Who owns Rome? Ancient republics and their afterlives: Newcastle University

Contemporary discussions of Rome may lead us to believe that the Roman legacy has consistently centred on imperial domination, and interlocking ideas of masculinity, violence, and oppression. And yet, in the 18th-century revolutions that shaped our modern world, Rome was reclaimed by a surprising range of activists who advocated for liberty, equality under law, and the end of slavery. Focusing especially on the classical stories of Cato and Portia and their re-telling, this talk will explore how republican writers in Britain and America advanced notions of radical equality. More broadly, the talk considers the centrality of storytelling for republics, and argues that storytelling made possible the flexibility of republican thinking and its endurance over time.