Blaming the late republic: senatorial ideology and republican institutions in late antiquity

Abstract

This article discusses the views of late antique authors of the senatorial elite on the subject of the Republican institutions, in particular the assemblies and the Senate. It focuses mainly on the works of fourth- and sixth-century panegyrists and historians, pagans and Christians, belonging or close to the Roman senatorial elite. An insight into this topic is provided through the discussion of specific points, respectively: the memory of late Republican assemblies, the meaning of the consulship, the renewed role of the Senate in the body of the Empire, the interpretation of the Republic with itsexempla in the theory of the ages of Rome, and finally Boethius’s critique of the decadence of the Senate.