14:30
Gresham College
June 18
Did the Roman republic die with Julius Caesar? With Cicero? With the gradual consolidation of power in the hands of Caesar’s adoptive son, who would in 27 BCE receive from the Senate the additional honorific appellation ‘Augustus’? By looking at how imperial rule preserved remnants and facades of republican language and institutions, this lecture will interrogate the ways in which a popular constitution can be undermined and gradually transmuted into a dictatorial one.