The Presentation and Manipulation of Popular Opinion in the Literature of the Roman Imperial Period

Abstract

The literature of the Roman imperial period contains multiple references to popular and non-elite speech-acts (vocalization); scholarship has traditionally seen fit to both conflate ‘popular’ with ‘non-elite’ and to treat such instances of vocalization as the preservation of actual events and verbatim speech, without consideration of authorial motivation(s) behind vocalization inclusion. Further, the development from republic, through principate, to empire has led to the suggestion that popular demonstration took an increasing role in relations between the people and their ruler(s). This thesis considers how the inclusion of non-elite vocalization (NEV) impacts on narratives – what benefit it confers, what difficulties it may cause the author – and how NEV is both presented and manipulated. By such considerations, the link between speech labelled ‘popular’ and the general population at large is broken. This study reveals that much of what purports to be NEV within the literary record is puppeteered by elites: either mass demonstrations which are open to interpretation as being orchestrated by dissatisfied individuals within the elite; or authorial comment voiced by a non-elite character. Further, references to the concept of ‘the people’ are (re)scoped by authors to be a select section of the general population; there is little evidence to see such terms used to include the very lowest echelons of social hierarchy. Finally, this study concludes that the literary record offers no basis for an interpretation of change in popular interaction between republic and empire. The methods of presentation and manipulation of NEV within texts remains markedly consistent across space and time; the only development appears to be in the confidence of authors in their deployment of NEV within their texts.