Personality politics in the Roman Republic could have important lessons for today’s troubled times, historians Thomas Hillard and Lea Beness will argue tonight.
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Drs. Hillard and Beness, associate professors in ancient history at Macquarie University, will give the first public lecture of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies at UNE, at 6.30pm in Arts Lecture Theatre 1.
They will talk about the second century BC, the transformative period when Rome established its empire.
“It’s a time when Rome acquires Mediterranean world power,” Professor Hillard said, “but it’s also a time when Rome almost imploded.”
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Eighteenth century philosophers looked back to the Roman republic for inspiration on the eve of the French Republic and the American War of Independence.
“They saw the Roman Republic as a model because of its checks and balances – and so we're looking at what went wrong, why it failed,” Professor Hillard said.
Enlightenment thinkers and revolutionaries admired what they saw as Rome’s stability, based on a constitution that shared power between popular assemblies, an aristocratic senate, and elected magistrates.
The second century, though, was also the period when personality-driven politics began to disrupt the system – such as the Gracchi brothers, populist reformers who tried to redistribute wealth, and died in a power struggle with conservative senators. It was the first occurrence of real civil violence in Rome.
The acquisition of empire, Professor Hillard and Dr Beness argue, put stresses and strains on the internal political system of the Republic – particularly as generals gathered power, further from Rome, making them difficult to control.
The Republic would collapse in the next century; a series of dictatorships, triumvirates, and civil wars between charismatic strong men – Marius and Sulla, Caesar and Pompey, Octavian and Mark Antony – turned Rome’s political system into an autocracy, power in the hands of one man.
“It's very useful to look at the past and the great transformations of a culture like Rome in terms of personality-driven politics,” Professor Hillard said. "One lesson is that personality-driven politics have become so much more important in the 21st century – dreadfully so.”
"With people like Trump,” Professor Beness added.
The couple – partners in academe and in life – met at UNE 30 years ago. Professor Beness – a local girl from Glen Innes – studied and lectured here, while Professor Hillard taught here for most of the 1980s.
“It’s wonderful to be back,” Professor Beness said. “It has all sorts of personal memories, and I still have some good friends here. It’s like coming home, in a sense.”
She looks back fondly on her time at Glen Innes High School, the single student of classics teacher Mrs Robinson.
"She made Roman history come alive. It was very good having a teacher all to yourself!” she said. “I got her undivided attention, and I could, of course, ask her lots of questions – but it meant you couldn’t get away with not doing your homework.”
Professor Hillard enjoyed the opportunities UNE gave him to mix with other departments. He went to seminars in other disciplines – modern and economic history, archaeology, and drama – and mixed with a wider range of academic colleagues than in a big city.
The writer and academic Victor Kelleher called it a form of detribalisation, Professor Hillard said.
"In a metropolitan centre like Sydney, you tribalise; you mix with only the people of the same political, social, philosophical persuasion. In Armidale, you can't afford to be that exclusive.
“It's a small enough society for you to cross those barriers, and it really does broaden your social outlook and your mind."
Professor Beness is also president of the Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies (AWAWS), and Vice-President of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies (ASCS).
Together, they are compiling the Macquarie Dictionary of Roman Biography, initially funded by Colleen McCullough, writer of The Thorn Birds and the Masters of Rome series about the fall of the republic.
They thank the Classics & Ancient History department, UNE, and conference conveners for bringing them up.
This is the first of three public lectures given as part of the conference, which also celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the sixtieth of UNE’s own Museum of Antiquities.
Professor Teresa Morgan (Oxford University) will talk about Greek and Roman religion, Christianity, and sacred buildings tomorrow night. Dr Julie Anderson (British Museum) will talk about the discovery of a Kushite temple in Central Sudan, Wednesday night. An Egyptian acquisition will also be unveiled on Wednesday afternoon at 4pm.