The Politics of Knowledge in Late Republican Rome

FAIN: FEL-262324-19

Katharina Volk
Columbia University (New York, NY 10027-7922)

Preparation of a book on the intellectual and political activities of "senator scholars” such as Caesar, Cicero, and Cato that were shaped by simultaneous engagement with philosophy and the deepening crisis of the late Roman Republic.

My project is a work of intellectual history focusing on the last decades of the Roman Republic (50s-40s BCE). This was a period of both intense intellectual flourishing and extreme political unrest--and, curiously, the agents of both were often the same people. Members of the senatorial class who contributed to the development of Roman scholarship and philosophy were instrumental in the events that brought down the Republic, ending up in opposing camps during the civil war. I treat the intellectual and political activities of these individuals as two sides of the same coin, exploring how scholarship and statesmanship inform one another. My aim is to capture the complexity of this pivotal period by illustrating how the remarkable "republic of letters" of first-century Rome is involved with the fight over the actual res publica, and how in this period the organization of knowledge is always bound up with the question of what it means to be Roman in a time of crisis.

Associated Products

The Roman Republic of Letters: Scholarship, Philosophy, and Politics in the Age of Cicero and Caesar (Book)
Title: The Roman Republic of Letters: Scholarship, Philosophy, and Politics in the Age of Cicero and Caesar
Author: Katharina Volk
Abstract: In The Roman Republic of Letters, Katharina Volk explores a fascinating chapter of intellectual history, focusing on the literary senators of the mid-first century BCE who came to blows over the future of Rome even as they debated philosophy, history, political theory, linguistics, science, and religion. It was a period of intense cultural flourishing and extreme political unrest—and the agents of each were very often the same people. Members of the senatorial class, including Cicero, Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Cato, Varro, and Nigidius Figulus, contributed greatly to the development of Roman scholarship and engaged in a lively and often polemical exchange with one another. These men were also crucially involved in the tumultuous events that brought about the collapse of the Republic, and they ended up on opposite sides in the civil war between Caesar and Pompey in the early 40s. Volk treats the intellectual and political activities of these “senator scholars” as two sides of the same coin, exploring how scholarship and statesmanship mutually informed one another—and how the acquisition, organization, and diffusion of knowledge was bound up with the question of what it meant to be a Roman in a time of crisis.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSFETCH?fetchtype=fullrecord:sessionid=fsap06pxm1-1680-kx543017-766q41:entitypagenum=3:0:recno=2:resultset=1:format=FI:next=html/record.html:bad=error/badfetch.html:entitytoprecno=2:entitycurrecno=2:numrecs=1
Primary URL Description: Worlcat record
Secondary URL: http://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691193878/the-roman-republic-of-letters
Secondary URL Description: publisher's website
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780691193878
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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