In search of power. From Rome to Lugdunum.

Extending the themes of the exhibition "In Search of Power. From Rome to Lugdunum," this catalog shows how, at the end of the 1st century BC, Augustus founded an original political regime: the Principate. Unique in its kind, it combined the restoration of the traditional institutions of the res publica with the affirmation of essentially monarchical power held by a prince, the first of the citizens, the one we call emperor. However, the Principate did not provide in law for any fixed pattern of hereditary succession, which gave rise to the danger of civil war. The example of the clashes of 193-197, which followed the death of Commodus and ended with the Battle of Lyon on February 19, 197, illustrates the need for the emperor to establish a consensus between the main social strata: the army, the Senate, the Roman people, provincial elites, and knights. The texts in this work, drawn from contributions by historians and archaeologists, and informed by the most recent scientific advances, invite us to discover the workings of power in the Roman Empire through the analysis of the mechanisms of dynastic succession and usurpation.