Virtus romana: politics and morality in the Roman histories

Tracing how virtus informed Roman thought over time, Catalina Balmaceda explores the concept and its manifestations in the narratives of four successive Latin historians: Sallust, Livy, Velleius, and Tacitus.

She demonstrates that virtus in these historical narratives served as a form of self-definition which fostered and propagated a new model of the ideal Roman.