Political Conservatism Of The Metelli In The Late Republic

After the struggle of the Orders,the political environment in Rome changed dramatically compared to that of in the early days of the Roman city,and the plebs gained legitimacy to participate in politics.In addition,some of cities which initially had aligned with Rome in the process of conquering the whole Italy were granted full Roman citizenship and thus received the right to participate in decision-making and elections.However,the rather conservative Senate and some patricians of the ruling elite still controlled the core political powers,such as the election of high magistrates and legislation,so Rome entered into another phase of power-struggle within the ruling class.This process shifted with the beginning of the Punic Wars,and with the military achievements some of the upper-class plebeian families mentioned above and foreigners who had been granted Roman citizenship were able to enter the central decision-making circle of Rome,becoming the plebeian part of the nobilitas.Moreover,with the expansion of Rome and the decline of the patricians,they themselves gradually became the main political force and counterbalanced the patrician and the part of the Senate controlled by them.The Metelli were one of them.Their full name was Caecilii Metelli.The clan of Caecilii probably originally derived from a city-state called Praeneste,and Metellus was the name(cognomen)of the family,whose first recorded member was Lucius Metellus Denter,a consul in 284 BC.Although he himself died early in the war and did not establish a career for the whole family to follow,his homonymous son won military honors and glory in the First Punic War and hence benefited his descendants,who gradually formed their own political faction,Metelli facio,in the Late Republic.But unlike most of the plebeian nobles,whose core was the Metelli,had a strong conservative tendency,as did the Senate and many patricians.The conservative tendency was reflected in the policies and propositions of the Metelli and in the political alliances formed between the Metelli and other families.In addition,because of the close relation between religion and politics in the Roman Republic,the involvement and participation in the religious affairs was also a sign of the political conservatism of the Metelli.This thesis is to sort out the political experiment in which the Metelli was involved through searching the life-records of the members of the Metelli in the Late Republic with an in-depth analysis of original sources and modern scholars’ works against the background of Late Roman Republic,and then to understand its political conservatism,accordingly to analyze the interdependence between the republican system and the conservative aristocracy.The thesis consists of three parts.The introduction briefly discusses the background and reason for the topic and reviews secondary literature on the topic.Additionally,there are brief explanations of some conceptual terms involved in the dissertation.The first section is a brief narration of the development of the Metelli during the Roman Republic,which were divided into four periods: origin,development,peak and decline.The second section refines the events in Late Roman Republic that reflect the political conservatism of each member of the Metelli and sorts out their characteristics and connections in the light of the previous part.The third section analyzes the causes and effects of the political conservatism of the Metelli and explains the links between this political conservatism and political developments and changes throughout the late Roman Republic.The concluding part provides a summary of the main contents and relevant arguments mentioned in this thesis.