It is largely thanks to Zvi Yavetz that the Roman plebs has become “Salonfähig”. In numerous important studies Yavetz has focused his — and our — attention on the problem of the relationship between the ruler and the masses of the ruled. Thus, it seemed natural to choose various aspects of this relationship as the topic of a volume in his honour. The articles here contributed by thirteen eminent friends and colleagues deal with historical and theoretical questions of the relationship between “the one” and “the many”, covering a period from the second century B.C., through the times of the Late Republic and the Principate, to Late Antiquity and, finally, to an intriguing view at modern totalitarianism as perceived from an Enlightenment perspective.

A very readable introduction exploring much-contested issues and debates, and providing an original synthesis of this important topic.

This volume has its origin in the 14th University of South Africa Classics Colloquium in which the topic and title of the event were inspired by Josiah Ober’s seminal work Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989). Indeed the influence this work has had on later research in all aspects of the Greek and Roman world is reflected by the diversity of the papers collected here, which take their cue and starting point from the argument that, in Ober’s words (1989, 338): ‘Rhetorical communication between masses and elites... was a primary means by which the strategic ends of social stability and political order were achieved.’ However, the contributors to the volume have also sought to build further on such conclusions and to offer new perceptions about a spread of issues affecting mass and elite interaction in a far wider number of locations around the ancient Mediterranean over a much longer chronological span. Thus the conclusions here suggest that once the concept of mass and elite was established in the minds of Greeks and later Romans it became a universal component of political life and from there was easily transferred to economic activity or religion. In casting the net beyond the confines of Athens (although the city is also represented here) to – amongst others – Syracuse, the cities of Asia Minor, Pompeii and Rome, and to literary and philosophical discourse, in each instance that interplay between the wider body of the community and the hierarchically privileged can be shown to have governed and directed the thoughts and actions of the participants.

A preeminent classical scholar on the emergence of one of our most familiar social divisions.

This book focuses on the functioning of Roman leadership in the period of the Tetrarchs to Theodosius (284-395). Our volume starts from the idea that the imperial and ecclesiastical administrations became interdependent in this period and thus presents an integrated approach of imperial and religious leadership. As the spread of ideology plays a key role in creating societal consensus and thus in wielding power successfully, the volume analyses both types of leadership from an ideological angle. It examines the communicative strategies employed by Roman emperors and bishops through analyzing the ideological messages that were disseminated by a variety of media: coins, architectural monuments, literary and legal texts. The central question of this volume is how, in a period in which an important shift took place in the power balance between church and state, emperors and bishops made use of ideology to bind people to them and thus to interact with their 'crowds', whether they be the inhabitants of the city of Rome or Constantinople, the subjects of the Empire at large or the members of the various religious communities.

The inspiration for this volume comes from the work of its dedicatee, Brent D. Shaw, who is one of the most original and wide-ranging historians of the ancient world of the last half-century and continues to open up exciting new fields for exploration. Each of the distinguished contributors has produced a cutting-edge exploration of a topic in the history and culture of the Roman Empire dealing with a subject on which Professor Shaw has contributed valuable work. Three major themes extend across the volume as a whole. First, the ways in which the Roman world represented an intricate web of connections even while many people's lives remained fragmented and local. Second, the ways in which the peculiar Roman space promoted religious competition in a sophisticated marketplace for practices and beliefs, with Christianity being a major benefactor. Finally, the varying forms of violence which were endemic within and between communities.

The issue of leadership is crucial to Polybius’ desire to explain the rise of Rome over almost the entire known world and provide benefit and utility to readers who may have to assume positions of responsibility. This book focuses on descriptions of leadership behaviors in the Histories, aiming to identify regularly recurring patterns, motifs, and themes in the relevant passages, which could, precisely because of their persistence, heighten our sensitivity to the subtleties of Polybius’ treatment of the subject. Given that the interest in leadership permeates Polybius’ work and engages with his main thematic concerns, this study brings the reader face-to-face with questions of power and control, identity and nationality, the role of fortune, narrative strategies, thereby providing a basis for reading the Histories more generally. At the same time, a major concern throughout the book is with the ways Polybius’ representation of leadership seems to have been influenced by literary depictions of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Polybius’ interplay with his literary context and tradition deepens our understanding of what he is trying to accomplish in the narrative and how he is interacting with the expectations of his audiences.