Despite increasing dilapidation, many of Rome’s ancient buildings survived in a form to impress visitors. During the Middle Ages a number of them – Hildebert of Lavardin, Master Gregorius, Benjamin of Tudela – left a brief record of the favourable impression the ruins made upon them. More widespread, however, were the legendary accounts, as found most extensively in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, of the history and function of a number of the ruins of the pagan past. Such fables can be seen as forerunners of later ruin-mindedness in their attempt to explain the original role in the urban fabric of what was now ruinous and puzzling.

I write this book to convince you of the importance of studying ancient Greek history. I argue that Greek antiquity was exceptional and consequential. It was contingent – it did not have to be the way it was. And it was decisive, helping to shape what followed.

The contio was vital to the political conversation between the senate and people, creating a shared political space. Its success was not so much rooted in the institutional framework but in the contiones’ ability to connect with the audience’s lived experience. In particular, the nobility’s leadership was found acceptable because it was portrayed as beneficial to all; aristocrats were able to substantiate their claims for social eminence with real assets. The capacity to create consensus by means of a set decision-making process faded over time. The second half of the article traces the growing involvement of the contio with domestic issues since the time of the Gracchi, if not earlier. While promises of spoils and profit remained a recurring theme in public speech, they appeared less and less believable. The political crisis of the late Republic was thus also a crisis in the communication between mass and elite. The consensus evaporated because its inherent benefits had fallen flat: the contio became an outlet of discontent and communications counterintuitive to the preservation of the libera res publica.

The notion of the “Greek miracle” is problematic for an obvious reason: it implies that some transcendent set of values was present in a parochial section of humanity. While anti-racist arguments serve to historicize this miracle and show how it is explained without reference to the identity of the Greeks, we should be on our guard concerning the potential racist ways in which discussion of the “Greek miracle” may be appropriated. The chapter surveys such racist appropriations and comments that we need, nevertheless, to come up with concrete accounts of the Greek miracle, precisely so as to refute such racism and also, and less obviously, we should recognize the way in which certain processes, begun with the Greeks, have a progressive political valence, the theme of the remainder of the book.

Through the complex processes of generating mutual expectations and demands, senatorial consensus resulted in a wider consensus held by all. Only on four occasions did the popular assemblies ever vote in a way that went against the senate’s expectations, in 209, 200, 167, and 149 BCE. Discussion of each of these instances demonstrates that the people were not accustomed to, or interested in, following their own preferences: when rogationes were brought before the popular assemblies, they were certain to be agreed. What united the very few cases of rejection was that the people’s response was highly personalized, that is, the initial rogatio pertained to a specific individual; the response aimed at inconveniencing that person; and the senatorial elite was itself divided on the person. Egon Flaig performs a threefold analysis: he measures the strength of preferences in the peoples’ assemblies; he explores the limitations to what is labelled the institutional automatism behind the acceptance of motions; and he teases out the tactical and ritualized manoeuvres of withdrawing precarious proposals. The results are merged into a checklist that gauges the semantic and situational variety of action before the contio.

The eighth chapter pursues the urge among artists to imaginatively reconstruct the original structures that became ruins, and not just of individual buildings but of the whole ancient city. Reconstructions are to be seen in two-dimensional ‘flat’ art (paintings, drawings, watercolours, engravings, panoramas) and in three-dimensional architectural models. These occasionally inspired the erection of modern buildings which realised the reconstructed image. Modern reconstructions employ digital and computer-generated imagery. In the twentieth century three-dimensional models of ancient Rome were constructed, and imaginative visions of Rome were devised for cinema and television.

Political monuments are characterized by visual materiality that allows for and indeed invites engagement; the claim for permanence; and the force of visual presence. Caesar’s monuments, especially on the Capitol, signalled a decidedly new quality of presence irreconcilable with the fine balance of individual achievement and public recognition. The rules behind this balance were flexible, but collective consensus always retained the upper hand. The balance tipped only with Pompey’s enormous theatre complex on the Campus Martius. The complex created a new type of public space, and it set the precedent for Caesar, who took on the challenge of competition with his own Forum project. Such an omnipresent dynamic of increase provoked heavy polemics and fierce conflict, but this violence was not only tolerated but reckoned with as a possibility from the very start. It appeared more appropriate to accept repeated violation of tradition while still affirming it than to develop a fundamentally different, new ‘system’ of norms and behaviours. The mode of permanent transgression was indicative not only of a political culture in crisis but also of a culture of crisis.

The first chapter presents evidence in support of the claim that an interest in ruins was never widespread. It had to begin somewhere and at some time. There had also to be certain factors, which are set out in the chapter, that facilitated the interest. The main evidence for a lack of interest in ruins is seen in the motives for tourism in ancient Greece and Rome – indeed, tourism is one of the leading themes of the whole work. The indifference of the Greeks and Romans to ruins is also found in other cultures, notably China’s. What seems to be needed for the ruins of any culture to arouse interest and to make a favourable impression is a gap in the continuity of that culture, such as occurred in Roman culture from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages in Europe. Someone aiming to bridge that gap – a tourist, say – who surveys past Roman culture with a sympathetic eye and an understanding of its achievements is in a position to find the ruins, the material remains of Roman culture, as interesting as any of its other monuments.

The Roman senatorial elite laid claim to all roles of prominence in society. The very notion of nobilitas made prominence an all-inclusive virtue, in office-holding as much as in other public arenas. Indeed, scrutinizing an inherent tension between annual roles as embodied by the honores and more durable, sometimes life long, roles of prominence, Hans Beck argues that the aristocracy’s integrated claim to leadership wielded significant stabilizing impact upon Roman society. L. Quinctius Flamininus was expelled from the senate in 184 BCE but maintained his other social rules, his public standing, and his overall notability. In the century and a half that followed, Beck detects a gradual erosion of inclusive ideals of prominence. The crisis of the Republic is thus understood as a disintegration of social roles. In the era of the great extraordinary commands, the performance of prestige duties of the collective became less and less important. Augustus’ ostentatious unification of these under his watchful guard as princeps propelled a change in role behaviour that could easily be portrayed as a restitution of the Republican outlook.

The chapter pursues the consequences of the claim that the Greek canon was made based on the performative qualities of its authors, emphasizing its internal friction. As such, it did not embody any timeless values. Its function could be replicated by other traditions influenced by it: first Roman, then European languages and then globally. There is no function today that is uniquely performed by the Greek literary legacy and, in this sense, there is no need to preserve the particular tradition of classical studies. Greek antiquity is worthy of study simply because of its pivotal role, but it essentially expired. And yet, the attitude of admiration toward this type of liberating past experience is a useful one to maintain, as part of an overall hopeful attitude toward the arc of the moral universe.

Martin Jehne looks at the Roman comitia through the lens of their rich symbolism. Set in a demarcated space and sanctioned by the auspices of the gods, the popular assemblies were, in general, integrative: they symbolized the belonging of the citizens to the community as a whole. But the assemblies (comitia centuriata, comitia tributa, and comitia curiata) were far from uniform. Each one, argues Jehne, wielded a different type of integrative force upon its participants. The centuriate assembly emphasized hierarchy and vertical integration; the tribal assemblies had an essentially egalitarian structure. In light of a rapidly expanding body of citizens, the integrating capacities of the popular assemblies ought to have shrunk. Creating a climate of consensus and communality, those capacities were preserved in the assemblies’ roles as referential quantities that embodied ideas of hierarchy and equality vital to the libera res publica.