!e theme of liberty being given up in favour of security is a recurring one throughout Sir Ronald Syme's !e Roman Revolution. But Syme's prosopographic account of the aristocratic struggles for total power in Rome during the civil wars was heavily in"uenced by the rise of Fascism in Europe, and so this conclusion perhaps does not come as much of a surprise. Further, there is some precedent, in the later ancient sources such as Tacitus, for the end of liberty to be associated with the end of the Republic, and the new monarchy of the Roman Empire to be, like the monarchy preceding the Republic, inimical to liberty. However, modern scholarship has certainly broadened beyond the aristocrat-centred thesis that Syme applied to Roman government. F. E. Adcock brought the concepts of "des and auctoritas into the considerations of Roman political thought, trying to show their in"uence on a grander scale, beyond the ambitions of the aristocratic class. More recent scholarly trends of trying to take into account the common people have prompted seemingly more 'popular' studies as well. Millar's publication of !e Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic brought scholars to examine the role of the democratic portions of Rome's unwritten Republican constitution, or even more in-depth analyses of the constitutional organs themselves. !e e#ects on the provincials, who formed the majority of the Roman army in the Late Republic, are examined in in-depth studies of contemporary literature, as seen in Josiah Osgood's Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire, or the consideration of the political role and motivation of the army in studies such as Arthur Keaveney's !e Army in the Roman Revolution. !e following chapters will make use of all these areas of scholarship in an attempt to bring more light to Syme's theme of a liberty foresaken by the few who even held it in favour of the much-needed security and stability created by 1 Augustus when he came to power. Syme does not really consider, in !e Roman Revolution, what liberty actually meant at Rome – indeed, a number of scholars make reference to liberty without providing any sort of framework for it. P. A. Brunt o#ers a detailed and insightful essay on libertas in !e Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays, attempting to avoid the mistakes made by other modern scholars, and seeking to o#er some truly ancient de$nition(s) of the term. His $ndings, perhaps not surprisingly, provide no clear-cut answer to the question of liberty – it is equally di%cult to de$ne it today – but his overall conclusion is that Roman libertas is a combination of having one's person and property protected by the law, and being able to exercise a certain degree of political power. Brunt's $ndings will inform the $rst chapter of this thesis, which will focus on how liberty was seen to be connected to the Republic by Cicero, writing at the end of the Republic, and Livy, writing in the early Principate. A&er considering the view of liberty within the Roman Republic, we will consider its actual workings. Andrew Lintott has compiled a comprehensive sketch of the composition, working and balance of the Republican government in !e Constitution of the Roman Republic which will largely help inform the discussion of the assemblies within the Roman constitution. Millar's views on the importance of the crowd in Roman politics will be considered along with the cautions o#ered by Brunt and Mouritsen on the powers of the magistrates who call the assemblies, and the physical and procedural limitations that were presented in the Roman exercise of 'democracy'. Finally, Keaveney's study of the army in the Roman Revolution will be taken into account as a separate forum in which the voice of the common people may be heard. All these $ndings will be considered in light of the political climate of the time, as de$ned by the 2 historical events from the Gracchi through to the Second Triumvirate. With the battle of Actium and the end of the civil wars came the restoration of order to the Roman state by the man who would come to be called Augustus. Augustus would attempt to create a public memory of his reign in his Res Gestae, and this will be examined in an attempt to identify his motives. Augustus would also look to the creation of a Roman culture, in part through the patronage of poets and authors who would build up a Roman literary corpus. One of these poets, Virgil, created the Aeneid, an epic poem on the founding of the Roman race which praised Augustus, and de$ned what it was to be Roman in this new era of stability. In the $nal chapter, common themes in the Aeneid and the Res Gestae will be sought, and contrasted to another piece of Augustan literature which speaks of the liberty of the Roman people, the $rst books of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita (which will have been considered in the $rst chapter). !e careful examination of ancient texts over the course of the 'Roman Revolution' will o#er some insight into how the Romans perceived liberty during the chaotic times leading up to the civil wars, and how, when $nally order was restored to the state, this stability was re"ected in a shi& of focus from liberty and good leadership to a unity of purpose under the leadership of Augustus.
