Approaching the Roman Revolution

This volume collects twenty-six previously unpublished studies on Republican history by the late Sir Ronald Syme (1903-1989), drawn from the archive of Syme's papers at the Bodleian Library. This set of papers sheds light on aspects of Republican history that were either overlooked or tangentially discussed in Syme's published work. They range across a wide spectrum of topics, including the political history of the second century BC, the age of Sulla, the conspiracy of Catiline, problems of constitutional law, and the Roman conquest of Umbria. Each of them makes a distinctive contribution to specific historical problems. Taken as a whole, they enable us to reach a more comprehensive assessment of Syme's intellectual and historiographical profile. The papers are preceded by an introduction that places them within the context of Syme's work and of the current historiography on the Roman Republic, and are followed by a full set of bibliographical addenda.