Marcus Livius Drusus / Social War

[MortyBingle]

Hey guys. First off sorry if this is in the wrong area, i am a regular reader but i haven't really need to make posts before.

So here goes. I'm entering my final year at school (in Australia) and doing 5units of history.. basically that means that out of my roughly 35 lessons a week 15 of them are dedicated to history. As part of this i need to complete an incredibly major work on, basically anything of significance in history. I have a personal interest in Ancient Rome and of that the time period where the republic started to collapse.

Consequently i chose something from that era to focus on for my major work. Marcus Livius Drusus and the Social War. I will be focusing on Italian/Roman relations prior to the war and the impact of Drusus. (Just a quick refresh of your memory, Drusus tried to legislate for enfranchisement, for italians to gain the citizenship, to avoid a civil war. Yet he was assassinated and civil war broke out)

On to the point on it now. I am having a bit of trouble finding sources i can use to gather my information. It may be that my local libraries neglect Marcus Livius Drusus or that there actually arent very many sources around. However i couldn't tell so i thought of a brilliant idea of asking you wise people for a bit of help. If any of you know of any books, or websites on this area it would be much appreciated by me if you could just let me know the name.

Thanks - Marty

[diamonds]

Hi Marty,
I am just about to start writing a dissertation on a similar topic so I was very interested in your post. I don't know whether or not you have access to JSTOR but there are a few interesting articles on the subject which you should have a look at.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436549 for example may be appropriate.
You probably already know this but for ancient sources a great place to look is the perseus website (which you can find by typing perseus into google, I'm unsure of the actual address but it's easy to find.) You can search through articles for particular words, names terms so it's a good place to get started for primary information.
Let me know if you want to exchange further information because it might help both of us.
Amy

[D B Campbell]

I am having a bit of trouble finding sources i can use to gather my information. It may be that my local libraries neglect Marcus Livius Drusus or that there actually arent very many sources around.

You may want to have a look at the original sources, Marty.

These are: Appian, Velleius Paterculus, Florus, and Livy's Periochae. (Have I missed any?!)

[popularis]

I am having a bit of trouble finding sources i can use to gather my information. It may be that my local libraries neglect Marcus Livius Drusus or that there actually arent very many sources around.

You may want to have a look at the original sources, Marty.

These are: Appian, Velleius Paterculus, Florus, and Livy's Periochae. (Have I missed any?!)

Plutarch? The life of the younger Cato (2.1-4) has a bit on Poppaedius Silo's relationship with Drusus. It's definitely worth looking at the numismatic evidence, especially the discussion on the "oath swearing" coins produced by the Italians. I don't know if you'll find a good introduction to them online though - can anyone help with this? If you have access, there's a good article by Mark Pobjoy on the Italian coinage in 'The emergence of state identities in Italy' (Ed. Herring, E. and Lomas, K., 2000) - it's number 8 in the Accordia Specialist Studies on Italy.

I've got a bibliography for the social war lying around, but it might not help you if you can't get access to a university libary - email me if you'd like a copy. If you can get access to JSTOR, try Peter Brunt's 1965 article: Brunt, P. (1965), 'Italian aims at the time of the Social War', Journal of Roman Studies, 55, 90-109.

blue skies

Tom