1Cic. Phil. 8.10: Nos libertatem nostris militibus, leges, iura, iudicia, imperium orbis terrae, dignitatem, pacem, otium pollicemur. Antoni igitur promissa cruenta, taetra, scelerata, dis hominibusque invisa, nec diuturna neque salutaria: nostra contra honesta, integra, gloriosa, plena laetitiae, plena pietatis. Cicero deploys similar arguments in the following chapters: Manuwald 2007, p. 947-967.

2Woolf 1993, p. 173-178; Rich 2003; Cornwell 2017; Fletcher 2020, p. 99-102; Torregaray Pagola, Ñaco del Hoyo 2024.

3Ñaco del Hoyo 2019, p. 56-60.

4Harris 1979; Harris 2016, p. 37-43, not only revisiting but also reinforcing some of his arguments. See more recently Goldberg 2021, p. 25-29, suggesting ‘Republican masculinity’ as a particularly political perception of Roman manhood, and more specifically see also p. 35-66.

5Harris 1979, p. 10; Cornell 1993, p. 160-168.

6Harris 1979, p. 9-10. Harris 2016, p. 21: “There were at most four years of peace between 327 and 241, and most of those were consequent on bitter internal strife at Rome itself.” In the period under study here, according to Harris, the interwar years were as follows: 240-239, 227-226, 167-154 (and particularly 157) and 128-127.

7Harris 1979, p. 35-41. The Middle Roman Republic has been often referred to as “an entirely modern convention” (Bernard, Mignone, Padilla Peralta 2023) 1-7. In fact, such a convention is still extremely useful in scholarly terms, despite H. Flower’s intellectually provocative attempt to deconstruct the Roman Republic into several republics (Flower 2010, p. 3-17).

8For instance, the differences of opinion with those who have argued that Romans avoided war whenever possible is emphatically expressed in an appendix to a later chapter on current lines of research in the study of Roman imperialism: Harris 1984, 30, referring to Brizzi 1982.

9The literature on “Roman imperialism” for the Republic is too prolific to quote extensively here. Nonetheless, this debate has been revived lately with both old and new arguments: Bertrand 2016; Annequin 2018; Cornwell 2019; Burton 2019; Cornwell, Woolf 2023; Brisson 2023.

10Cornell 1993, p. 154-160; Rich 1993, p. 44-55; Sidebottom 2004, p. 318-319.

11Roth 1999, p. 143-144; p. 177-182; Ñaco del Hoyo 2019, p. 82-83 [Sucro, 206]; Helm 2023, p. 152-153 [Campania, 342].

12Eich, Eich 2005.

13Eich, Eich 2005, p. 22-23. In the opinion of these authors, evading or resisting conscription or voting against a declaration of war in the comitia were exceptions to such a general communis opinio in favour of war, thus proving the rule particularly in periods of more acute war stress, such as the initial years of the Hannibalic War or the Hispanic campaigns in the mid-second century.

14An overview of these wars can be found in Harris 1979, p. 190-249; see more recently Hoyos 2011. There is evidence that suggests that the general atmosphere in Rome was exceedingly belligerent in the second century and in all likelihood during earlier periods. For instance, lists of consuls assigned to overseas provinces, legions actively operating outside Italy, triumphs and ovationes decreed and celebrated, new coin issues and the distribution of coin hoards in connection with peaks of warfare, and ultimately levels of lead pollution recorded in deep Greenland ice as an indicator of more intense mining and military activity: Rich 1993, p. 51; Rich 2003; McConnell et al. 2018; Rich 2023.

15According to Harris, the evidence does not point to the breakout of any new war in this period: ‘what was exceptional, however, was the preceding two-year period of peace (240-239)’, Harris 1979, p. 192.

16MRR 1, p. 218-219; Beck 2013, p. 139-140.

17Plb. 1. 62-63.3; 3.21.2; 3.27.1-8; 3.29.2-3; App. Sic. 2.4 Goukowsky; D.S. 24.13 Walton [= 24.17 Goukowsky]; Liv. Per. 19; 21.18.8-10; 21.19.2-4; 21.41.8-12; Oros. 4.11.1-3; Zonar. 8.17. Hoyos 1998, p. 123-126; Hoyos 2015, p. 71-77.

18App. Sic. 1.1 Goukowsky; Liv. 30.44.4; Plb. 1.59.5-6: Frank 1933, p. 61-68; Caven 1980, p. 63-66; Lazenby 1996, p. 157-170; Le Bohec 1996, p. 100-105; Loreto 2007; Champion 2011, p. 106; Tan 2017, p. 93-117.

19Beck 2013, p. 136-140; Bleckmann 2016; Tan 2017, p. 113-117; Hayes 2022, p. 137-138, 140, 151.

20Plb. 1.11; 1.31.4 (war-weariness in Carthage); 1.58.5-6; 1.59 (both Romans and Carthaginians suffering from war fatigue); 1.62; 1.65; 1.71-72 (war-weariness in Carthage). See, Walbank 1970, p. 61-63, 90, 122-124, 126-127, 130-132; Bleckmann 2011, p. 170-171.

