The Roman Republic 264-44BC

到公元前264年，罗马通过战争和外交成为意大利最强大的国家。那一年是她第一次海外军事冒险：对西西里的一次有争议的干预很快导致了与总部设在北非的地中海西部大国迦太基的全面战争。西西里的胜利标志着帝国的建立，到公元前44年，这个帝国控制了地中海的大部分地区和欧洲大陆的大部分地区。这是一个熟悉的故事，反面也是如此：在这个庞大帝国的舞台上获得的利润和权力侵蚀了罗马贵族限制其自然竞争欲望的共识精神。对政治职位和军事指挥权的竞争导致了针对城市民众的政治腐败，这些选民现在无法有效地行使对这个幅员辽阔的帝国的主权，而且越来越不能代表罗马公民机构。农村和城市的民众承受着越来越大的社会经济压力，因为持续不断的战争征兵和帝国收入造成的经济失衡侵蚀了传统的政治和社会结构。政治两极分化出现在现状的捍卫者、民意的代表(有时是自封的)和过于强大的将军之间。共和国在内战中被推翻，凯撒自封为独裁者；几年后，他自己也被暗杀了。更多的内战最终以唯一的胜利者奥古斯都的出现而结束，奥古斯都成为了第一位皇帝。然而，这个项目试图讲述另一个故事。刚刚讲述的这个熟悉的故事本质上是对希腊人和罗马人自己在事件发生期间和之后撰写的历史的重述；自文艺复兴以来一直是这样。这个项目试图对另外两类证据发出声音：刻在石头上的罗马文献，以及来自考古调查的证据。这些材料有些是全新的，有些是文艺复兴时期就知道的。到目前为止，没有任何一种历史叙事允许任何一种声音与主要主人公一起占据舞台中央，这一文本材料传统上是古典主义者的研究，并因此在对已故共和国的解释中发挥了主导作用。这种侧重点的改变的一个结果是，在整个故事中，新的演员群体将得到更多的揭示。在这里，有三个群体非常重要：乡村和小城镇的居民，而不是罗马的城市穷人和贵族；意大利人，而不是罗马人(即直到公元前90年左右才获得罗马公民身份的半岛人口的一半到三分之二)；以及整个帝国范围内受罗马统治的其他民族的精英和人口。除了希腊人，他们的明确证词很少，我们经常依赖对考古遗迹的解释来让他们说话。但这并不是不努力的理由。最终的结果应该是一种叙事，试图从意大利的角度解释罗马崛起的独特性，这种观点是罗马人深切参与的，并影响了他们自己对自己是谁的感觉，以及他们认为自己要去哪里。这部剧中的传统男主角，基于文学来源的叙述，不会被驱逐出舞台，但他的话现在将在真正的对话中被听到：这个角色和以前的配角必须相互考虑；结果应该是更好地代表罗马共和国的成长和失败，比以前更多的演员在更多的地点经历了罗马共和国的成长和失败。

By 264 B.C. Rome had, by war and diplomacy, become the most powerful state in Italy. That year saw her first military adventure overseas: a controversial intervention in Sicily quickly led to full scale war with the Carthage, the major western Mediterranean power, based in north Africa. Victory in Sicily set in train the creation of an empire which by 44 B.C. controlled most of the Mediterranean and much of continental Europe. This is a familiar story, as is the flip-side: the profits and power to be gained on the stage of this vast empire corroded the consensual ethos by which the Roman aristocracy had limited its natural competitive urges. Competition for political office and military command led to political corruption aimed at a city populace of voters now unable effectively to exercise its sovereignty over the vast empire, and increasingly unrepresentative of the Roman citizen body. The populace, rural and urban, was subjected to increasing socio-economic stresses, as continual recruitment for war and the unbalancing of the economy through imperial revenues ate at the traditional fabric of politics and society. Political polarisation set in, between the champions of the status quo, the representatives (sometimes self-styled) of the popular will, and over-mighty generals. The Republic was overthrown in Civil war, and Caesar set himself up as dictator; within a few years he himself was assassinated. Further civil wars were eventually ended by the emergence of a sole victor, Augustus, who became the first emperor.This project seeks to tell another story, however. The familiar tale just told is essentially a retelling of the histories written by Greeks and Romans themselves, during and just after the events; and this has been the case since the Renaissance. This project seeks to give a voice to two other categories of evidence: Roman documents inscribed on stone, and the evidence from archaeological enquiry. Some of this material is brand new; some has been known since the Renaissance. Until now no historical narrative has allowed either voice to occupy centre-stage alongside the main protagonist, the textual material which has traditionally been the study of classicists, and has exercised a dominant role in interpretations of the late Republic for this reason. One consequence of this change of emphasis will be increased light shed on new groups of actors throughout the story. Three groups are very important here: the inhabitants of the countryside and the small towns, as opposed to the urban poor and nobility of Rome; Italians as opposed to Romans (that is the half to two-thirds of the the population of the peninsula who did not have the Roman citizenship until about 90 B.C.); and the elites and populations of other peoples subjected by Rome across the empire. With the exception of the Greeks, their explicit testimonies are few, and we are often reliant on interpretations of archaeological remains to allow them to speak. But that is not a reason for not making the effort. The end result ought to be a narrative which seeks to explain the uniqueness of the rise of Rome from an Italian viewpoint, a viewpoint with which the Romans were deeply engaged, and which influenced their own sense of who they were, and where they thought they were going. The traditional leading actor in this drama, the account based on literary sources, will not be banished from the stage, but his words will now be heard within a real dialogue: this role and those of the former supporting actors will have to take account of each other; the result ought to be a better representation, of how the growth and failure of the Roman Republic were experienced by a greater number of players, in more locations, than has previously been achieved.