Conference: Literature and Power in Middle Republican Rome, Bergamo, 23-24 May 2025

Abstracts in alphabetical order by Author

Vincenzo Casapulla (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II)

Livy’s judgment on Roman military expansion: new critical perspectives.

In his seminal work Livy. The Composition of His History (1977), T.J. Luce laid the foundation for reassessing Livy’s perspective on Roman expansionism. Challenging the prevailing scholarly view that presents Livy as a proponent of Sallust’s thesis—according to which the destruction of Carthage marked the onset of Rome’s moral decline, leading to the unjust treatment of conquered communities and, ultimately, internal discord—Luce demonstrated that Livy identified the first signs of this process in much earlier historical events. He thus argued that Livy’s interpretation of Roman imperialism could not be fully aligned with that of Sallust. Building on subsequent studies that have expanded and refined Luce’s insights, this paper will examine three literary devices through which Livy appears to convey his reservations about the moral legitimacy of Roman conquest while narrating events preceding the fall of Carthage: the external narrator’s commentaries, emphatic accounts of sieges and plundering by the Roman army, and speeches by foreign figures criticising the methods of Roman hegemony.

Lucia Degiovanni (Università degli studi di Bergamo)

La maledizione della stirpe: Antigonidi e Pelopidi tra storia e teatro [The curse of the bloodline: Antigonids and Pelopids between history and theatre].

This paper will explore the literary implications of anti-Macedonian propaganda at the time of the Second and Third Macedonian Wars, which sought to portray Philip V and Perseus as impious and cruel tyrants. Among the texts under examination will be Ennius’ Thyestes, which, according to Cicero’s testimony (Brut. 20, 78), was staged at the Ludi Apollinares (6-13 July) in 169 BC, just before Ennius’ death, at the height of the Third Macedonian War, one year before the Battle of Pidna. Building on a proposal by H. Garelli-François (Pallas 49, 1998), I will argue that the choice of mythical subject (which opened a long tradition of Latin tragedies on the same saga) may be closely linked to the historical context of its performance. In fact, several striking parallels can be observed between the fate of the Antigonid dynasty, to which Philip V and Perseus belonged, and that of Atreus and Thyestes, the sons of Pelops. Furthermore, I will examine the historical narratives of Polybius and Livy, highlighting the distinctly ‘tragic’ quality both authors attribute to these historical events.

Antonella Duso (Università di Padova)

Grammatica e politica a Roma tra II e I secolo a.C.: l’influsso delle scuole di Alessandria e di Pergamo [Grammar and politics in Rome between the 2nd and 1st Century BC: the influence of the schools of Alexandria and Pergamum].

Alexandrian philology and the approach to the Homeric texts of the Pergamenean school (with figures such as Crates of Mallo) played a fundamental role in the birth and development of grammatical studies in Rome: this paper intends to analyse the repercussions of this influence on the theories and production of Latin scholars such as Elio Stilone and M.T. Varro for a new original vision of the etymological discipline and for the interpretation of the two criteria of ‘analogy’ and ‘anomaly’ as the generating and regulating forces of language.

Olivia Elder (University of Oxford, Oriel College)

Politics by the book: politics and empire in early Latin literature.

This paper will explore the connections between Middle Republican politics and early Latin literature. I will argue that early Latin literature is bristling with politics; and in turn that mid-republican politics is bristling with literature. Indeed, I will go further to argue that Latin literature was, from its beginnings, an instrument for doing politics and empire.

The paper will start by zooming in on the beginnings of Latin literature in the aftermath of the First Punic War via a close discussion of warships’ rams sunk during the Battle of the Egadi Islands. Tom Biggs, Denis Feeney and Matthew Leigh have well-articulated the enmeshment between the end of this conflict and the beginnings of Latin literature; Tom Biggs has discussed the display of ships’ rams in the Roman Forum. I want to build on their work to push further at the political and literary resonances of this moment and these objects. This moment illustrates some key themes that permeate both Roman history and Latin literature, especially in terms of Rome’s relationship with other powers. Next, I will zoom out to argue for the broader enmeshment of politics and literature in the Middle Republic beyond the First Punic War. My aim is to show how many and how fertile the connections were between politics and literature in this period.

In its third section, the paper will move to argue more specifically for a connection between literature and empire – and for literature as a tool for doing and conceptualising Rome’s novel imperial project. The third–first centuries BCE were a period of experimentation and expansion; I will suggest that literature was an important space for working these issues of empire out. Consequently, examination of literature delivers insights into – indeed actually even helped to construct – early Roman imperial models and attitudes.

Daniela Galli (Università degli studi di Bergamo)

Il dialogo tra Philus e Laelius nel libro III del ‘De re publica’ di Cicerone: per una giustificazione dell’imperialismo [The dialogue between Philus and Laelius in Book III of Cicero’s ‘De re publica’: for a justification of imperialism].

Scholars have pointed out that the debate between Philus and Laelius preserved in the fragments of the third book of Cicero’s treatise De re publica, although written in the fifties of the first century BC, represents views advanced in II century BC respectively by the Greek philosophers Carneades and Panaetius in the debate concerning the issue of the world power. This dialogue described by Cicero is interesting because it presents one justification of Roman imperialism by natural superiority, explicitly of culture but also implicitly of race, joined to the missionary concept that the ruler should improve the lot of the ruled.

Daniel Kiss (Universitat de Barcelona)

Cato the Elder on foreigners and foreign policy: between pragmatism and principles.

Historical memory has turned Cato the Elder into an icon: the personification of traditional Roman values, an implacable enemy of Carthage. Yet this image can be put to the test, as Cato was not only a politician and a statesman, but also a prolific writer, whose surviving writings enable us to examine how he thought about foreigners and foreign policy. His achievements in the military add further pieces to the puzzle.

