Factional competition and monumental construction in mid-Republican Rome.

Abstract

The late fourth and early third centuries B.C. witnessed important changes in the internal political structure of the Roman state as well as the rise of Rome to dominance of the Italian peninsula. At the same time, a number of different forms of public display became popular in the city, including temple foundations, building decoration and funerary games. In order to understand the relationship between these two phenomena, I undertake an examination of the ancient literary evidence for this period, emphasizing the survival of mid-Republican texts to later times. I then turn to the career of Appius Claudius Caecus, one of the major political figures of that time. Based on the results of this analysis, I apply a recently developed anthropological model of group activity, known as factionalism, to Agpius and the men associated with him in the sources. This model posits the existence of groups of men, bound together in order to achieve various personal political goals, and working within the existing political structure, though often engaged in innovative behavior which results in the evolution of their political system. In the case of Appius and his allies and opponents, factionalism is able to account for several of the activities of public display in which they engage, which appear not to be isolated, but instead direct responses to one another. More broadly, it suggests that the introduction of new agents into Roman politics during the fourth century is responsible for the rise in public displays. The model is also successfully applied to other examples of display centering on the figure of Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus, one of the men consistently opposed to Appius. I also suggest that factional competition can be used to explain the location of various temples around Republican Rome, and that such competition may have great explanatory power for many observed displays throughout the Republic. The existence of factionally driven innovation and competition may also help explain the circumstances leading to the downfall of the Republic.