Cicero vs Catiline: political struggles in Ancient Rome

SERIES: From Rome to the rest of the world. Tales from a past that lives on - Under the aegis of Francesco Benigno, professor of Modern History, Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa
SPEAKER: Luciano Canfora
DATE: Thursday 18 May, 6 pm
PLACE: Palazzo Venezia, Sala del Refettorio

Whether or not it really was conspiracy can be debated but history was also written by the victors in the case of the anti-Catilinarian repression.  What is certain is that the political-social coalition in power, of which Cicero played a knowing and effective part, made recourse to a state of siege to win the electoral battle and violated the "right to appeal to the people " to physically liquidate the "conspirators"  without a trial. The fight against Catiline, which resulted in civil war (January 62 BC) was one of the principal prequels to the emergence of Julius Caesar in a dying Roman Republic.

Biography

Luciano Canfora is a professor emeritus of the Università di Bari. He is editor of the Quaderni di storia series and contributes to the Corriere della Sera newspaper. He is director of the Department of History, Culture and San Marino History of the Università della Repubblica di San Marino. His studies focus on: Greek literature, the history of the reception of Greek and Latin texts, papyrology, ancient historiography and the modern reception of the classical world. His publications include La meravigliosa storia del falso Artemidoro (Sellerio, 2011); Il mondo di Atene (Laterza, 2011); La crisi dell’utopia. Aristofane contro Platone (Laterza, 2014); Augusto. Figlio di dio (Laterza, 2015); Tucidide. La menzogna, la colpa, l’esilio (Laterza, 2016); Il sovversivo. Concetto Marchesi e il comunismo italiano (Laterza, 2019); Europa, gigante incatenato (Dedalo, 2020); La metamorfosi (Laterza, 2021); La conversione (Salerno, 2021); Il tesoro degli Ebrei (Laterza, 2021); Tucidide e il colpo di Stato (Il Mulino, 2021); La democrazia dei signori (Laterza, 2022).

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