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Mass Oratory and Political Power 23
Mass Oratory and Political Power 23
Mass Oratory and Political Power 23
76 This kind of distinction, echoing Isaiah Berlin, seems to underly most important treatments: see
especially the magisterial essay by Brunt 1988: 281–350, esp. 327–34 (for popular hostility to regnum,
however, see also his pp. 51–52); also Ferrary 1982: 761–67; Perelli 1990: 69–85; Vanderbroeck 1987:
105–106.
77 Cic. Leg. agr. 2.17: Hic quaero quam ob causam initium rerum ac legum suarum hinc duxerit ut populus
Romanus suffragio privaretur; see on this theme 2.16–22, 26–31. The regia potestas of the “tyrants”
comes next (31–35); note orbis terrarum gentiumque omnium datur cognitio sine consilio, poena sine
provocatione, animadversio sine auxilio (33). I part company from Thompson 1978: 31 et passim chiefly
in her claim that Cicero is promoting a specifically senatorial/“optimate” idea of libertas in the Leg.
agr. 2.
78 Plut. Pomp. 30.4; above, p. 183. Interesting also is Cn. Lentulus Marcellinus’ equation of contional
shouting with freedom: Val. Max. 6.2.6 = ORF 128.5, p. 418 (chap. 4, n. 48). The occasion is
apparently that mentioned at Cass. Dio 39.28.5 (Pina Polo 1989: 302–3, no. 317).