Chapter Four thus examines the pomp and circumstance of Hellenistic capitals. And Chapter Five considers the importation of such megalomaniacal majesty into the Roman Republic. Chapter Six (much of which first appeared in the Journal of Roman Studies 87) uses the oratory of Cicero to show the intricate dynamics of the late Republic, which Caesarism dooms. I might also add here that I have drawn upon an array of literary evidence with the assumption that ancient authors, even if they were remote from the events they described, had a familiarity with the habits of life in urban cities. This grants their accounts of traditional political phenomena a basic and vi Preface considerable value despite any inaccuracies or ana