Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the principal lines of approach which have been taken to the career of Appius Claudius Caecus in the hope of formulating a view of the censor which is neither over-dramatized nor, on the other hand, so muted as to deny recognition to those aspects of his political behaviou which so greatly exercised his contemporaries. In so doing, I will argue that previous studies of Appius' career have sought in the wrong places for an explanation of the political rivalry between him and his opponents and I will offer an interpretation of his censorial acts—and of one of them in particular—which, I believe, may account for this rivalry