Roman Political Thought and the Modern Theoretical Imagination (Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture Series)
Dean Hammer
Language: English
Pages: 360
ISBN: 0806139277
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Links modern political theorists with the Romans who inspired them
Roman contributions to political theory have been acknowledged primarily in the province of law and administration. Even with a growing interest among classicists in Roman political thought, most political theorists view it as merely derivative of Greek philosophy.
Focusing on the works of key Roman thinkers, Dean Hammer recasts the legacy of their political thought, examining their imaginative vision of a vulnerable political world and the relationship of the individual to this realm. By bringing modern political theorists into conversation with the Romans who inspired them—Arendt with Cicero, Machiavelli with Livy, Montesquieu with Tacitus, Foucault with Seneca—the author shows how both ancient Roman and modern European thinkers seek to recover an attachment to the political world that we actually inhabit, rather than to a utopia—a “perfect nowhere” outside of the existing order.
Brimming with fresh interpretations of both ancient and modern theorists, this book offers provocative reading for classicists, political scientists, and anyone interested in political theory and philosophy. It is also a timely meditation on the hidden ways in which democracy can give way to despotism when the animating spirit of politics succumbs to resignation, cynicism, and fear.
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what is similar or dissimilar. The laxness of the soul cannot be addressed through reason nor cured by precepts. Rather, Livy directs the attention (intendit animum) of each reader by thrusting before his audience a vivid picture of the experiences of the past (pref. Ω–∞≠), seeking to train the soul by condensing the historical accumulation of felt meanings.∏≥ This training takes several forms, elements of which have been thoughtfully explored in scholarship. First, Livy’s History addresses
something to offer to each other, but who do not always have a common vocabulary with which to do it. To that end each chapter proceeds in two ways. First, I use these modern theorists as a starting point for thinking about how each of these Roman texts can be read as a form of political thinking. In working through these texts, I suggest that these Roman ∞≤ INTRODUCTION writers depart most fundamentally from both a Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical tradition that emphasizes the role of
first duty of history, as Tacitus remarks, is to TACITUS, MONTESQUIEU, AND THE MALADY OF DESPOTISM ∞ππ provide a record of this past ‘‘to prevent virtues from being silenced and so that crooked words and deeds should be attended by the dread of posterity and infamy’’ (Ann. ≥.∏∑.∞; see also Ann. ∂.≥≥). In reversing the imperceptible way in which individuals suffer from the vain imaginings of a despotic realm, Tacitus’s historiography is not simply diagnostic or evaluative, but curative. If
the veins are prominent, or where one can count the bones: sound healthful blood must fill out the limbs, and riot over the muscles, concealing the sinews in turn under a ruddy complexion and a graceful exterior’’ (Dial. ≤∞.∫). But an altered world, as Tacitus notes in his Dialogue on Oratory, requires novel forms of eloquence (Dial. ∞Ω.≤; ∞Ω.∑). An audience no longer trained to hear argument and no longer used to public expression will be bored unless roused by a ‘‘striking and memorable
was in the development of ‘‘legalism,’’ or ‘‘the presumption that the state is a creature of law and is to be discussed not in terms of sociological fact or ethical good but in terms of legal competence and rights.’’∑∑ It was an aspect of theory that ‘‘hardly existed in Greek thought.’’∑∏ The Stoics, too, contributed to these legal foundations of Western law by showing how law was rooted in universal notions of equality (thus serving as the intellectual predecessors of natural law approaches).