Civil War Caused the Fall of the Republic -- Not Vice Versa
271 19th Ave S
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
About the Workshop
Join the Department of History and the Center for Premodern Studies for a discussion with Dr. Robert Morstein-Marx (Professor of Classics, UC - Santa Barbara) of his newly-published article exploring the famous judgment of Erich Gruen that ["Civil war caused the fall of the Republic -- not vice versa"].
Reviewing the article (PDF) in advance of the workshop is recommended but not required.
Lunch will be provided at the workshop
Dr. Morstein-Marx will also present the 2026 Frederick and Catherine Lauritsen Lecture in Ancient History at 4 pm on April 9th. The lecture is entitled, "The Rooster at the Rubicon: Sorting Out Causes of the Fall of the Roman Republic," and will continue our discussion of the Roman Republic.
About the Presenter: Dr. Robert Morstein-Marx, Professor of Classics at UC - Santa Barbara
After his B.A. from the University of Colorado (Classics, History and Philosophy) and an Honors B.A. from the University of Oxford (Literae Humaniores), he earned his PhD in 1987 at UC Berkeley from the Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology. He is the author of two books, the first, Hegemony to Empire: The Development of the Roman Imperium in the East from 148 to 62 BC, focusing on questions of Roman imperialism, the second, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, analyzing the effects of public speech and public meetings upon the distribution of political power in Rome. He has also co-edited (with Nathan Rosenstein) the “Blackwell Companion to the Roman Republic.” His latest book (2021) is a study of Julius Caesar and the Roman People, which he describes as “not another biography of Caesar” but an attempt to illuminate the popular character of the Late Roman Republic and shed new light on its crisis.
Prof. Morstein-Marx’s main research interests lie in Roman history from the middle Republic to the early Empire, and current work focuses on political culture in the Late Roman Republic, especially political values and concepts and their realization in institutions during a time of crisis. Other major interests include Cicero, Roman rhetoric, Roman imperialism, and classical historiography, both Greek and Latin.