Eleven new essays, from an international cast, trace the development of political culture in the Roman Republic. Themes include the flourishing of civic society, as with the introduction of the Roman Games, and the emergence of a theory of politeness. How was a Roman aristocrat formed? How did the term 'Optimates' develop from the middle Republic onwards? And how, especially, did the rhetoric of Cicero reflect and adapt to the pressures of civil war in the Republic's climactic and dying years?