Miriam Griffin

Bio: Miriam Griffin is an academic researcher from University of Oxford. The author has contributed to research in topics: Cicero & Griffin. The author has an hindex of 17, co-authored 29 publications receiving 922 citations.

Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics

Abstract: For this Clarendon Paperback, Dr Griffin has written a new Postscript to bring the original book fully up to date. She discusses further important and controversial questions of fact or interpretation in the light of the scholarship of the intervening years and provides additional argument where necessary. The connection between Seneca's prose works and his career as a first-century Roman statesman is problematic. Although he writes in the first person, he tells us little of his external life or of the people and events that formed its setting. Miriam Griffin addresses the problem by first reconstructing Seneca's career using only outside sources and his de Clementia and Apocolocyntosis, whose political purposes are undisputed. In the second part of the book she studies Seneca's treatment of subjects of political significance, including his views on slavery, provincial policy, wealth, and suicide. On the whole, the word of the philosopher is found to illuminate the work of the statesman, but notable exceptions emerge, and the links that are revealed vary from theme to theme and rarely accord with traditional autobiographical interpretations of Seneca's works.

Nero: The End of a Dynasty

Abstract: Nero's personality and crimes have always intrigued historians and writers of fiction. However, his reign also illuminates the nature of the Julio-Claudian Principate. Nero's suicide brought to an end the dynasty Augustus had founded, and placed in jeopardy the political system he had devised. Miriam T. Griffin's authoratitive survey of Nero's reign incorporates both a chronological account, as well as an analysis of the reasons for Nero's collapse under the pressure of his role as emperor.

The Lyons Tablet and Tacitean Hindsight

Abstract: There is already a copious literature comparing Claudius' oration on the admission of the primores Galliae into the Roman Senate with Tacitus’ account of the speech and of the opposition's case in Annals 11. 23–4. Yet the Emperor's own purpose in speaking as he did still needs some illumination. Scholarly concentration on technical points about the citizenship, on Claudius’ antiquarianism and on his debt to Livy has been fruitful, but it has often distracted attention from Claudius’ immediate aim. Meanwhile, Tacitus’ interpretation has been insidious in colouring our view of what course of action the imperial orator was trying to defend before the Senate.

Philosophia togata, II : Plato and Aristotle at Rome

Abstract: The role of philosophy as a valued and effective part of the culture of civilized Romans has aroused an increasing amount of scholarly interest in recent years. In this volume, which gathers together nine papers delivered at a series of seminars on philosophy and Roman society in the University of Oxford, scholars of classical literature, Roman history, and ancient philosophy investigate the place of Platonism and Aristotelianism in Roman intellectual, cultural, and political life from the second century BC to the third century AD. In addition to chapters on such important figures as Cicero, Varro, Plutarch, Favorinus, Celsus, and Porphyry, the book contains essays on the tradition of Aristotle's library at Rome, the theory of the mixed constitution, and the anonomous commentary on Plato's Theaetetus . It thus forms a complement to Philosophia Togata I which addressed the importance of doctrines of the Hellenistic schools to Roman society during the first century BC. This book is intended for students and scholars of classical studies, Roman history, and ancient philosophy.

The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700

Abstract: Introduction J. H. BURNS PART I. RENAISSANCE AND COUNTER-RENAISSANCE: 1. Humanism and political theory ANTHONY GRAFTON 2. Italian political thought, 1450-1530 NICOLAI RUBINSTEIN 3. Law DONALD R. KELLEY 4. Transalpine humanism BRENDAN BRADSHAW 5. Scholasticism: survival and revival J. H. BURNS PART II. RELIGION, CIVIL GOVERNMENT, AND THE DEBATE ON CONSTITUTIONS: 6. Christian obedience and authority, 1520-50 FRANCIS OAKLEY 7. Calvinism and resistance theory, 1550-80 ROBERT KINGDON 8. Catholic resistance theory, ultramontanism, and the royalist response, 1580-1620 J. H. M. SALMON 9. Constitutionalism HOWELL A. LLOYD 10. Sovereignity and the mixed constitution: Bodin and his critics JULIAN H. FRANKLIN 11. Utopianism J. C. DAVIES PART III. ABSOLUTISM AND REVOLUTION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: 12. Absolutism and royalism J. P. SOMMERVILLE 13. England: ancient constitution and common law Corinne C. Weston 14. Leveller democracy and the puritan revolution DAVID WOOTTON 15. English republicanism BLAIR WORDEN PART IV. THE END OF ARISTOTELIANISM: 16. Tacitism, scepticism, and reason of state Peter Burke 17. Grotius and Selden RICHARD TUCK 18. Hobbes and Spinoza NOEL MALCOLM PART V. NATURAL LAW AND UTILITY: 19. Pufendorf ALFRED DUFOUR 20. The reception of Hobbes MARK GOLDIE 21. Locke JAMES TULLY.

Becoming Roman, staying Greek: Culture, identity and the civilizing process in the Roman East

Abstract: The nature, and indeed the reality, of Romanization in the east is controversial. One of the most influential accounts of Romanization in the western provinces notes that ‘by contrast, where Greek was already the language of culture, of government and of inter-regional trade, the Romans carried further the process of Hellenization … in general what was specifically Latin in the common civilization of the empire made little impact in the east’, the exceptions being the influence of Roman law and the popularity of gladiatorial games. That verdict endorsed the view that ‘the emperors made no attempt to romanise the Greek speaking provinces’, which saw the foundation of cities as a continuance of Hellenistic royal practice, and which regarded the establishment of the rare eastern colonies as motivated by practical considerations rather than any attempt at encouraging cultural assimilation. More recently, a fuller survey of exceptions to this general rule nevertheless concluded that ‘On the one hand, the culture and identity of the Greek east remained fundamentally rooted in the Classical past. On the other hand, the visible presence of Rome, outside those zones where the legions were stationed, was extremely slight.’

Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture

Abstract: The memory of the Roman Republic exercised a powerful influence on several generations of Romans who lived under its political and cultural successor, the Principate or Empire. Empire and Memory explores how (and why) that memory manifested itself over the course of the early Principate. Making use of the close relationship between memoria and historia in Roman thought and drawing on modern studies of historical memory, this book offers case-studies of major imperial authors from the reign of Tiberius to that of Trajan (AD 14–117). The memory evident in literature is linked to that imprinted on Rome's urban landscape, with special attention paid to the Forum of Augustus and the Forum of Trajan, both which are particularly suggestive reminders of the transition from a time when the memory of the Republic was highly valued and celebrated to one when its grip had begun to loosen.