The Roman senate and the post-Sullan res publica

This article assesses the significance of the modifications to Sulla’s constitution introduced during the 70s. It argues the post-Sullan senate was in effect divided into two groups, those who sought and held imperium-bearing magistracies and those who did not: the latter group’s experience of senatorial status was of jury service and senatorial debate. The 70s seemed to mark the decisive triumph of the former group within the Senate, but as the membership of the Senate remained unchanged the Senate’s overall weakness within the res publica persisted

Roman citizenship between law and practice

The rights and duties associated with the concept of citizenship are a central aspect of the process of identity-building and state formation. This book explores the origin and evolution of the concepts of citizenship and identity in Ireland from a broadly historical perspective, tracing their development in terms of rights and duties, from classical times, through the medieval period and the era partition in Ireland, to the present difficulties surrounding Brexit and the refugee crisis. Ireland’s population has, by the standards of states elsewhere in Europe, remained fairly stable and homogeneous, at least until recently. The present refugee crisis presents Ireland with the prospect of asylum seekers and other migrants with very different cultures, traditions and senses of identity arriving on a scale quite unknown previously, with consequent difficulties surrounding their admission and integration into Irish society. An examination of how the basic criteria and conditions under which citizenship has been conferred here compares with those for granting citizenship in other parts of Europe suggests that evolution of citizenship concepts in Ireland has more generally accorded with familiar European patterns of development. Depending on how future relations between the UK and the EU are agreed following Brexit, however, the island of Ireland faces the prospect of immigrants from other EU member states enjoying what are in effect the rights of citizens in the Republic of Ireland but no such rights in Northern Ireland

Re publica nihil desperatius: salvaging the state in Cicero’s pre-civil war philosophical works

No abstract available

Cicero’s defence of Sextus Roscius and the Sullan Res Publica

The approach Cicero takes in his defence of Sextus Roscius forces him to discuss recent political events, above all the proscriptions and Sulla’s position as dictator. This is a deliberate choice by Cicero, which does not prevent him from constructing an effective defence but allows him to combine that defence with the articulation of a vision for the Sullan res publica. This vision does not conflict with any of Sulla’s acts, but allows Cicero to argue that more work needs to be done to secure Sulla’s achievement and to suggest that he, despite his youth and lack of experience, can be part of the res publica towards which he and the jurors should work

Speech without limits: defining informality in Republican Oratory

Roman forensic performance during the Republic period involved a combination of uninterrupted formal oratory with a range of other speech acts: witness evidence, cross-examination, interruptions, as well as non-verbal acts. This chapter explores this context to the textual record of republican oratory and analyses their importance in relation to the issue of the political significance of the courts in this period

Defining public speech in the Roman Republic: occasion, audience and purpose

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Defining public speech in the Roman Republic: occasion, audience and purpose

No abstract available

Early career prosecutors: forensic activity and senatorial careers in the Late Republic

The focus of this chapter is on the ways in which members of the senatorial order in the late Republic (and those who aspired to join that order) exploited a knowledge of the law to further their careers. Cicero is the best-documented example, whose activity demonstrates a complex relationship between those who claimed expert theoretical knowledge of the law and those who spoke in the courts, between ‘jurists’ and ‘orators’. Drawing on the results of a ERC-funded project based at the University of Glasgow which is editing the fragments of Republican oratory (‘The Fragments of Republican Roman Oratory’), this chapter explores the intersections between political careers and the varieties of forensic activity. It begins with an analysis of the phenomenon of the ‘early career’ prosecution, in which a young man, in his late teens or early twenties, brought a prosecution against a senior public figure, usually an ex-consul, on charges relating to misconduct in a public office. This move, which seems to begin with L. Licinius Crassus’ prosecution of C. Papirius Carbo in 119, was widely imitated over the following seventy years. Its attraction was that it offered an opportunity to act on the public stage, and begin to develop a public and career-enhancing reputation, a decade or more before the speaker could seek membership of the Senate. Since prosecution depended on private initiative, and there were no qualifications for those who spoke in the Forum, the young and inexperienced were not barred from such very high-profile activity. However, examination of those who took this route shows that it was available only to a very limited group: nobiles, who had the family backing and connections to insulate themselves against the consequences of a failed prosecution. In addition, many such prosecutions came with a justificatory back-story, often framing them as responses to earlier injuries inflicted by the defendant. And it seems inevitable that such prosecutions were in reality team efforts, in which the inexperienced lead prosecutor was supported by friends and experts. The early career prosecution thus highlights the potential of forensic activity to claim popular attention and pave the way to electoral success; and the dangers associated with it. Successful forensic activity required talent and application: Cicero’s emphasis on this in his technical works on oratory is not simply self-serving. If we examine the subsequent careers of the early prosecutors, it emerges that not all continued with their forensic efforts. Indeed, a catalogue of forensically active senators is a short list throughout the Republic; at any one point, it seems that fewer than a dozen senators were regularly appearing in the courts. The smallness of the cadre indicates that forensic activity should not be seen as a normal part of public life, but as a specialised task which only added consistent value to a career if pursued with diligence and a high degree of technical competence

Trauma exposure, PTSD and psychotic-like symptoms in post-conflict Timor Leste: an epidemiological survey.

BACKGROUND: Studies in developed countries indicate that psychotic-like symptoms are prevalent in the community and are related to trauma exposure and PTSD. No comparable studies have been undertaken in low-income, post-conflict countries. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of psychotic-like symptoms in conflict-affected Timor Leste and to examine whether symptoms were associated with trauma and PTSD. METHODS: The Psychosis Screening Questionnaire and the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (assessing trauma exposure and PTSD) were administered in an epidemiological survey of 1245 adults (response rate 80.6%) in a rural and an urban setting in Timor Leste. We defined PSQ screen-positive cases as those people reporting at least one psychotic-like symptom (paranoia, hallucinations, strange experiences, thought interference, hypomania). RESULTS: The prevalence of PSQ screen-positive cases was 12 percent and these persons were more disabled. PSQ cases were more likely to reside in the urban area, experienced higher levels of trauma exposure and a greater prevalence of PTSD. PTSD only partially mediated the relationship between trauma exposure and psychotic-like symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Psychotic-like symptoms may be prevalent in countries exposed to mass conflict. The cultural and contextual meaning of psychotic-like symptoms requires further inquiry in low-income, post-conflict settings such as Timor Leste.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are