The Roman Republic of Letters: Scholarship, Philosophy, and Politics in the Age of Cicero and Caesar

by Katharina Volk

An intellectual history of the late Roman Republic--and the senators who fought both scholarly debates and a civil war



In The Roman Republic of Letters, Katharina Volk explores a fascinating chapter of intellectual history, focusing on the literary senators of the mid-first century BCE who came to blows over the future of Rome even as they debated philosophy, history, political theory, linguistics, science, and religion.

It was a period of intense cultural flourishing and extreme political unrest--and the agents of each were very often the same people. Members of the senatorial class, including Cicero, Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Cato, Varro, and Nigidius Figulus, contributed greatly to the development of Roman scholarship and engaged in a lively and often polemical exchange with one another. These men were also crucially involved in the tumultuous events that brought about the collapse of the Republic, and they ended up on opposite sides in the civil war between Caesar and Pompey in the early 40s. Volk treats the intellectual and political activities of these "senator scholars" as two sides of the same coin, exploring how scholarship and statesmanship mutually informed one another--and how the acquisition, organization, and diffusion of knowledge was bound up with the question of what it meant to be a Roman in a time of crisis.

By revealing how first-century Rome's remarkable "republic of letters" was connected to the fight over the actual res publica, Volk's riveting account captures the complexity of this pivotal period.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Classics, Ancient History

400 pages, Hardcover

First published October 26, 2021

About the author

Katharina Volk is an associate professor of Classics, holding a Ph.D from Princeton University, and teaches at Columbia University.

Reviews

[Rosa]

"Intellectual activities had a political charge and application, while political actions were informed by intellectual habits and convictions. A man did not check his studia at the door when entering the senate, nor did he leave behind his concern for the res publica when arriving at his villa.” (314)

Shoutout to Professor Volk for informing a great deal of my thesis in her articulation of the connections between intellectual activity and politics, as well as her extensive bibliography. Surprisingly approachable and even witty. This was a fun one to go back to.

[rachel selene · Rating 4 out of 5]

i REALLY enjoyed this!! i've always had a hard time wrapping my head around roman philosophy (or philosophy in general), and this was the first book i've read that actually made things both understandable and even interesting to me. this is definitely not an introductory text or something aimed at general audiences, but volk's writing style is still very approachable and there are pieces of humor in it at times, which is something i like to see in my history books :-) and of course as a certified cicero enthusiast (tm) i also liked seeing, as always, how his letters can relate to and intersect with wider sociopolitical themes + practices in the late republic.

[Triona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book, but the non-English words/phrases could be translated to English, even in the footnotes.

[Kate Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A marvelous dance through all the plays of the end of the Roman Republic. A poignant description of a time that has never truly been duplicated.