Author: Tuori, Kaius
Title: Caesar, Cicero, and the Models of Legal Autocracy
Review/Collection: in : Kaius Tuori, The Emperor of Law: The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication, OUP, 2016
Place edition: Oxford
Editor: Oxford University Press
Year edition: 2016
Pages: 21-67
Keywords: Éloquence - Eloquenza - Eloquence, Histoire - Storia - History, Politique - Politica - Politics
Description: This chapter lays out the numerous contradictory foundations for imperial jurisdiction in the Republican intellectual and administrative traditions. Through a reading of pro Ligario, one of Cicero’s Caesarian speeches, the chapter analyses the contemporary meanings Cicero gives to the emergence of sovereign jurisdiction in the Late Roman Republic. Addressed to Caesar as dictator, the speech is the only contemporary source for Caesar’s jurisdiction, and reveals the confusion and ambivalence surrounding it. Through the options Cicero gives to Caesar, to be a tyrant, a strict Roman magistrate, or a lenient father, the chapter outlines the many ways the past influenced the actions of men like Caesar and his successors. The memory of Greek and Hellenistic kings and tyrants, not to mention Roman warlords like Sulla, served as warnings, while administrative practices like the jurisdiction of the provincial governor or that of the paterfamilias were not only precedents, but also formed expectations [Abstract]
Works:
Author initials: Tuori 2016
Title: Caesar, Cicero, and the Models of Legal Autocracy
Review/Collection: in : Kaius Tuori, The Emperor of Law: The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication, OUP, 2016
Place edition: Oxford
Editor: Oxford University Press
Year edition: 2016
Pages: 21-67
Keywords: Éloquence - Eloquenza - Eloquence, Histoire - Storia - History, Politique - Politica - Politics
Description: This chapter lays out the numerous contradictory foundations for imperial jurisdiction in the Republican intellectual and administrative traditions. Through a reading of pro Ligario, one of Cicero’s Caesarian speeches, the chapter analyses the contemporary meanings Cicero gives to the emergence of sovereign jurisdiction in the Late Roman Republic. Addressed to Caesar as dictator, the speech is the only contemporary source for Caesar’s jurisdiction, and reveals the confusion and ambivalence surrounding it. Through the options Cicero gives to Caesar, to be a tyrant, a strict Roman magistrate, or a lenient father, the chapter outlines the many ways the past influenced the actions of men like Caesar and his successors. The memory of Greek and Hellenistic kings and tyrants, not to mention Roman warlords like Sulla, served as warnings, while administrative practices like the jurisdiction of the provincial governor or that of the paterfamilias were not only precedents, but also formed expectations [Abstract]
Works:
Author initials: Tuori 2016
