ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to apply some of the discussion inspired by Gramsci's work to debates around the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Principate. Specifically, I shall look at issues of coercion and consent and propaganda and ideology, and will seek to show how valuable it is to use a Gramscian framework to explore the complex interplay of power and legitimation which have been described most effectively in recent times by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill in Rome's Cultural Revolution. I will argue that we should try to rewrite the Augustan cultural and political revolution through a generous and creative use of Gramsci's theory of hegemony.
