Book contents
- The Roman Republic and Political Culture
- Classical Scholarship in Translation
- The Roman Republic and Political Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Original Essays
- Part II Translations
- Chapter 4 Benevolence and Freedom
- Chapter 5 Capitol, Comitium, and Forum
- Chapter 6 Face to Face with the Ancestors
- Chapter 7 Rituals of Integration in the Roman Republic
- Chapter 8 The Message of the Medium
- Chapter 9 The memoria of the gentes as the Backbone of Collective Memory in Republican Rome
- Chapter 10 The Ritual Grammar of Institutionalized Politics
- Chapter 11 Aristocratic Roles and the Crisis of the Roman Republic
- Chapter 12 Monuments and Consensus
- Chapter 13 Publicity or Participation?
- References
Chapter 9 - The memoria of the gentes as the Backbone of Collective Memory in Republican Rome
from Part II - Translations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2025
Book contents
- The Roman Republic and Political Culture
- Classical Scholarship in Translation
- The Roman Republic and Political Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Original Essays
- Part II Translations
- Chapter 4 Benevolence and Freedom
- Chapter 5 Capitol, Comitium, and Forum
- Chapter 6 Face to Face with the Ancestors
- Chapter 7 Rituals of Integration in the Roman Republic
- Chapter 8 The Message of the Medium
- Chapter 9 The memoria of the gentes as the Backbone of Collective Memory in Republican Rome
- Chapter 10 The Ritual Grammar of Institutionalized Politics
- Chapter 11 Aristocratic Roles and the Crisis of the Roman Republic
- Chapter 12 Monuments and Consensus
- Chapter 13 Publicity or Participation?
- References
Summary
Modes and purposes of the memorial practices of aristocratic families were formative to Roman readings of the past. The memoria of the gentes was imprinted deeply on the Republic’s history culture, but was subject to the challenges from other formats of remembering the past, historiography in particular. The pompa and laudatio funebris both heralded and magnified a family’s esteem through the display of imagines and the recollection of narratives of exemplary virtue. While these achievements were uncontested among the gens itself, in the public arena they might have been a bone of contention. The memoria of the gentes distorted that of the Republic as a whole, influencing the work of the first historians, the compilation of lists of magistrates and office-holders, and the outlook of public space. Historiography also distanced and indeed distinguished itself from the memoria of the elites. Discourses of decadence widened the gap between the two media. Meanwhile citizens outside Rome were more removed from the mechanisms of aristocratic remembering and could only access a history of Rome in written format. Elite memories ceased to wield their magnetic force, but they also lingered on in historiography.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Roman Republic and Political CultureGerman Scholarship in Translation, pp. 272 - 293Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
Assmann, Jan. 1997. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, 3rd ed., Munich. [Now available in English translation as Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination, trans. David Henry Wilson, Cambridge 2011.]Google Scholar
Blösel, Wolfgang. 2000. ‘Die Geschichte des Begriffes mos maiorum von den Anfängen bis zu Cicero’, in Linke, Bernhard and Stemmler, Michael (eds.), Mos maiorum: Untersuchungen zu den Formen der Identitätsstiftung und Stabilisierung in der römischen Republik (Historia Einzelschriften 1 41), Stuttgart, 25–97.Google Scholar
Bringmann, Klaus. 1977. ‘Weltherrschaft und innere Krise Roms im Spiegel der Geschichtsschreibung des zweiten und ersten Jahrhunderts v. Chr.’, A&A 23, 28–49 (reprinted in Ausgewählte Schriften 143–64).Google Scholar
