Richard Nixon stimulated the greatest antiwar activity in 1970 with the Cambodian invasion. Massive student protests in the spring grew spontaneously and by fall many campus activists channeled their energy into electoral campaigns. Liberal groups joined them. Government leaders, especially in the US Senate, tried unsuccessfully to restrict the war’s continuation. Leftists and radicals made a splash through the spring New Mobilization demonstrations and with the reemergence of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, but by year’s end the coalition split along ideological lines. By late 1970, mass demonstrations planned by umbrella coalitions were giving way to events conducted by single sponsors. This also reduced the movement’s radical presence. From this point antiwar activism appeared more locally and regionally, even as it retained national impact. Local actions, such as during the national student strike, often appeared and operated without waiting for national coordinating bodies to catch up. Most antiwar events occurred on college campuses and in local communities, not in Washington, DC, and they continued even when the lack of national demonstrations made it appear inactive.

A liberal reformist core dominated antiwar activities through the end of 1966. That year the movement maintained a predominantly decentralized orientation, both lacking and resisting true national coordination. Primarily through grassroots activity, the movement incorporated new constituencies and provided alternative sources of information that challenged the government’s credibility. Antiwar activists pursued change largely through the established political system, but also in coalition building for mass demonstrations and draft resistance. Dissent within the government became more visible, which gave wartime dissent a degree of respectability. Protesting napalm production signified an early economic challenge, and the case of the Fort Hood Three exemplified cooperation between active-duty military and civilian antiwar activists. Despite continued growth and some impressive achievements, the movement also faced more significant government and right-wing opposition, and the war’s continued escalation left many activists feeling frustrated and alienated.

After the Hannibalic war, the leading military role of consulars diminished, though it did not disappear. A significant number of consuls kept their imperium as proconsuls, but only a very small minority held the consulship again. A number of them held intermediate positions as military tribunes or military legates under the command of magistrates with imperium. Consulars played a leading role in international diplomacy and the organisation of newly conquered territories as members of senatorial embassies, especially in the Greek world. Ex-consuls were also common as heads of commissions in charge of implementing the agrarian policy promoted by the Senate during the second century BCE, both for the foundation of Roman and Latin colonies and for the individual distribution of land. The censorship became the coveted culmination of a political career for many consulars. The Senate was the arena in which consulars assumed a leading role in political debate. In contrast, their intervention in popular assemblies was rare. As in previous periods, many consulars were members of priestly colleges. While most of them entered the colleges (long) before they became consuls, others did so at an advanced age after their consulship.

During the crisis that the Hannibalic war provoked, the ‘old guard’ of consulars who had been consuls for the first time in the 230s assumed the leadership role in the military field and in politics. A number of ex-consuls once again held offices with imperium and were placed at the head of the army as consuls, praetors, or promagistrates. The state of emergency in Rome also led to the appointment of dictators, all of them ex-consuls. The military contribution of consulars also took place in intermediate positions, as legates under consuls or consulars, but also under imperatores who had not attained that rank, always with tasks of high responsibility. In 209, we find the last two censors who had not been consuls: from that year onwards, all censors were former consuls, and censorship became the potential culmination of a consular’s political career. From 209, the censors always designated as princeps senatus the man they considered to be the princeps civitatis. As before, the princeps senatus had to be a patrician consular and censorian, but the position was left open to competition. It was very unusual that consulars were co-opted for a priestly college. Two consulars were named triumviri mensarii to face up the economic crisis.

In line with the more civilian and less military role of consuls in the 1st century BCE, a number of consulars renounced any potential military glory through a provincial command and preferred to remain in Rome during and after their consulships. In contrast to what had happened throughout the 2nd century, consulars rarely filled their cursus honorum with regular offices. One of the usual tasks of consulars was to intervene in court, not only for their potential skills as orators but above all for the authority that their consular status conferred on them. Consulars acted as advocates, never as prosecutors. Some consulars, such as Cicero and Hortensius, were true specialists before the courts. Speaking at a popular assembly (contio) was always another way of gaining public visibility. For the period 81–50, we have evidence of a greater number of consulars taking part in assemblies than in earlier periods. However, since consulars as privati were not entitled to convene an assembly, their speeches to the people were always unusual. The Senate remained the great dialectical battleground for consulars. Priority to speak in the Senate always belonged to consulars.

This is the first of two chapters that relate the myriad ways in which state government has impeded true democracy in the United States. In this chapter, the focus is on those counter-majoritarian distortions that are hardwired into the Constitution. These structural barriers to majority rule include equal representation of small states and large states in the US Senate; the Electoral College; the constitutional provision under which a majority of state delegations to the US House of Representatives choose the president when there is no Electoral College majority; and the processes for appointing federal judges and amending the Constitution.

