Frolov, R.M. (2022) "Seizing Initiative in the Sphere domi: Magistrates, Promagistrates, and the Senate at the Outset of 32 BCE", in Roman M. Frolov & C. Burden-Strevens (eds.,) Leadership and Initiative in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome (Leiden & Boston): 323–347., 2022
Towards the end of the Republic, some powerful promagistrates found themselves at the height of t... more Towards the end of the Republic, some powerful promagistrates found themselves at the height of their political and military power and yet also formally excluded from the sphere of domestic politics in Rome. As a result, they were repeatedly compelled not only to influence affairs in Rome at a distance but also to interfere in the sphere domi by being personally present near or within the city. Thus, at the beginning of 32 bce, Octavian—now formally a proconsul rather than a triumvir—took an active part in senatorial proceedings. Girardet’s conjecture, that Octavian was careful not to violate some most evident formal safeguards surrounding the promagistracy, is plausible. However, details reported by Cassius Dio, such as Octavian taking his seat between the two consuls during a Senate meeting, demonstrate that the proconsul successfully appropriated the consuls’ leading role in the Senate. Dio’s passage focuses on changes in political initiative and proactivity—the very ideas which underpinned the Roman understanding of the essence of a magistrate’s power. There are the indications in other parts of Dio’s work of the fact that he indeed recognized a problem in the agency of promagistrates within the sphere domi. But the picture that Dio provides is more than the mere result of his own understanding, or even reconstruction, of events. A few parallel cases demonstrate that predecessors, including Caesar and later Lucan, problematized the same issue.
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Roman M. Frolov: Rezension von: Alain Duplouy / Roger Brock (eds.): Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018, in: sehepunkte 19 (2019), Nr. 4 [15.04.2019], URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2019/04/32186.html
Roman M. Frolov: Rezension von: Alain Duplouy / Roger Brock (eds.): Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018, in: sehepunkte 19 (2019), Nr. 4 [15.04.2019], URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2019/04/32186.html
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