A new Cursus Honorum? Leadership and maturity in the late Roman empire

• Main Author: Ngoh, Shian Haw
• Other Authors: Goh Geok Yian
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69732
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

While there has been a wide variety of literature which deals with the topic of childhood studies in the Late Roman Empire and Leadership studies, there has been a lack of works that synthesise these two areas of research. More importantly, there is currently no major work produced in English that deals with the Cursus Honorum in the late Roman empire. Yet the late imperial era was a period that experienced a wide variety of change to the structure of Roman politics, including the apparent end of age restriction in Roman political offices. In order to understand these changes in context, a new narrative is needed to address these topics collectively. This paper will argue that the erosion of age restriction in Roman political offices occurred as a result of equestrians rising to power and an increasing disconnect between the legal notions of maturity and politics. This, in turn, resulted in many of the traditional offices becoming ceremonial positions that were held by those that were deemed underage by Roman standards.