AHMA and the Mario Del Chiaro Center for the Study of Ancient Italy are pleased to announce a conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1974 publication of Erich Gruen's landmark study, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (University of California Press).
September 26-27, 2024
315 Wheeler Hall (Maude Fife Room)
Thursday, September 26
Welcome, 1:30-2:00
Session I, 2:00-5:00 PM
Institutions, Ideologies, and Social Relations
Josiah Osgood (Georgetown University), “The Criminal Courts of the Late Republic: Sign of Health or Symptom of Breakdown?”
Kathryn Welch (University of Sydney), “Was there an ‘Optimate’ Ideology in the Republic?”
Liv Yarrow (Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, the City University of New York), “Debt and Duty, 51-50 BCE”
Friday, September 27
Session II, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM
Violence and Politics
Robert Morstein-Marx (UC Santa Barbara), “'Civil War Caused the Fall of the Republic--not Vice Versa'"
Dominic Machado (College of the Holy Cross), "Metus Servilis? The Impact of Mediterranean Slave Revolts on Late Republican Politics"
Lunch, 12:00-2:00 PM (Ishi Court, Dwinelle Hall)
Session III, 2:00-4:00 PM
History and Memory, Past and Present
Catalina Balmaceda (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile), "Gruen's 'Temptations of Hindsight' and the Sallustian Narrative on Decline"
Daniel Kapust (University of Wisconsin), “The Last Generation of the American Republic?”
Break, 4:00-4:30 PM
Session IV, 4:30-5:15 PM
Remarks by Erich Gruen & Concluding Discussion (Arthur Eckstein, University of Maryland, and Amy Russell, Brown University, Chairs)