Cornell, Timothy J. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC), London and New York.Google Scholar
Dondin-Payre, Monique. 1990. ‘La stratégie symbolique de la parenté sous la république et l’empire romains’, in Andreau, Jean and Bruhns, Hinnerk (eds.), Parenté et stratégies familiales dans l’Antiquité romaine: Actes de la table ronde des 2–4 octobre 1986, Paris, 53–76.Google Scholar
Dupont, Florence. 1987. ‘Les morts et la mémoire: Le masque funèbre’, in Hinard, François (ed.), La mort, les morts et l’au-delà dans le monde romain: Actes du colloque de Caen, 20–22 novembre 1985, Rome, 167–72.Google Scholar
Flaig, Egon. 1995. ‘Die pompa funebris: Adelige Konkurrenz und annalistische Erinnerung in der römischen Republik’, in Oexle, O. G. (ed.), Memoria als Kultur, Göttingen, 115–48.Google Scholar
Flaig, Egon. 2002. Ritualisierte Politik in der römischen Republik, Göttingen. [One chapter translated as Chapter 10 in this volume.]Google Scholar
Flower, Harriet I. 1996. Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FRH, Die frühen römischen Historiker I: Von Fabius Pictor bis Cn. Gellius, ed. and trans. Hans Beck and Uwe Walter, Darmstadt 2001; 2nd ed., 2002.Google Scholar
Frier, Bruce Woodward. 1979/99. Libri annales pontificum maximorum: The Origins of the Annalistic Tradition. 2nd ed., Ann Arbor (first published Rome 1979).Google Scholar
Gehrke, Hans-Joachim and Möller, Astrid (eds.), 1996. Vergangenheit und Lebenswelt: Soziale Kommunikation, Traditionsbildung und historisches Bewußtsein, Tübingen.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack and Watt, Ian. 1986. ‘Konsequenzen der Literalität’, in Goody, Jack, Watt, Ian, and Gough, Kathleen (eds.), Entstehung und Folgen der Schriftkultur, Frankfurt, 63–122 (first published 1968 [‘The Consequences of Literacy’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 5, 304–45]).Google Scholar
Gusso, Massimo. 1990. ‘Appunti sulla notazione dei Fasti Capitolini interregni caus(sa) per la (pro-)dittatura di Q. Fabio Massimo nel 217 a.C.’, Historia 39, 291–333.Google Scholar
Halbwachs, Maurice. 1985a. Das Gedächtnis und seine sozialen Bedingungen, Frankfurt a.M. (first published 1925 [in French; translated into English as On Collective Memory, trans. Lewis A. Coser, Chicago 1992]).Google Scholar
Halbwachs, Maurice. 1985b. Das kollektive Gedächtnis, Frankfurt a.M. (first published 1950 [in French; translated into English as The Collective Memory, trans. Francis J. Ditter, New York 1980]).Google Scholar
Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim. 1996. ‘Exempla und mos maiorum: Überlegungen zum kollektiven Gedächtnis der Nobilität’, in Gehrke and Möller (eds.) 1996, 301–33.Google Scholar
Hölscher, Tonio. 1978. ‘Die Anfänge römischer Repräsentationskunst’, MDAI(R) 85, 315–57.Google Scholar
Hölscher, 2001. ‘Die Alten vor Augen: Politische Denkmäler und öffentliches Gedächtnis im republikanischen Rom’, in Melville (ed.) 2001, 183–211. [Translated as Chapter 6 of this volume.]Google Scholar
HRR: Peter, Hermann, Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae. I, 2nd ed., 1914; II, 1906. Reprinted with bibliographical additions by J. Kroymann, Leipzig 1967.Google Scholar
Jaeger, Mary. 1997. Livy’s Written Rome, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jehne, Martin. 2001. ‘Integrationsrituale der römischen Republik: Zur einbindenden Wirkung der Volksversammlungen’, in Integrazione mescolanza rifiuto: Incontri di popoli, lingue e culture in Europa dall’Antichità all’Umanesimo, Atti del convegno internazionale, Cividale del Friuli, 21–23 sett. 2000, Rome, 89–113. [Translated as Chapter 7 of this volume.]Google Scholar
Kierdorf, Wilhelm. 1980. Laudatio funebris: Interpretationen und Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der römischen Leichenrede (Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 106), Meisenheim am Glan.Google Scholar