The image that emerges is complex. Cato took pride in his achievements as a military commander, his attitude towards Carthage was hostile, and he treated with scorn the diplomatic warfare of Antiochus the Great. But elsewhere his attitude towards foreign states and foreigners is surprisingly mild. As a censor, he inveighed against the ex-consul L. Quinctius Flamininus for an act of gratuitous cruelty against a Gallic chieftain who had approached him as a refugee; and in his famous speech for the Rhodians, he argued that the Romans should leave them in peace.

Cato’s mildness can be attributed in part to pragmatism: Carthage was a dangerous rival, while Rhodes was not. A long record of serving the Roman state around the Mediterranean must have rendered him aware of the benefits of magnanimity and of cultivating the good will of foreigners. But this cannot be the whole explanation, least of all in an outspoken conviction politician. His vigorous stand for human rights in his speech De falsis pugnis against Q. Minucius Thermus can hardly be attributed to convenience alone — nor indeed to the personal temperament of the speaker: Cato must have known that his public would share his outrage. What we see here is something broader than a personal attitude. It is very likely the reflection of the reality of living in an empire that sought to coopt and assimilate foreigners as much as to subject them; it is the counterpart in Roman political thought of the complicated but functioning legal patchwork that was the Roman Empire.

Dennis Pausch (Philipps-Universität Marburg)

Greek Views on Roman Imperialism: Livy’s Rendering of the Debate at the Assembly of the Aetolian League in 199 BC (31.29–32).

Contrary to a widespread assumption, there are quite a few passages in Livy’s history that address also darker side of Roman expansion and the negative consequences of its rule for the defeated. For this purpose, he, like other Roman historians, often uses semifictional speeches that are put into the mouths of the speakers on the enemy side. A particularly interesting example is his rendering of the debate at the assembly of the Aetolian League in 199 BC, as different positions also on the Greek side become apparent here. This passage from Book 31 will therefore be analysed as such and in relation to its narrative context in ab urbe condita, but also with regard to the contemporary arguments and views from the 2nd century BC that may still be tangible here.

Giuseppe Pezzini (University of Oxford, Corpus Christi College)

Pergamon, Telephos, and Accius: cultural interactions between Rome and the Attalid Kingdom in 2^nd c. BC.

In this paper I will offer a reassessment of the supposed Pergamene influence on mid-Republican Latin literature through a systematic collection and fresh analysis of the evidence. This includes: (1) the synecdochic use of the allusive term Pergamum to refer to the city of Troy, distinctively prevalent in Roman mid-Republican sources; (2) the selection and manipulation of mythological material, including themes and narratives with an alleged Pergamene affiliation; (3) the possible influence of a ‘Pergamene aesthetics’ on mid-Republican Latin authors, which is here investigated through the case study of the playwright Accius, who supposedly had a strong Pergamene connection. However suggestive these kinds of arguments might be, the chapter demonstrates that it is incorrect to construe ‘Pergamene’ as an autonomous, discrete cultural identity, or to indiscriminately accept the ‘Pergamene’ vs ‘Alexandrian’ dichotomy; we cannot take any parallel between Roman and Pergamene cultural elements as evidence of a unilateral, derivative influence.

Alessandro Russo (Università di Pisa)

Ennio e la guerra. A proposito di un controverso frammento degli Annales (247-253 Skutsch) [Ennius and War. About a controversial fragment of the Annales (247-253 Skutsch)].

In the past, the theme of “Ennius and war” has been the subject of various, often highly detailed discussions, many of which originated from a controversial fragment of the Annales (247–253 Skutsch) and led to Ennius being considered a pacifist and antimilitarist. In recent years, this extensive debate—and the interpretation of the Ennian fragment on which it was based—has been largely neglected and, at times, even entirely forgotten. My contribution aims to reassess that debate by retracing it in light of a reexamination of the Ennian fragment, taking into account both an unpublished draft by Sebastiano Timpanaro dedicated to it and a hypothesis regarding the contextualization of those lines.

Federico Russo (Università degli Studi di Milano)

“Cura pacis concordiae quoque intestinae causa fuit” (Liv. 3.65.7). Roman Historiographical Reflection on the Early Republican Age Between Expansionism and Civil Discord.

Greek historiographical reflection establishes a clear and consequential link between civil peace and the solidity of a government. From this point of view, harmony is also an ideal condition for the expansionism of a state, whose population, free from the fear of internal and fratricidal conflict, can fruitfully concentrate on military campaigns of both defence and conquest. On the other hand, internal discord weakens a state, to the point of making it easy prey to external attacks. Roman historiography takes up and develops this idea in an original way, not only in the well-known concept of metus hostilis, but also, and more broadly, in the historiographical revision of the period of the clashes between patricians and plebeians, which are inextricably intertwined, in a relationship of mutual influence, with the early phases of Roman expansionism.

The proposed paper will analyze how the early Republican era of Rome has been interpreted by some later sources in the perspective of civil concord (or of its suppression) as an important element in the definition of the warlike and diplomatic relationships that the Romans had with neighbouring peoples.

Giampiero Scafoglio (Université Côte d’Azur, Nice)

Bacco e i suoi riti nella tragedia romana arcaica [Bacchus and His Rites in Early Roman Tragedy]

This paper will examine the theme of the foundation of Bacchic rites and their socially traumatic impact in early Roman tragedy, from Naevius’ Lycurgus to Ennius’ Athamas, from Pacuvius’ Pentheus to Accius’ Bacchae and Stasiastae. The aim is to assess whether these plays—or at least some of them—can be interpreted in terms of  “dialectical participation” in the lively and controversial political debate that took place in Rome between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, culminating in the Senatusconsultum de Bacchanalibus.