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Livy's Camillus and the Political Discourse of the Late Republic*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2010

Jan Felix Gaertner
Affiliation:
Universität Leipzigjan_felix_gaertner@web.de

Extract

An analysis of the parallel accounts in Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch shows that the seemingly Augustan traits of Livy's Camillus already featured in late annalistic sources. Camillus' speech at Livy 5.51–4 condenses and expands late annalistic themes and fuses them with Ciceronian reminiscences. One reason for this fusion is Cicero's own self-fashioning as a new Camillus (particularly, in his post-exilic speeches). The accounts of the Civil War suggest that Pompey and Caesar, too, exploited the Camillus paradigm. The parallels between Livy's Camillus and Augustus probably result from the latter's attempt to silence the Republican opposition by appropriating one of its most powerful paradigms.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Jan Felix Gaertner 2008. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

* Versions of this paper were read at the Universities of Leipzig and Wroclaw. Visits to Zurich, Washington State University, and Yale (the latter two generously funded by the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) gave me the opportunity to discuss my ideas with Hermann Tränkle, Alain Gowing, and Christina S. Kraus. I am grateful to all three scholars for their advice and for their detailed comments on drafts of this paper. The final version has been greatly improved by Stephen P. Oakley, whose suggestions have made my argument more precise and nuanced.