Lind, L. R. 1979. ‘The Tradition of Roman Moral Conservatism’, in Deroux, Carl (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 1, Brussels, 7–58.Google Scholar
Litchfield, Henry Wheatland 1914. ‘National exempla virtutis in Roman Literature’, HSCPh 25, 1–71.Google Scholar
Gert, Melville (ed.), 2001. Institutionalität und Symbolisierung: Verstetigungen kultureller Ordnungsmuster in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Cologne.Google Scholar
Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1989/98. ‘Die Ursprünge Roms’, in Arnaldo Momigliano, Ausgewählte Schriften zur Geschichte und Geschichtsschreibung, Bd. 1: Die Alte Welt, ed. Nippel, Wolfgang, Stuttgart and Weimar, 142–202 (first published 1989 [as ‘The Origins of Rome’, CAH VII.22, 52–112]).Google Scholar
Mora, Fabio. 1999. Fasti e schemi cronologici: La riorganizzazione annalistica del passato remoto romana (Historia Einzelschriften 125), Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Northwood, S. J. 2000. ‘Livy and the Early Annalists’, in Deroux, Carl (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 10, Brussels, 45–55.Google Scholar
Oakley, Stephen P. 1997. A Commentary on Livy: Books VI–X. Vol. 1: Introduction and Book VI, Oxford.Google Scholar
Rüpke, Jörg. 1997. Römische Geschichtsschreibung: Zur Geschichte des geschichtlichen Bewußtseins und seiner Verschriftlichungsformen in der Antike. Mit einem Kapitel über die römischen Konsularfasten von Fabio Mora, Potsdam (lecture script, self-published by the university).Google Scholar
Sehlmeyer, Markus. 1999. Stadtrömische Ehrenstatuen der republikanischen Zeit (Historia Einzelschriften 130), Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Shackleton-Bailey, David Roy. 1977. Cicero: Epistulae ad familiares, 2 vols, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Taifacos, Ioannis G. 1979. Una laudatio funebris di M. Catone Nepote dalla testimonianza di Aulo Gellio, Rome.Google Scholar
Timpe, Dieter. 1972. ‘Fabius Pictor und die Anfänge der römischen Historiographie’, in ANRW I 2, Berlin and New York, 928–69.Google Scholar
Timpe, Dieter. 1988. ‘Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit als Basis der frührömischen Überlieferung’, in von Ungern-Sternberg and Reinau (eds.) 1988, 266–86.Google Scholar
Timpe, Dieter. 1996. ‘Memoria und Geschichtsschreibung bei den Römern’, in Gehrke and Möller (eds.) 1996, 277–99.Google Scholar
Ungern-Sternberg, Jürgen von. 1988. ‘Überlegungen zur frühen römischen Überlieferung im Lichte der Oral-Tradition-Forschung’, in von Ungern-Sternberg and Reinau (eds.) 1988, 237–65.Google Scholar
Ungern-Sternberg, Jürgen von and Reinau, Hansjörg (eds.), 1988. Vergangenheit in mündlicher Überlieferung (Colloquium Rauricum 1), Stuttgart.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 1997. ‘Mutatio morum: The Idea of a Cultural Revolution’, in Habinek, Thomas and Schiesaro, Alessandro (eds.), The Roman Cultural Revolution, Cambridge, 3–22.Google Scholar
Walter, Uwe. 2001. ‘Die Botschaft des Mediums: Überlegungen zum Sinnpotential von Historiographie im Kontext der römischen Geschichtskultur zur Zeit der Republik’, in Melville (ed.) 2001, 241–79. [Translated as Chapter 8 of this volume.]Google Scholar
Wikander, Örjan. 1993. ‘Senators and Equites V: Ancestral Pride and Genealogical Studies in Late Republican Rome’, ORom 19, 77–90.Google Scholar
Wiseman, Timothy Peter. 1994. ‘Monuments and the Roman Annalists’, in Wiseman, , Historiography and Imagination: Eight Essays on Roman Culture, Exeter, 37–48.Google Scholar
Wiseman, Timothy Peter. 1996. ‘The Minucii and their Monument’, in Linderski, Jerzy (ed.), Imperium sine fine: T. Robert S. Broughton and the Roman Republic (Historia Einzelschriften 106), Stuttgart, 57–74.Google Scholar
Zinserling, Gerhard. 1959/60. ‘Studien zu den Historiendarstellungen der römischen Republik’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Gesellschafts- und sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 9, 403–48.Google Scholar