<italic>Consensus</italic> and <italic>concordia</italic> in the formation of the Roman principate and their resonance in early imperial prose.

Abstract

This dissertation explores how the social, cultural and political form of the early Roman principate reflected the voices of the upper classes of Italy and Rome. Sources formerly overlooked in this regard become useful when viewed through the lenses of the key concepts of <italic>consensus</italic> and <italic>concordia</italic>, which both predated and informed the transition to empire. The self-justification through <italic>consensus</italic> constrained the <italic>princeps</italic> to 'legitimate' and 'traditional' forms of presentation. Yet the concept by itself facilitated this, being concretely operative in the earliest republican historical records, and manifest through acts easily transferred to the justification of imperial authority and regularly reproduced. The nature of tradition and legitimate power, however, became articulated in terms of the problematic turmoil of the late republic. This prompted an inventory of the proper structure and feel of Roman society, observable through the Roman discourse on <italic>concordia</italic>, and culminating in the works of Sallust, written during the troubles of the second triumvirate. The proscription narratives highlight these themes maintaining Roman norms by depicting their subversion. With other neglected sources, they demonstrate how the triumvirs (and future <italic>principes</italic>) acquired <italic> auctoritas</italic> by upholding values autonomously and categorically articulated at the time. Finally, the three representatives of early imperial prose complete the picture. The History of Velleius Paterculus ensconces the viewpoint of <italic>tota Italia</italic> through a cogent political argument for the principate cast in traditional terms, and plainly contrasting the present <italic> otium</italic> with the tumultuous republic. The declamations of the Elder Seneca, moreover, illustrate how independent shifts in educational practices provided an interface between culture and politics that allowed for the autonomous expression of values demonstrably officialized in the new system. In addition, declamation helped institutionalize the political transformation by encouraging the inadvertent recasting of republican history in terms of imperial ideology. Lastly, the <italic>exempla</italic> of Valerius Maximus demonstrate how the historical elements of republican history, the quintessence of <italic>consensus </italic>, were de-politicized and recycled to clarify and instill the elements of Roman identity, and inform every major aspect of Roman imperial society.