"The Tragedy of an Imperial Republic"
"The Tragedy of an Imperial Republic"
What does it mean to call a republic exceptional? One answer, common in scholarship on American foreign policy, involves claims of uniqueness and superiority. Both of these features can be found in Roman republican discourse, embodied in a narrative that legitimized Roman imperialism. Through a discussion of Cicero, Sallust, Livy, and Virgil, along with political theory scholarship on republicanism, I argue that Romans' successful pursuit of empire undermined, in a tragic fashion, the very qualities which made them exceptional.
UMD alumnus Dr. Daniel Kapust is Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published widely on rhetoric, republicanism, Roman political thought, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith. His first book, Republicanism, Rhetoric, and Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011; his second book, Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art, will be published by Cambridge in 2018.
Professor Kapust's talk is co-sponsored by the Departments of Classics and Government & Politics and will be followed by a reception.