Leading Rome from a Distance 300 BCE-37 CE

<b>Roman political leaders used distance from Rome as a key political tool to assert pre-eminence.</b><br/><br/>Through 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.<br/> <br/> 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.