Plebeian Tribunes and Cosmopolitan Intellectuals: Gramsci's Approach to the Late Roman Republic

This chapter considers Gramsci's approach to the Late Roman Republic (133-31 BCE), starting from the role he attributes to the plebeian tribunes and to the protagonists of the Civil Wars. For him, the Roman Republic was a sort of federative State in which several social groups (e.g. the plebeians) had their own institutions, which sometimes exerted state functions for the whole body of citizens. Further on, Gramsci identifies in the Late Republic a fundamental shift in the history of Italy. According to him, the Middle Republic (300-133 BCE) might have held the seeds of a national identity, but the Roman Revolution, from the Gracchi to Augustus, totally changed the composition of Roman elite. The turning point can be seen in Caesar's policy, which created a cosmopolitan class of intellectuals. In doing so, the Roman Empire created a deep gap between intellectuals and 'regular' people, a division which impacted Italian history up until XIX century.