How Republics Die: Creeping Authoritarianism in Ancient Rome and Beyond

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How Republics Die

Creeping Authoritarianism in Ancient Rome and Beyond

Edited by: Frederik Juliaan Vervaet , David Rafferty and Christopher J. Dart

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2025

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Volume 4 | Studies in Ancient Civil War

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Open Access

Authoritarianism is everywhere on the advance; democracies seem fragile and threatened. We console ourselves that where rule by the people has long established itself, it has never collapsed from internal causes. Except it did, once: in Rome.

This book gathers together Roman historians with political scientists and scholars of other periods of authoritarian takeover to explore how open and democratic political systems have historically fallen prey to autocrats. The Late Roman Republic is the main focus, with a mix of large-scale thematic and analytical chapters paired with more detailed case studies, from some of the leading scholars in the field. Other chapters widen the scope, analysing comparable cases from ancient Athens to Napoleon to Hitler’s Germany and Franco’s Spain.

The book as a whole draws on contemporary political science scholarship on democratic decay and competitive authoritarianism. It shows that these concepts are not only applicable to modern states, but that we can properly use them to study past democratic collapses as well. This provides the tools for a more historically-informed understanding of how republics die, as part of a renewed conversation between historians and political scientists.

Author / Editor information

Frederik Juliaan Vervaet, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; David Rafferty, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia; Christopher J. Dart, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	I
Editorial Statement Open Access Download PDF	V
Preface and Acknowledgements Open Access Download PDF	VII
Contents Open Access Download PDF	IX
Contributors Open Access Download PDF	XIII
Part 1: The Death of the Roman Republic – Concepts
New Perspectives on Old Problems/Old Perspectives on New Problems Christopher J. Dart, David Rafferty and Frederik Juliaan Vervaet Open Access Download PDF	1
How Did Ancient Greek Democracies Die? Not (Normally) by Demagoguery Matt Simonton Open Access Download PDF	25
Consensus Breakdown: Or, How Cicero Was Wrong About Rome, and We Might Be Wrong About America Amy Russell Open Access Download PDF	39
Part 2: The Death of the Roman Republic – Causation
Reform Unwillingness and the Death of the Roman Republic Frederik Juliaan Vervaet, Christopher J. Dart and David Rafferty Open Access Download PDF	71
The Role of the Economy in the Fall of the Roman Republic James Tan Open Access Download PDF	123
Alternative Visions and Fractured Allegiances: The Role of Disillusion, Alienation and Disengagement in the Late Roman Republic Tom Hillard and J. Lea Beness Open Access Download PDF	151
Enabling Laws, Rule of Law, and the Transformation of the Roman Republic Kit Morrell Open Access Download PDF	195
Dominari illi volunt, vos liberi esse – Populist Reason and Rhetoric in Sallust Tim Elliott Open Access Download PDF	227
Part 3: The Death of the Roman Republic – Effect
The View from the Periphery: Local Elites, Roman Elites, and the Western Provinces during Rome’s Crisis of the 80s BCE Nicholas George Open Access Download PDF	249
In the Wake of Autocrats: The Plight of Matronae in the Late Republic Christian Hjorth Bagger Open Access Download PDF	269
Just Another Word? The Lure of Libertas in the Seventies Jeff Tatum Open Access Download PDF	289
Competitive Authoritarianism on the Eve of Empire: Pompeius’s New Republic of 52 BCE David Rafferty, Frederik Juliaan Vervaet and Christopher J. Dart Open Access Download PDF	307
Caesar and the Tribunes of the Plebs: Process and Events Thibaud Lanfranchi Open Access Download PDF	331
Who Counts as the Roman People? Caesar’s recensus and Discriminatory Populism Tonya Rushmer Open Access Download PDF	363
Part 4: From the End of the Roman Republic to the Modern World
Augustus’ Res Gestae as a Revolutionary’s Manual Ronald T. Ridley Open Access Download PDF	389
With a Bang or a Whimper? Reflections on the Fall of the Venetian Republic Catherine Kovesi Open Access Download PDF	409
A New Catilina or a New Cromwell? Napoleon Bonaparte and the Death of the First French Republic, 1794–1804 Peter McPhee Open Access Download PDF	423
Part 5: The Roman Republic and the Modern World
From Caesarism to Populism: An Intellectual History Annelien de Dijn Open Access Download PDF	441
Dealing with Uncertainty: Cicero, Victor Klemperer and How to Cope with the Present in Moments of Crisis Cristina Rosillo-López Open Access Download PDF	457
The Civil War in Spain (1936–1939) and the Civil Wars in Late-republican Rome as Cases of Political and Ideological Polarisation Francisco Pina Polo Open Access Download PDF	475
The Death of Democratic Republics in the 1930s: Germany, Austria, Spain Ángel Alcalde Open Access Download PDF	493
How Republics Die: The Corrosive Effects of Election ‘Conspiracism’ Lisa Hill Open Access Download PDF	511
Afterword: Lessons from the Graveyard Federica Carugati Open Access Download PDF	529
Index Open Access Download PDF	535

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

May 19, 2025

eBook ISBN:

9783111705446

Hardcover published on:

May 19, 2025

Hardcover ISBN:

9783111650272

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

Front matter:

15

Main content:

540

Illustrations:

0

Coloured Illustrations:

1

Tables:

2

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111705446

eBook ISBN: 9783111705446

Hardcover ISBN: 9783111650272

Keywords for this book

Authoritarianism; Classical antiquity; civil war; Roman Empire

Audience(s) for this book

Classics scholars, scholars of ancient history, political scientists and political historians

Creative Commons

BY-NC-ND 4.0

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Walter de Gruyter GmbH
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How Republics Die

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

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Table of contents

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