Ce mémoire vise à mettre en lumière les raisons pour lesquelles de nombreux épisodes de comportement collectif violents se sont produits dans les contiones au cours du dernier siècle de la République romaine (133-44 av. notre ère). Pour y parvenir, nous avons fait appel à un cadre d’analyse spécialisé dans la compréhension des conflits intergroupes et utilisé depuis peu par les historiens : la psychologie sociale. Nous avons particulièrement employé la théorie de l’identité sociale parce qu’elle est considérée comme étant la plus complète pour expliquer les comportements intergroupes à l’échelle d’une société autant qu’à celle d’une foule. Il se trouve que l’apparition de la violence dans les contiones s’explique à la fois par des raisons liées au contexte politique, social et économique de la société romaine des deux premiers siècles av. notre ère que par des facteurs propres à ce type d’assemblée. En s’inspirant d’études récentes, notre analyse a commencé par montrer que le contexte politique et économique de Rome a provoqué des divisions entre les groupes qui la constituaient. En considérant cette fragmentation, nous avons pu reconnaître la présence de facteurs favorisant les conflits intergroupes à l’échelle macro. Nous avons ensuite étudié séparément les deux traits distinctifs des contiones (un public s’assemblait et un orateur discourait) afin de déterminer en quoi ils ont contribué à ce que des débordements violents surviennent. Notre analyse nous a permis d’avancer que les contiones étaient l’un des rares contextes dans lesquels les individus rassemblés classaient leurs pairs en fonction de leur appartenance à un groupe politique et où un orateur pouvait influencer les dynamiques qui se développaient entre ces groupes. Étant donné la situation troublée dans laquelle la société romaine se trouvait, les contiones constituaient un environnement propice à l’éclatement de conflits intergroupes. / This master’s thesis aims to shed light on why many episodes of violent collective behavior occurred in the contiones during the last century of the Roman Republic (133-44 BC). To get there, we have drawn on an analytical framework specialized in the understanding of intergroup conflict and recently used by historians: social psychology. We mainly used the Social Identity Theory because it is considered the most comprehensive in explaining intergroup behavior at both the societal and crowd levels. It turns out that the appearance of violence in the contiones can be explained both by reasons related to the political, social and economic context of Roman society in the first two centuries BC and by factors specific to this type of assembly. Drawing on recent studies, our analysis began by showing that the political and economic context of Rome caused divisions between the groups that constituted it. By considering this fragmentation, we were able to recognize the presence of factors that encouraged intergroup conflicts on a macro scale. We then looked separately at the two distinctive features of contiones (an audience assembled and a speaker discoursed) to determine how they contributed to violent outbursts. Our analysis suggested that contiones were one of the few contexts in which assembled individuals categorized their peers according to their political group membership and where a speaker could influence the dynamics that developed between these groups. Given the troubled state of Roman society, the contiones provided a fertile environment for intergroup conflict.

<p>The aim of this thesis is to explore the Roman <em>salutatio</em>. The morning ritual was reiterated daily throughout the Republic and Empire, and was a fundamental facet of Roman interactions between citizens of varying status. This thesis moves beyond the traditional interpretation of the ritual as a manifestation of Roman patronage, and rather examines the asymmetrical social relationships that existed at the <em>salutatio</em> within the context of the applicable socio-political ideologies of the Republic and Empire. As a ritual that was enacted on a daily basis for centuries, the <em>salutatio</em> is a useful conduit to understand the complexities of social interaction in Roman society.</p> <p>Much of the traditional scholarship on the <em>salutatio</em> has interpreted the <em>salutator</em>/salutatee relationship essentially as a system of social acquiescence, where the salutatee was able to accrue significant social esteem, and the <em>salutator</em> was merely a humble <em>cliens</em> or social inferior. This thesis dissects the abundant, yet fleeting references to the social practice in the ancient sources to analyze how participation in the <em>salutatio</em> impacted individual social status within the greater Roman collective, which was inherently hierarchical. The sources consequently suggest that the ritual was not a system of social subordination, but was rather an accepted behavioural practice which served as a mechanism to promote or establish a distinct ‘Roman-ness’ within the collective Roman identity, irrespective of status. This study furthermore considers influences which prompted significant adaptations of the <em>salutatio</em> over time, which consequently illuminates greater complexities of the Roman social structure.</p> <p>This thesis ultimately presents the <em>salutatio</em> as a Republican ritual which was monopolized by the emperor after the substantial socio-political shift that ensued from the political modification of Republic to Empire. The ritual of the <em>salutatio</em> is therefore a manifestation of the instabilities of the Roman social structure.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

