Leadership and Initiative in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome

Roman M. Frolov and Christopher Burden-Strevens, eds., Leadership and Initiative in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome, Mnemosyne Supplements 453 (Leiden: Brill, 2022). 9789004511408.

Reviewed by Stephanie Murphy, University of North Texas, Stephaniemurphy3@my.unt.edu.

When we study Roman politics, we often consider how the political systems should have worked (and how those same systems crumbled). In Roman M. Frolov and Christopher Burden-Strevens’s collection of eighteen essays, the contributors seek to look beyond the formal political structures of the Roman Republic and early Principate. As Roman Frolov lays out in the first chapter, which serves as a direction for the entire work, this book aims to examine political initiative and leadership from a new angle. Rather than rehashing the formal methods through which political action was initiated in Rome, the authors of these essays aim to examine the informal routes of political action.

While this book is composed entirely in English, multiple contributors originate outside the anglophone world. In particular, there are multiple Russian scholars (no doubt due to editor Roman Frolov, a lecturer at Yaroslavl State University) whose contributions add to the diversity of thought in the work.

As is unsurprising with Brill’s Mnemosyne Supplements series, this book is geared toward well-read scholars of the Roman Republic and early Principate. There is an expectation of familiarity with the primary sources (e.g., Cicero, Cassius Dio, Tacitus, etc.) and with the general timeline of events during the decline of the Republic and rise of the Principate. Born out of the conference, “Taking the Lead in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome: Office, Agency & Initiative,” held in July 2019 in Bielefeld, Germany, this book successfully pushes the readers into new ways of understanding and interpreting political leadership and initiative in this era. 

Although the book’s title declares the Late Republic and Early Empire as the time period under study, multiple essays deal with the Middle Republic, and in fact, most of the essays stay within the Republican period; very few go past the reign of Augustus. Due to the tumultuousness of the times coupled with the abundance of ancient sources for this era, these scholars are able to explore political initiative from a variety of methodologies such as numismatics, gender studies, and modern leadership theory.

The first chapter, which is outside of the eight divided parts, serves as a true introduction to the book and project. Frolov effectively gives the state of scholarship, touching on how scholars such as Mommsen, Millar, Linderski, and Mouritsen have historically understood political initiative in Rome. He argues that the pattern has been for scholars to examine the legal channels for action only. Frolov challenges this notion by arguing that “this view is largely a result of the reduction of political initiative to just formal initiative, especially legislative, with but one exception for the special role of the Senate” (p. 4). Frolov challenges readers to go beyond legality, beyond the way historians understand how things should have gone, and instead think about political actuality. After setting the stage for the purpose of the work, Frolov proceeds to break down each part and chapter, essentially giving an easily navigable summary for readers. The premise of the book is intelligent and intriguing. As any student of modern politics understands, there is a distinct difference between legality and actuality. Moreover, much of what we see on the surface of political action only hints at deals happening behind the scenes (the first triumvirate is a solid Roman example of this phenomenon). Frolov promises a fascinating book in his introduction, and with few exceptions, this promise is fulfilled. 

Following the introduction, the rest of the collection is broken down into eight thematic parts. The first part focuses on informal modes of political initiative at the general level in Republican Rome. The two essays in this section function well to get readers thinking about the many facets of political initiative beyond the formal magisterial system. Entitled “Locating Political Initiative in Republican Rome,” Hölkeskamp and Yakobson examine the functions of the contio, public opinion, and theatrics of political maneuvering. Part one is very well placed, as both essays seek to define and examine what informal political initiative in this period actually looked like. By placing these essays at the beginning of the work, the reader is fully prepared to dive into the subsequent angles and methods that will be used to explore previously neglected facets of political initiative in Rome.

Part two begins to widen the scope of what constitutes political initiative. Christopher Burden-Strevens employs numismatics effectively to look at the way moneyers could engage in the political conversations of the day while Catherine Steel looks at leadership post consulship. By pairing certain coins with specific moments in Roman politics (such as Cicero’s prosecution of the Catilinarian conspirators), Burden-Strevens convincingly illustrates how young politicians could use their position as moneyers as another channel for political engagement. Steel’s essay considers political life after consulship. She spends much of the essay unpacking the role of consulars as diplomats in pre-Sullan Rome. Taken together, these two essays function well in pushing readers to consider political initiative before and after the cursus honorum.

The two chapters that compose part three are perhaps the best paired in the entire book. The first essay examines certain preserved examples of women’s initiatives throughout the Republic to argue that women were more engaged in politics, albeit in a more informal capacity, than perhaps previously considered. Going back to evidence in Plautus, Webb articulately illustrates how there were likely social customs in place for women to exert political initiative beyond the domus. Webb focuses on various republican examples, which brilliantly sets the stage for Josiah Osgood’s complementary essay. Osgood takes on the way that women in the early Principate have often been perceived, citing Graves’ I, Claudius novels as perhaps the strongest modern influence upon the perception of women such as Livia and Urgulania. Using Webb’s argument to set the stage, Osgood offers an alternative to vilifying these imperial women. Through a careful reading of Tacitus and Cassius Dio, Osgood convincingly paints a picture of imperial women operating as women did in the Republic, engaging in political initiative to protect the ones they loved. 

