THE CROWD IN ROME IN THE LATE REPUBLIC

University of Michigan Press. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket. 1998. Hardcover. 0472108921 . Very faint shelfwear to book and DJ. ; The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic explores the consequences of a democracy in which public office could only be gained by direct election by the people. And while the Senate could indeed debate public matters, advise other officeholders, and make some administrative decisions, it could not legislate. An officeholder who wanted to pass a law had to step out of the Senate-house and propose it to the people in the Forum. In an expansion and revision of his Thomas Spencer Jerome lectures, Fergus Millar explores the development of the Roman Republic, which by its final years had come to cover most of Italy. To exercise their rights, voters had to come to Rome (or to live in or near the city as about one third of them did) and to meet in the Forum. Millar takes the period from 80 to 50 B. C. , the dictatorship of Sulla to Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon, and shows how crowd politics was central to the great changes that took place year after year. The volume will interest general readers, as well as students of politics and Roman history. Technical terms are explained, and foreign words are kept to a minimum. ; Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures; 1.06 x 9.32 x 6.34 Inches; 256 pages .