{"product_id":"leading-rome-from-a-distance-300-bce-37-ce","title":"Leading Rome from a Distance, 300 BCE–37 CE","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRoman political leaders used distance from Rome as a key political tool to assert pre-eminence. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough the case studies of Caesar’s hegemony, Augustus’s autocracy, and Tiberius’s reign, this book examines how these figures’ experiences and manipulations of absence established a multipolar focus of political life centred less on the city of Rome, and more on the idea of a single leader.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Roman expansion over Italy and the Mediterranean put the political system under considerable stress, and eventually resulted in a dispersal of leadership and a decentralization of power. Absent generals rivalled their peers in Rome for influence and threatened to surpass them from the provinces. Roman leaders, from Sulla to Tiberius, used absence as a mechanism to act autonomously, but it came at the cost of losing influence and control at the centre. In order to hold influence while being split off from the decision-making powers of the geographical nucleus that was Rome, communication channels to mitigate necessary absences were developed during this period, such as travel, intermediate meetings, letters (propaganda writings) and a complex network of mediators, ultimately forming the circle from which the imperial court emerged. Absent leadership, as it developed throughout the Late Republic, a hitherto neglected issue, eventually became a valuable asset in the institutionalising process of the autocracy of Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56408751964504,"sku":"9781350325449","price":36.5,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781350325449_2a654f75-ba0c-4605-8c14-0bc942a984ca.jpg?v=1780428624","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/leading-rome-from-a-distance-300-bce-37-ce","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}