The next section, “Political Initiative in Emergencies,” stays within the Roman Republic. Although the book establishes the date range as “late republic and early principate,” Tassilo Schmitt concentrates on the Middle Republic with Fabius Cunctator, and Vera Dementyeva focuses on interregna in the Late Republic. Dementyeva’s essay begins strongly, as she establishes her intention to unpack political initiative and interregna. Unfortunately, this was the weakest essay in advancing the book’s purpose, as at least half of it is a defensive rebuttal against Aleksander Koptev. About halfway through the essay, however, Dementyeva posits a very useful question: “Did the interreges demonstrate genuine political initiative in practice, and were there other actors who did?” (p. 255). Unfortunately, Dementyeva does not dedicate enough of her essay to answering this question. Still, once she has established her defense against Koptev, the rest of the essay is thought-provoking.

Part five, the sole section composed of three essays, focuses on the political transition during the collapse of the Republic. Titled “Leadership at a Time of Change,” these essays examine Cicero’s method of leadership after the assassination of Caesar, elite agency as the republican political order crumbles, and Octavian’s flexing of political dominance in 32 BCE as his power is growing but not yet fully established. Of the three, Henriette van der Blom’s essay was the most thought-provoking. A snapshot of a larger project of ancient epistolary analysis, her contribution takes the modern theory of transformational leadership and uses it to examine the correspondence between Cicero and Cassius in the wake of Caesar’s assassination. While caution must always be used when attempting to understand ancient peoples in modern ways, the entire collection aims to bring in new ways of thinking about Roman leadership, and van der Blom is quite successful in this goal. Second, Hannah Mitchell’s essay on the dynamics of elite agency is intelligent and easy to understand. She aims to move readers beyond a simplistic view of the elites in the crisis after Caesar’s death and consider the complications that arise in turbulent times. She pores over an array of sources (including Josephus, to make an apt point about the “ongoing importance of the Senate for the business of empire” [p. 308]), illustrating the tensions among the elite class as oligarchy faded into monarchy. Third, Frolov focuses his essay on the rising star of Octavian and his interactions with magistrates and the Senate in 32 BCE. As he emphasizes in his introduction, Frolov makes a clear distinction between legality and the reality of political action. This section pushes readers to consider more carefully what it means to be a person with political power during the fall of the Roman Republic, setting us up for the final parts of the book.

“Fighting for Initiative” explores the tensions inherent in the republican system, which were only exacerbated as the system crumbled. Oliver Grote applies Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social evolution, which views conflict not as a destructive but “functional part of political and social systems” (p. 354). Through this lens, Grote maintains that concordia cannot be understood without the existence of conflict. As Grote presents his evidence, he argues that “the Roman Republic should not exclusively be described as a system based on consensus but also as a system based on conflict, which was highly capable of processing conflicts into potentiality” (p. 355). In his application of modern sociological theory, Grote does not pit tradition and innovation against each other. Instead, he argues that political conflict relieved social and political tensions and was the driving force behind the development of the Roman Republic. Claudia Tiersch’s essay follows this sense of tension and conflict as she focuses on the Senate’s crisis of leadership in the Late Republic and unpacks the waxing and waning of senatorial leadership in this period. These two essays are very well paired together as Grote’s setup of concord and conflict create the inevitable tensions explored by Tiersch.

Part seven brings us out of Rome proper and into Roman political initiative beyond the city. Katarina Nebelin examines political turmoil in Italy during the Catilinarian conspiracy, while Kit Morrell looks at provincial initiative. Nebelin’s strength is in approaching the political climate of Italy rather holistically. She takes time to unpack the 90s and 80s BCE (which are rather scant source-wise) to bring understanding to the Catilinarian crisis because too often the era of Sulla is truncated in examinations of the Ciceronian age, despite Sallust making the link between Sulla and Catiline. In examining this earlier period, she is able to highlight the agency of Faesulae in the turmoil of the period as she explains “that the insurgents at Faesulae were willing to fight against Rome may thus give a glimpse into the conditions in the Italian countryside” (p. 424). Morrell expands this view beyond Italy, as she argues that provincial petitions “from Rome’s allies during the republic helped to shape the practice of imperial governance” (p. 434). Focusing on interactions preserved by Cicero, Morrell is able to take us through multiple examples of provincial requests guiding Roman imperial governance. By looking beyond Rome and Roman agency, both essays further define what political agency can look like in this period. 

The final section, “Political Initiative and Leadership in Military Contexts,” wraps the book up with a military examination. Alexander V. Makhlaiuk and Wolfgang Havener both focus on the early Principate and the way military actions created political action. Makhlaiuk examines the Roman army from the bottom up and the way military dissent could affect Roman political behavior. Casting a wide net from the early Principate to Elagabalus, Makhlaiuk looks at mutinies as political action. Havener’s essay really takes to heart the purpose of the book—to examine political action from new angles. While he looks at multiple examples in the early Principate, Havener’s strength is his analysis of Suetonius and Dio regarding Augustus’s response to the disaster of the Teutoburg Forest. Harkening back to Hölkeskamp’s essay at the beginning of the book, Havener offers a new angle by considering how Augustus’s response is all about theatrics.

