The Roman Republic in political thought
The author explains why the legendary early Republic, rather than the historical Republic of Cicero, has most influenced later political thought. The long-lived Roman Republic has consistently played a surprisingly slight role in political theory and discussions about the nature of democracy, forms of government, and other matters, particularly when compared to the enormous attention paid to fifth-century BCE Athenian democracy. The author re-opens the issue of how the Roman Republic was understood and used by political thinkers from the Ancient World to the present. Describing both the reality of the late Roman Republic and showing how its nature was distorted even by contemporary sources, he tracks its treatment (or absence) in political discourse from Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, and in debates surrounding the creation of the American constitution, particularly in the Federalist papers
Print Book, English, ©2002
University Press of New England, Hanover, ©2002
History
ix, 201 pages ; 22 cm
9781584651987, 9781584651994, 1584651989, 1584651997
48674535
Foreword / Joseph Geiger
1. Introduction
2. Greek Observers: Aristotle, Polybius, and After
3. Looking Back on the Republic: The Empire, the Middle Ages, Machiavelli
4. Three Views from Seventeenth-Century England
5. From Restoration to Revolution: England, France, and America
6. Some Contemporary Approaches
7. Cicero's Rome: What Aristotle Might Have Thought
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