Tra vizi e tempestates : controversie elettorali al tempo di Zama

In 202 B.C., owing a string of severe storms and persistent flooding of the Campus Martius, consular elections were so troubled and long-delayed that Rome remained without any curule magistrates at all. The crisis, very severe and noteworthy from a political, institutional and religious point of view, was studied by Aimard (1943-1944), but in current scholarship, even if frequently mentioned, it is only incidentally treated and not thoroughly. Therefore, eighty years after Aimard's study, the topic needs for a global review, starting from a closer examination of the Livian account: in an attempt to illuminate the complex and unusual, not to say unique, issues that troubled the Roman republic at the end of the Second Punic War. [Publisher's text]