Fifty Years of Republican History

Abstract

Fifty years ago, when the founders of this Society looked to the future of Roman studies, the general lines of development in Republican history must have seemed fairly clear. On the technical side Mommsen had opened up the main fields of systematic research, Eduard Meyer was at the height of his influence, and Beloch was testing new methods of historical survey, while Niese had arranged the evidence for Hellenistic politics. Historical scholarship could face a great access of material with confidence, as archaeology and epigraphy extended its scope, though this was less likely to affect Republican than Imperial history. At the same time the problems of historical interpretation had taken shape; for the events of the nineteenth century illustrated the play of power politics, which were relevant to the understanding of Roman imperialism. The ‘economic’ interpretation of history was coming into vogue, and this could lead into ‘social history’. If the influence of family connections and personal ambition was felt less urgently, it could be argued that a ‘scientific’ analysis of Roman politics should probe more deeply into the forces that broke out in the constitutional crisis of the Late Republic. We may admit at once that the main work in Republican history during our period has continued along these lines : we are still heavily in debt to the fundamental study of the older masters. The concept of ‘scientific’ history may have been modified, since it is a task of complicated inference to arrive at historical knowledge; yet the actual methods to which we have succeeded are well fitted for the systematic treatment of detailed evidence. Collingwood did less than justice to the school of Mommsen when he charged it with mastery over small-scale problems but weakness in dealing with large-scale ones. Only strict analysis and reconstruction of the evidence allowed the chief issues of Republican history to be defined critically, and subsequent research has refined on this procedure.