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Book Cover for: Leading Rome from a Distance, 300 BCE-37 CE: Asserting Autocracy through Absence, Ralph Lange

Leading Rome from a Distance, 300 BCE-37 CE: Asserting Autocracy through Absence

Ralph Lange

Roman political leaders used distance from Rome as a key political tool to assert pre-eminence.

Through the case studies of Caesar's hegemony, Augustus's autocracy, and Tiberius's reign, this book examines how these figures' experiences and manipulations of absence established a multipolar focus of political life centred less on the city of Rome, and more on the idea of a single leader.

The Roman expansion over Italy and the Mediterranean put the political system under considerable stress, and eventually resulted in a dispersal of leadership and a decentralization of power. Absent generals rivalled their peers in Rome for influence and threatened to surpass them from the provinces. Roman leaders, from Sulla to Tiberius, used absence as a mechanism to act autonomously, but it came at the cost of losing influence and control at the centre. In order to hold influence while being split off from the decision-making powers of the geographical nucleus that was Rome, communication channels to mitigate necessary absences were developed during this period, such as travel, intermediate meetings, letters (propaganda writings) and a complex network of mediators, ultimately forming the circle from which the imperial court emerged. Absent leadership, as it developed throughout the Late Republic, a hitherto neglected issue, eventually became a valuable asset in the institutionalising process of the autocracy of Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
  • Publish Date: Nov 14th, 2024
  • Pages: 248
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.21in - 6.14in - 0.63in - 1.16lb
  • EAN: 9781350325401
  • Categories: Ancient and ClassicalAncient - RomeHistory & Theory - General

About the Author

Lange, Ralph: - Ralph Lange is an independent scholar, Luxembourg. He works at the Documentation Centre of the Luxembourg fortress of the National Museum of History and Art, Luxembourg.