Descrizione del progetto
Istituzioni locali ed élite politiche nelle città romane
Finanziato dal Consiglio europeo della ricerca, il progetto PECUNIA indagherà sulle risorse materiali e finanziarie fornite a vari gruppi sociali e individui in virtù della loro partecipazione alla vita politica delle proprie città durante l’Impero romano, nel periodo compreso tra il 70 a.C. e il 284 d.C. Il lavoro svolto nell’ambito di PECUNIA sposterà l’attenzione dai doni delle élite alle loro comunità, un aspetto già studiato in modo approfondito, ai benefici associati alla relativa posizione pubblica. La metodologia adottata dal progetto prevede un’indagine su tutto l’impero, l’estrazione di dati trascurati da un’ampia gamma di fonti scritte e la loro analisi mediante l’impiego di concetti derivati dalle scienze politiche e dalla sociologia delle élite. Lo studio di PECUNIA esplora come le posizioni nelle istituzioni locali fossero strutturalmente legate alle opportunità private, nonché le modalità con cui questo fenomeno fosse regolato e percepito presso il centro romano e nelle città.
Obiettivo
Examining the hundreds of cities which formed the basis of the Roman Empire (70 BC-AD 284), PECUNIA interrogates the material and pecuniary interests made available to local elites by their political activity. It investigates how positions in local institutions were structurally associated with private opportunities and how this phenomenon was conceived and regulated at both levels of the imperial system, i.e. the Roman centre and the cities. In the civic milieu, the flow of gifts and mandatory contributions of the well-off to their communities has been extensively explored by scholarship, while the fields of re-sources made available to them by the government of the cities have remained unaddressed. This mainly results from the focus on contributions of members of the political elites which is found in the inscriptions, engraved under the direction of the governing bodies of the cities, in praise of their actions. Based on the observation that sources also account for legal and illegal gains, PECUNIA instead aims at producing a comprehensive analysis of private interest in public affairs, by (1) using an empire-wide inquiry, whereas in institutional and social studies the civic world has so far only been approached regionally, (2) harnessing heterogeneous data from classical sources and also from less sought corpora, (3) using investigative concepts and data modelling stemming from political science and sociological studies of the elites, to elaborate new interpretative paths about the production of stability in local governance in the Roman Empire. By gaining substantial and systematic evidence and devising new questions capable of navigating it, PECUNIA thus illuminates the expectations regarding participation in public life by the various sub-groups in the elites and it frames a new paradigm of local power, considering all stakeholders and their attitudes to the realities of private interests in local functions, from the local people to the Roman administration.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsIstituzione ospitante
75006 Paris
Francia