Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item Feigning a Commonwealth: The Roman Play and Public Discourse in England, 1594-1660(2017) Marks, Jodean Miriam; Leinwand, Theodore B; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Of some eighty Roman history plays written or performed in English between 1550 and 1635, forty-three are extant. The task of studying the political resonances of the whole corpus (rather than focusing solely on Shakespeare and Jonson’s Roman plays) remains to be undertaken. This dissertation begins that task with a selection from the fourteen to sixteen extant plays about the Roman Republic, focusing on three key moments: the founding of the Republic, its death throes, and the reign of Tiberius, when Romans looked back nostalgically to the Republic. The five plays examined here presented a model of republican political culture that contrasted with the monarchical ideology of late-sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century England. The spirit, principles, and actions of the republican heroes who inhabited the stage may well have inspired audience members, both those whose reading of classical texts had familiarized them with the historical events presented on stage and those encountering that history for the first time. Three of these plays—Heywood’s The Rape of Lucrece, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and Jonson’s Sejanus His Fall—were composed for performance at public theaters and remained popular well into the seventeenth century. Kyd’s Cornelia and Chapman’s Caesar and Pompey were published but never performed. All five plays share a sense that a republican form of government, more than any other, promotes nobility of character and enables human beings to live fulfilling lives. They also share a complex vocabulary that centers on the association of tyranny with slavery: the tyrant is a ruler who treats his subjects as a master treats his slaves. While only one play, Cornelia, appears to condemn monarchy outright (as a violation of the Roman constitution), all appear to suggest that monarchy can easily slide into tyranny. In the early seventeenth century, these plays, and the history they presented, would have called to mind contemporary concerns about the corrosive effects of royal favoritism and the growth of the royal prerogative. More radical perspectives, closer to the Roman republican model, would emerge as differences between the king and Parliament escalated into open conflict in mid-century.Item Fides in Julius Caesar's Bellum Civile: A Study in Roman Political Ideology at the Close of the Republican Era(2005-12-06) Barry, John Mannix; Eckstein, Arthur M; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation, we show not only that Julius Caesar depicted his struggle with Pompey and the government of the Roman Republic as politically legitimate, but that he grounded this legitimacy primarily in notions of fides. Fides is a fundamental Roman notion. A man of fides always does the right thing of his own volition, not under pressure. Such a man might change his mind about what is right, but he would never pursue his private aims at the expense of the public interest. It is crucial at Rome to be seen this way. Caesar wishes to persuade his audience that he has been justified in taking unusual action--action that is outside the law and has not been authorized by the senate or the people--in defense of his claims. Caesar bases his political case on publica fides, that is, on the ideologically deep-rooted Roman notion that concern for the public welfare must be an official's paramount concern at all times. It should always take precedence over private and personal interests. My hypothesis in this dissertation is that not just in Caesar's BC but in the writings of Cicero, publica fides as a notion subsumes not merely the usual, but also some of the unusual actions that may be undertaken by public figures. We can infer from this that unusual, unauthorized, or unprecedented actions may sometimes be seen as legitimate at Rome if the people engaged in the activity are believed to be guided and motivated by publica fides. We show that Caesar defines the major political themes of the BC in 1.1-33. They can be summed up as follows: (1) Caesar's good fides vs. Pompey's bad fides; (2) the good fides of Caesar's friends vs. the bad fides of their Pompeian counterparts during the political crisis of December 50 and January 49 B.C.; (3) the good fides of Caesar's friends and commanders vs. the bad fides of their Pompeian counterparts once violence was involved; (4) the impact of both good and bad fides on the respective armies and on the civilian community in each theater of battle.