Cinna

Abstract: The two decades of civil war preceding the Augustan Principate did not extinguish poetic activity in the capital. Libretti continued to be produced for scenic festivals each year and verse in other genres was being written in the 40s (notably by Cornelius Gallus, Varius, and Vergil) and in the 30s (when Horace made his debut). But the wars took a toll. The poets Helvius Cinna, Cornificius, Cassius Parmensis, and Ticida met violent deaths, to say nothing of victims like the Ciceros for whom poetry was an avocation. Gallus succumbed to politics in the peace immediately afterwards. Wholesale proscriptions and confiscations caused a transfer of wealth that touched many who did not lose their lives, apparently including Vergil, Horace, Tibullus, and Propertius. And it was not only the effects on poets that depressed literary culture. The wars bled the whole upper class that had consumed and fostered poetry. Twenty years would have sufficed to transform literary society in any case, but there can be no doubt that the wars accelerated the turnover. Of the many personalities celebrated in Catullus' poems, the only one still active when peace returned was Asinius Pollio.

Abstract: This paper essays a reconstruction of Livy's attitude to and treatment of the major ‘popularis’ figures of the late republic, from Ti Gracchus to Cinna and Carbo The opening section examines four situations involving ‘popularis’ prototypes: the careers of Sp Cassius, Sp Maelius, and Manlius Capitolinus and the fall of Ap Claudius the decemvir It first considers Livy's use of what by his time had become standard themes in writing about ‘populares’, then attempts to establish the possible antiquity of these modes of expression In passing it should perhaps be stressed that the attention directed in this section to terminology is not intended to imply that Livy's attitudes (or those of any other author) can be determined simply from the mere occurrence in his work of certain slogans or catchwords That is one reason why there is little profit in asking how a ‘popularis’ historian might have handled the same or similar events

Abstract: Sept questions a la politique interieure de Rome en 88-87 avant J.-C. sont etudiees ici : la chronologie des elections tribunitiennes et les ambitions des candidats ; le rapport de ces elections avec celles des consuls, et le role de Sertorius ; les elections consulaires ; la personnalite de Cinna et celle d'Octave ; le contenu des paragraphes 4-6 du chapitre 10 de la Vie de Sylla de Plutarque ; le serment prononce par les consuls ; les poursuites qui aboutirent a la proscription de Sylla.