This research examines how, when and why the Romans assigned and defined the tasks of preparing and commanding fleets during the Republic. In doing so, it brings new evidence to bear on the wider debates about the nature of the prouincia and the institutional and administrative development of the Roman empire. The communis opinio is that a prouincia originally represented a functional “sphere of operation” that was allotted or assigned to a magistrate and that it only later developed a geographical meaning with territorial connotations through the process of “provincialisation.” This research challenges that view through an analysis of the evidence for the definition, assignment and practical use of the prouincia classis and other prouinciae connected with the command of fleets. Drawing upon and analysing the lists of administrative arrangements to be found in the “annalistic” sections of the surviving books of Livy’s History, it argues that prouinciae were defined in specific geographical and functional terms long before the development of permanent territorial empire. This offers a new perspective which points to and elucidates the flexible use of the prouincia as a means of separating magistrates and promagistrates in space or by function in space. It argues that the rationale for this was to limit conflicts between commanders over command and triumphal rights. By combining evidence from a wide range of sources after the loss of Livy’s History from 167, the research shows that the above rationale for demarcating prouinciae still applied in the first century B.C. However, it also demonstrates that there were significant changes with the assignment of vast Mediterranean-wide naval prouinciae in the first half of the first century B.C. It argues that the definition of these prouinciae was made possible by the development of a singular collective Mediterranean-wide ora maritima, which was brought about by the Romans’ increasing “acknowledgement of empire.” The negative political and institutional implications of these developments are also assessed. Finally, in discussing the above, this research also provides new insights into the role and auctoritas of the Senate, the function and freedom of magistrates, and the Romans’ conceptualisation of their empire.

The nature of the Republican constitution has been much contested by scholars studying the history of the Roman Republic. In considering the problems of the late Republic, the nature of the constitution is an important question, for if we do not understand what the constitution was, how can we explain Rome’s transition from ‘Republic’ to ‘Empire’? Such a question is particularly pertinent when looking at events at Rome following the assassination of Caesar, as we try to understand why it was that the Republic, as we understand it as a polity without a sole ruler, was not restored. This thesis examines the Roman understanding of the constitution in the aftermath of Caesar’s death and argues that for the Romans the constitution was a contested entity, its proper nature debated and fought over, and that this contest led to conflict on the political stage, becoming a key factor in the failure to restore the Republic and the establishment of the Second Triumvirate. The thesis proposes a new methodology for the examination of the constitution, employing modern critical theories of discourse and the formation of knowledge to establish and analyse the Roman constitution as a discursive entity: interpreted, contested and established through discourse. I argue that the Roman knowledge of the proper nature of the constitution of the res publica had fractured by the time of Caesar’s death and that this fracturing led to multiple understandings of the constitution. In this thesis I describe the state of Rome in 44-43 B.C. to reveal these multiple understandings of the constitution, and undertake an analysis of the discourse of Cicero and Sallust after 44 B.C. in order to describe the way in which different understandings of the constitution were formulated and expressed. Through this examination this thesis shows that the expression and interrelation of these multiple understandings in Roman political discourse made arrival at a unified agreement on a common course of action all but impossible and that this combined with the volatile atmosphere at Rome after Caesar’s death played a major role in Rome’s slide towards civil war and the eventual establishment of a different political system.

La période entre 338 et 290 av. J.-C. fut un tournant pour Rome, car elle vit la soumission des Latins et la défaite des Samnites, ce qui permit à l’Urbs de devenir la première puissance italique. On assista donc à l’avènement d’un impérialisme romain. Se pose alors la question de l’idéologie d’État de cette Rome en transition. Comme cette expansion fut accompagnée par la construction, à Rome, de dix nouveaux temples, souvent dédiés à des divinités nouvelles, et que toute divinité exprimait une idéologie, il nous a semblé possible de reconstituer, dans ses grands traits, cette idéologie d’État grâce aux nouvelles divinités et leurs sanctuaires. Nous avons donc choisi d’analyser deux nouveaux temples : celui de Quirinus et celui de Victoria. Le choix de Quirinus s’explique par le fait que ce dieu avait, on l’a montré, déjà été assimilé à Romulus ; quant à Victoria, on l’a choisie pour trois raisons : elle était une déesse de la victoire ; son temple fut élevé au-Dessus du Lupercal, au cœur même de la « Rome de Romulus » ; grâce aux fouilles de P. Pensabene, on peut reconstituer son sanctuaire. Puis, on a analysé les deux temples et leurs divinités à travers les concepts (cadre social de la mémoire, mémoire collective) issus de la sociologie de M. Halbwachs. On a ainsi constaté qu’à travers ces temples, l’élite dirigeante avait diffusé auprès du peuple une nouvelle identité collective affirmant le caractère exceptionnel de Rome et contenant l’idée d’une expansion illimitée de l’Urbs. Cette création d’une identité romaine impérialiste se fondant sur Romulus et la religion en général, on peut l’interpréter comme la construction d’un destin collectif pour Rome. / The period between 338 and 290 B.C. saw a sea change for Rome, because the subjugation of the Latins and the defeat of the Samnites allowed her to become the main italic power, and witnessed the advent of a roman imperialism. In this context arises the problem of the state ideology of this Rome in transition. As this expansion was accompanied by the construction of ten new temples in Rome, frequently consecrated to new deities, each of them expressing a specific ideology, we thought it possible to reconstruct the new state ideology through an analysis of the deities and shrines in question. So, for our study, we chose two new temples, those of Quirinus and of Victoria. Quirinus because of his assimilation to Romulus, Victoria because she was a deity of victory; her shrine was built above the Lupercal, at the heart of the “Rome of Romulus”; and because her temple can be reconstructed thanks to the excavations of P. Pensabene. Then we analyzed the two temples and their godheads through concepts (social frame of memory; collective memory) taken from the sociology of M. Halbwachs. In this way we came to the conclusion that, through these two shrines, the ruling élite had tried to communicate to the common people a new collective identity promoting the exceptionality of Rome and her unlimited powers of expansion. This construction of an imperialistic roman identity being based on Romulus and the religion in general, one can interpret it as construction of a collective destiny for Rome.