Perhaps the two highlights of this book overall were its organization and its challenge of the way political initiative has previously been understood. There is careful thought in the organization of these essays, which allows the reader to watch the premise unfold. The essays flow from the general to the specific, allowing the reader to consider what exactly is political initiative in Rome. People are complex, dynamic, and nuanced. These scholars understand this truth and have creatively sought political actuality in the details of the surviving texts and materials.

On top of the quality of the scholarship, the editors have organized the book in a way that makes academically rigorous material easier to navigate. While the intended audience is scholars of Rome in the Republic and early Principate, one does not have to be well-versed in political initiative in Rome to navigate the book. Frolov’s introduction, coupled with the first part, “Locating Political Initiative in Republican Rome,” function well to catch any reader up on the state of scholarship and the overall mindset of the subsequent essays. I highly recommend this book to any scholar of this era of Roman history. Whether students of Roman politics or not, every reader will benefit from the new angles and intriguing methodologies adopted by this book.  

Table of Contents

Introduction / Roman M. Frolov (1–35)
Part 1. Locating Political Initiative in Republican Rome
1. Governing a City-State: Magistrates, Assemblies, and Public Space in Republican Rome / Karl-J. Hölkeskamp (39–63)
2. Public Opinion and Political Initiative in Republican Rome / Alexander Yakobson (64–88)
Part 2. Seniority and Status as Factors of Political Agency
4. Acting Up: The Post of Master of the Mint as an Early-Career Move in the Late Republic / Christopher Burden-Strevens (91–132)
5. Consulars, Political Office, and Leadership in the Middle and Late Republic / Catherine Steel (133–48)
Part 3. Women’s Initiative in Roman Politics
6. Female Intervention in Politics in the libera res publica: Structure and Practices / Lewis Webb (151–88)
7. Urgulania, Plancina, and Livia: Women’s Initiative in Early Imperial Politics / Josiah Osgood (189–209)
Part 4. Political Initiative in Emergencies
8. “He Took Care of the City and Supported It”: Initiative as a Prerequisite for Fabius’ cunctatio / Tassilo Schmitt (213–44)
9. Political Initiative during interregna in the Late Roman Republic / Vera V. Dementyeva (245–67)
Part 5. Leadership at a Time of Change
10. Leadership through Letters: Cicero and Cassius’ Correspondence in 44–43 BCE / Henriette van der Blom (271–94)
11. The Dynamics of Elite Agency in a Post-Caesar World (44–31 BCE) / Hannah Mitchell (295–322)
12. Seizing Initiative in the Sphere domi: Magistrates, Promagistrates, and the Senate at the Outset of 32 BCE / Roman M. Frolov (323–47)
Part 6. Fighting for Initiative
13. Potentiality through Conflict: Political Initiatives, Conflict, and the Political Evolution of the Roman Republic / Oliver Grote (351–73)
14. Losing the Lead: The Crisis of the Late Roman Republic as a Crisis of Senatorial Leadership / Claudia Tiersch (374–405)
Part 7. Political Initiative outside of Rome
15. Late Republican Local Rebellions and Marches against Rome: Agency and Initiative in the “Catilinarian Insurgency” / Katarina Nebelin (409–32)
16. Petitioning for Change in the Republican Empire / Kit Morrell (433–53)
Part 8. Political Initiative and Leadership in Military Contexts
17. Omnia deinde arbitrio militum acta: Political Initiative and Agency of the Army in Late-Republican and Early Imperial Rome / Alexander V. Makhlaiuk (457–88)
18. The Emperor and His Generals: Military Agency in the Early Principate / Wolfgang Havener (489–12)

Discussion

1.The book is structured thematically. How did you come to that organizational choice and/or were there angles or methodologies you wanted to include that did not make it into this volume?

We thought it would be a good idea to have two or three chapters in each section, addressing the problem from similar angles but still offering a slightly different perspective (for example, in some cases, covering different periods). This is why we decided to invite several colleagues who had not presented their papers at the Bielefeld conference, from which this volume originates, to complement the missing parts. The resulting clusters hopefully allow us to compensate for a necessarily wide range of themes in this volume. However, there are, of course, other aspects of the topic that we originally considered but did not make it to the volume, especially the language of leadership and initiative. Discerning political initiative in the terminology of ancient sources is an important question, and some chapters do approach it, but we do not happen to offer specialized studies of the Roman concepts for what we call initiative.

2. Are there certain sections of the book that you would like to see explored more (such as a conference or another book)?

As mentioned in our response to the first question, a closer exploration of the ancient concepts for political initiative can definitely become a way to expand this project, because we really do not have a special section on this important aspect. It is also possible to expand by adding Republican or Imperial material in the sections in which we do not have both. Within this logic, we might think, for instance, of an investigation of the special structures and actors that helped (or not) resolve crisis situations in the early Empire by taking initiative – in continuation of what this volume has to offer about the dictator Fabius or the interregnum during the Republic.