Examines how public, political discourse shaped the distribution of power between Senate and People.

Robert Morstein-Marx is Professor of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Hegemony to Empire: The Development of the Roman Imperium in the Greek East, 149-62 B.C. (1995).

List of figures and maps; Acknowledgements; Note on translations; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. Setting the stage; 3. Civic knowledge; 4. The voice of the people; 5. Debate; 6. Contional ideology: the invisible 'optimate'; 7. Contional ideology: the political drama; 8. Conclusion; References; Index.