Superficially, the Vietnam War might seem a high point of congressional resistance to the Cold War consensus. After all, two consecutive presidents, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, faced ferocious criticism as they expanded the US military commitment in Southeast Asia. Yet for most of the Johnson and Nixon years, Congress was mostly reacting to executive decisions, and struggled to stop either the escalation of the war under Johnson or its expansion under Nixon. Ironically, perhaps the best chance for Congress to influence Vietnam policy came before a significant commitment of US combat forces, during the Kennedy administration. Yet for a combination of ideological and tactical reasons, members of both the House and the Senate who might have been inclined to challenge the administration’s approach to Vietnam declined to do so in a meaningful way.

Conclusions are summarized and final reflections added. Neither Hannibal nor Scipio received cult in the strong sense. The Roman Flamininus did – but only from Greek communities. Herodotus on a Hamilcar’s death might show cult was thinkable for defeated Carthaginian commanders – but the story is dubious. Neither Hannibal nor Scipio founded eponymous cities or aimed at monarchical positions. Both, as overseas commanders, took policy initiatives on the spot, including appointment of key subordinates; but Publius and Lucius Scipio in the east after 190 acted on general understanding of senatorial wishes. Neither was conspicuously successful as politician. Hannibal did at least bravely and single-handedly carry unpopular reforms to curb oligarchic corruption, but it is uncertain how long they lasted after his hasty exit from Carthage. Ancient poets and modern biographers have always found Hannibal, the glamorous failure and precursor of Cleopatra, a more popular and congenial subject than the more conventional Scipio.

The electoral college’s provisions for contingent elections of the president and vice president blatantly violate political equality, directly disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Americans, have the potential to grossly misrepresent the wishes of the public, make the president dependent upon Congress, give a very few individuals extraordinary power to select the president, have the potential to select a president and vice president from different parties, and fail to deal with a tie for third in the electoral college. In addition, any resolution of a congressional choice of the president is likely to be tainted with charges of unsavory transactions. It is no wonder that even the most stalwart defenders of the electoral college choose to ignore contingent elections in their justifications of the system of electing the president.

The quantitative analysis in Chapter 5 demonstrates a number of important differences in the factors most strongly influencing a senator’s decision to form a reputation as a disadvantaged-group advocate relative to a member of the House. Chief among these distinctions is the diminished impact of the size of a disadvantaged group within the state. Senators are not likely to choose to build a reputation as a group advocate for any but the groups considered to be the most highly deserving of government assistance. This chapter also introduces and tests three additional hypotheses reflecting the unique institutional characteristics of the Senate, finding that the larger the number of group advocates present within a given Congress, the more likely it is that another senator will also be willing to incorporate advocacy on behalf of that group into their own reputation.

I focus on why the competition for power among senatorial, imperial, and military elites that had stimulated the recovery of the city of Rome in the face of multiple civic and military crises no longer was effective in the later sixth and early seventh centuries. The end of Rome’s political senatorial aristocracy and its political body, the Senate, is the final “fall” of Rome. In its place, a papal-focused city dependent on Byzantine military might would emerge in the seventh century.

This focus on the senators and the clergy is important because, in my view, too much of the discussion of Rome in late antiquity has focused on either the catastrophic impact of barbarian invasions or the baleful influence of weak emperors and strident generals. Although I am not the first to recognize the vital role played by senatorial aristocrats nor to show the limited influence of the bishops in Rome, new information about the city in late antiquity, new scholarly work on its history, and a new appreciation of the role of the bishops of the city require a new perspective on the very old topic of the “Fall of Rome.”

The crossing of the Rubicon was not the decisive moment it is typically held to be. The Senate had already issued what was in effect a declaration of war, yet Caesar paused after his entry into Italy and initiated discussion of a settlement which even Cicero thought would take effect. Even after Caesar resumed his march it remained unclear until Pompey’s actual embarkation at Brundisium whether there really was a war on.Despite a long scholarly tradition accepting the tendentious claims of Pompey’s side to represent "the Republic," prosopographical analysis shows that the Senate and the Roman nobility who held such authority therein were both deeply divided, while our sources are unanimous that the ordinary citizens of Rome and Italy, including many equites and local officials, were favorable to Caesar, or at least not disposed to cooperate with the Senate's Final Decree. Cicero himself had not tried very hard to join Pompey in his dash to Brundisium, misled (he said) by his belief that a settlement would come about. Even after Pompey's departure from Italy he was far from resolved upon taking his side, not because of innate indecision but the deep ambiguities of the political situation.

Casualties affect elections in two ways. First, wartime variables affected position formation, where higher state casualties increased the likelihood that challengers openly opposed the war. Second, casualties influence Senate elections directly. Incumbents are held responsible for the conduct of the war, and their vote share is adversely affected by higher casualty rates in their states. Although both incumbents and challengers face constraints, our findings suggest that incumbents face the greatest constraints while challenger behavior is endogenous to casualties. Candidates react strategically to the information provided to them by their state-level casualties, suggesting strategy is not reserved to the battlefield. Candidates behave strategically when formulating wartime positions, rightly perceiving that electorates respond to candidate position differences when voting. Analyses of elections during the Iraq and of Senator positions are taken during the Vietnam Wars. Even when national issues dominate headlines, advertisements, and campaigning, all politics remain local – especially wartime politics.