Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
00:00 // Welcome and Introduction
00:16 // Ovid's Claim: "Caesar Is the Republic"
03:52 // Exile: The Danger of Writing Under Augustus
04:17 // Tonight's Question: Charting Roman Autocracy
05:30 // Tacitus and the Timeline of Roman History
07:34 // Tacitism: Tacitus's Legacy in Early Modern Europe
08:14 // Republic vs Empire: A Terminological Clarification
09:01 // When Did the Roman Republic Really End?
10:04 // Rethinking the Republic's "Fall"
11:43 // Lecture Roadmap: Three Parts
12:56 // Princeps: Augustus's Ambiguous Title
15:09 // "Making the Emergency Permanent"
20:39 // Did Augustus Really Limit His Own Power?
22:21 // The 23 BCE Conspiracy and Constitutional Change
25:33 // Autocratic Legalism: Law as a Tool of Power
26:33 // From Tiberius to Nero: Eroding the Republic
28:46 // Tacitus's Verdict on Tiberius and Nero
32:36 // Seneca, Nero, and the Choice of Exit, Voice, or Loyalty
36:29 // Tacitus as Author: Writing Truth Under Tyranny
42:25 // Agricola: Survival and Courage Under Domitian
Watch the Q&A session here: youtu.be/BwuejjL2Lvw
Did the Roman republic die with Julius Caesar? With Cicero? With the gradual consolidation of power in the hands of Caesar’s adoptive son, who would in 27 BCE receive from the Senate the additional honorific appellation ‘Augustus’? By looking at how imperial rule preserved remnants and facades of republican language and institutions, this lecture will interrogate the ways in which a popular constitution can be undermined and gradually transmuted into a dictatorial one.
This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 18th of June 2026
Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.
She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa.
Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, and was published in a paperback edition with modifications in 2025.
Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford.
The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/death-rome
Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
Website: gresham.ac.uk
X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: instagram.com/greshamcollege
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TikTok: tiktok.com/@greshamcollege
Support Us: gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
00:00 // Welcome and Introduction
00:16 // Ovid's Claim: "Caesar Is the Republic"
03:52 // Exile: The Danger of Writing Under Augustus
04:17 // Tonight's Question: Charting Roman Autocracy
05:30 // Tacitus and the Timeline of Roman History
07:34 // Tacitism: Tacitus's Legacy in Early Modern Europe
08:14 // Republic vs Empire: A Terminological Clarification
09:01 // When Did the Roman Republic Really End?
10:04 // Rethinking the Republic's "Fall"
11:43 // Lecture Roadmap: Three Parts
12:56 // Princeps: Augustus's Ambiguous Title
15:09 // "Making the Emergency Permanent"
20:39 // Did Augustus Really Limit His Own Power?
22:21 // The 23 BCE Conspiracy and Constitutional Change
25:33 // Autocratic Legalism: Law as a Tool of Power
26:33 // From Tiberius to Nero: Eroding the Republic
28:46 // Tacitus's Verdict on Tiberius and Nero
32:36 // Seneca, Nero, and the Choice of Exit, Voice, or Loyalty
36:29 // Tacitus as Author: Writing Truth Under Tyranny
42:25 // Agricola: Survival and Courage Under Domitian
Watch the Q&A session here: youtu.be/BwuejjL2Lvw
Did the Roman republic die with Julius Caesar? With Cicero? With the gradual consolidation of power in the hands of Caesar’s adoptive son, who would in 27 BCE receive from the Senate the additional honorific appellation ‘Augustus’? By looking at how imperial rule preserved remnants and facades of republican language and institutions, this lecture will interrogate the ways in which a popular constitution can be undermined and gradually transmuted into a dictatorial one.
This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 18th of June 2026
Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.
She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa.
Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, and was published in a paperback edition with modifications in 2025.
Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford.
The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/death-rome
Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
Website: gresham.ac.uk
X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: instagram.com/greshamcollege
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social
TikTok: tiktok.com/@greshamcollege
Support Us: gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
