Federico Russo
Research
From 2005 to 2011 my main research topic was the study of various aspects of Roman international relationships during the Republican Age (4th - 2nd century BC).
My doctorate dissertation was an opportunity to deepen research on themes I had already broached in a series of articles published between 2002 and 2005. These works stressed the role of the Italian people in determining the internal political life of Rome at the end of the 4th century BC. The main point of my reconstruction was the political and propagandistic exploitation of two important ideological categories, “Pythagoreanism” and “Spartanity”, by both the Romans and the Italians. My research showed that both the Romans and the Italians adopted many concepts of Greek origin in building their mutual relationships; in addition, it demonstrates, in contrast to the traditional position of modern scholars, a high degree of Hellenization of the Italian peoples.
After obtaining the doctorate, I continued to examine other aspects of Roman-Italian relationships as well as more specifically Italian themes. With respect to the former, I focused on the controversial and ambiguous use of the concept of kinship in Roman diplomatic language. Many previous studies had focused on the application of this concept in a Greek context, but none of them had expressly dealt with this motif in an Italian context. By contrast, sources show that the concept of kinship was very common. Therefore, I devoted an important part of my research to the study of this problem, which resulted in the publication of several articles as well as a book on the adoption of Greek “ethnic” themes (such as kinship, race, homophylia, etc.) in Roman international relations throughout the 3rd century BC.
At the same time, I explored other topics and problems concerning the Samnites and other Italian people. In 2007, as a research assistant in a series of archaeological excavations on the southern Italian Adriatic coast, I was able to deepen the understanding of several aspects of the Italian as well as the Roman presence in that area.
The study of Roman diplomatic language allowed me to recognize the importance of the Greek anti-Persian ideology in the Roman imagination. In a forthcoming book I show the dependence of the Roman anti-Seleucid propaganda on the earlier Greek stigmatization of the Persians.
Furthermore, this study provided me with the main idea for my current project on the concept of monarchy, as the refusal of any form of kingship/tyranny represents one of the most recurring themes in Roman anti-Seleucid propaganda.
Parallel to my main research, I also published several articles concerning Cicero, Plutarch, Velleius Paterculus, Lycophron among others. For all these instances problems of both philological and historiographical nature were examined.
Current Research
Modern scholarship attributes to the concept of odium regni a primary role in Roman political discourse. This coincides in part with the ancient tradition, which linked Roman hatred for any form of monocratic power to the tyrannical rule of Tarquinius Superbus. However, the analysis of the literary sources indicates a more complex attitude towards the idea of monarchy which does not correspond to the modern view of this aspect of Roman political culture: on the one hand, the Romans stigmatized monocratic governments in all their aspects, but on the other hand, they often referred positively to their ancient kings and to other more recent examples of monarchs.
My current project (funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung) attempts to fill the gap between ancient evidence and modern perception. The main aim of the research project is to clarify the ambivalent position of the Romans with respect to the idea of regnum and to provide a new interpretation of the multiple meanings of the concept of monocratic power in Roman political discourse and historiographical tradition.
July 2002: Diploma in Ancient History and Classics, Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy. Mark: 70/70 Summa cum Laude.
April 2002: Degree (“Laurea”) in Ancient History, University of Pisa, Italy. Mark: 110/110 Summa cum Laude.
December 2005: PhD in Ancient History and Archaeology, Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy. Title of the Dissertation: “Pitagorismo e Spartanità: elementi politico –culturali tra Roma, Taranto e il mondo italico”. Mark: 70/70 Summa cum Laude. Supervisors: Prof. Salvatore Settis, Prof. Cesare Letta, Prof. Dominique Briquel.