21Cic. Har. 27; Liv. 27.9.1-6; 29.15; Plut. Marc. 24.1-2.

22Liv. 25.1.

23Liv. 26.26.10.

24Liv. 26.6.11 (transl. Yardley, Cambridge Mass. 2020). Carthage also experienced the same fatigue when the war in Africa was nearing its end: Liv. 30.44.4.

25See Raaflaub 2016, esp. p. 62: “It (Lysistrata) is nothing else than a profound indictment of the war which the Athenians by that time had invested an enormous amount of lives, wealth and effort—on which they had banked their future.”

26Melchior 2011. The most eloquent modern-day example is that of the unpopular conscription imposed by the Ukrainian government in order to continue combating the Russian invasion, in connection with the sinking morale of the Ukrainian people as far as the progress of the war is concerned, see The Economist (2024), “War-weary”, 450, n° 9385, (Feb 24, 2024), p. 29-30.

27Lazenby 1996, p. 39; Champion 2011, p. 106; Beck 2013, p. 140; Zimmermann 2011, p. 289; Rosillo-López 2017, p. 184.

28This is what has been often understood as a brief two-year breathing space after a long war: Bellomo 2019, p. 117 (“duo anni di ‘recupero’”), p. 117-126.

29Loreto 2007, p. 95-97; Loreto 2011, p. 85-186. Loreto’s proposals have been more recently endorsed by Hayes 2022, p. 212-214. See also Harris 1979, p. 193; Bradley, Farney 2018, p. 629; Bellomo 2019, p. 117-118.

30Plb. 1.65.2; Oros. 4.11.10; V. Max. 6.5.1b; Liv. Per. 20; Eutr. 2.28.1; Zonar. 8.18. Despite the harshness of the Roman response, there was some debate in the comitia about the need to show mercy to the Faliscans: Salmon 1982, p. 172-174 (“Appendix IV: The Destruction of Falerii Veteres”); Flower 1998; Brennan 2000, p. 89; Ñaco del Hoyo 2020, p. 57; Andrews et al. 2023, p. 10-13.

31Fast. Triumph. 241/0: Degrassi 1954, p. 100-101. According to Orosius, some extraordinary Tiber floods and a major fire at Rome, which also affected the forum and its temples, caused unavoidable disruptions and delays in these celebrations: Oros. 4.11.8. Bastien 2007, p. 204-205 and Vervaet, Dart 2011, p. 271-273 also point out that the odd celebration of two consecutive triumphs in a matter of days was the result of political differences of opinion between recently elected magistrates.

32Gibson 2013, p. 177: “Rome, however, is a latent presence in the Mercenary War narrative.”

33Plb. 1.83.1-10; 3.28-3. See also App. Sic. 2.10 Goukowsky; App. Pun. 5.19-21, which also indicates that in 239 the mercenaries rejected the intervention of Roman mediators (also confirmed by Zonar.8.17); Liv. 21.41.12; Nep. 22.2.3. As to the affairs of 238 and Rome’s final intervention in Sardinia after accepting a new invitation from the mercenaries: Plb. 1.83. App. Pun. 5.21-22, Hisp. 4.15; Zonar. 8.18. This has been broadly debated. See among others: Walbank 1970, p. 149-150; Harris 1979, p. 190-193; Lazenby 1996, p. 173-175; Brennan 2000, p. 89-91; Fariselli 2002, p. 92-96; Hoyos 2007, p. 248-252; Hoyos 2011, p. 210-211; Gibson 2013, p. 176-177; and most recently: Ventós 2021.

34Liv. 1.19.2-3; Var. Ling. 5.165; Aug. Res Gest. 13; Vell. Pat. 2.38.3. Harris 1979, p. 191 n.1: ‘241 is a far more likely context than 235, and the latter date (sources in MRR 1.223) probably arose from a confusion between the consuls A. Manlius Torquatus (241) and T. Manlius Torquatus (235)’. See more recently: Rüpke 2019, p. 139-145; Wilker 2020, p. 77-79; Engerbeaud 2023, p. 55-56, who does not question the traditional date of 235 for the second closure of the doors in Rome’s history.

35Harris 1979, p. 190-191: “Through two years [of peace], it is true, the Romans remained passive, exhausted by their great efforts”.

36Cic. Brut. 72; Tusc. 1.3; Sen. 50; Gell. 17.21.42-43. Indeed, Naevius’ first play is also dated roughly to this same period (235) by Gell. 17.21.45; Biggs 2020. See, among many others, Beacham 1991, p. 13-26; Wiseman 1995, p. 132-133; Manuwald 2011, p. 30-40; Viredaz 2020, p. 25-59; Rallo 2021, p. 11-36; Maltby, Slater 2022, p. 3-19, p. 134-149.

37Wiseman 1998, p. ix-x; Futrell 2007; Feeney 2016, p. 122-151.

38Raaflaub 1996, p. 273, quoting Just. 38.65.7-8.

39André 1962; Dosi 2006, p. 26-63; Eickhoff 2021, p. 37-41.

40Galtung 1969; Goldberg 2021, p. 35-66.