The volume offers a study of Antiquity in a dialectic, wide social perspective, stressing the role of popular classes as active producers of culture, while reflecting upon the scientific and ideological influence of contemporary social issues on academic investigations of the ancient world. The volume is divided into four sections: the first three sections (History and Literature, History of Classical Scholarship, Reception) are dedicated to the production of culture and ideology by the ancient subaltern classes, the Marxist approaches in the history of Classical studies, and the reception of...

This volume brings together scholars of Roman history, archaeology, history of political thought, Italian literature, and political philosophy to reflect upon the Roman Republic from its origins to the Principate (509–27 BC) by employing Gramsci’s concept of "hegemony". The use of hegemony as a category in historiographical interpretation is often limited to a cultural domination through consensus, especially in English-speaking scholarship, excluding any form of coercion. The volume aims to redress this disposition by appealing to a reading of Gramsci’s hegemony as a dialectical...