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Expansion, soldiers and citizens
Mary Beard • SPQR
The birth of liberty
Mary Beard • SPQR
The orators, therefore, soon received the title of demagogues, — that is to say, of conductors of the city; and indeed they did direct its action, and determined all its resolutions.
Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges • The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Illustrated)
What is more, if Attalus had left his kingdom to ‘the Roman people’ (populus Romanus), was it not up to them, rather than the senate, to determine how the bequest was used? Should not the profits of empire benefit the poor as well as the rich?
Mary Beard • SPQR
Tiberius Gracchus
Mary Beard • SPQR
In Italy, as elsewhere in Europe, anticlericalism was rife. Arnold of Brescia’s campaigns against the pope only ended with Arnold’s execution in 1155, but stability did not return to the Italian peninsula. The papacy remained locked in conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor, the formidable Frederick Barbarossa, and a series of imperially sponsored an
... See moreSean Martin • The Cathars: The Most Successful Heresy of the Middle Ages
CHAPTER 5 · A WIDER WORLD The descendants of Barbatus
Mary Beard • SPQR
Carthago delenda est.