The editors: Kathryn Welch, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Sydney, has co-edited two previous works with Anton Powell for the Classical Press of Wales, Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter (1998) and Sextus Pompeius (2002), and has published numerous articles on late Republican and Triumviral history. T.W. Hillard, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Macquarie University, has published widely on late Republican history, Roman constructions of sexuality and gender, and has co-edited Ancient History in a Modern University (1998).

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?