Page 3 of 9

Ancient Rome

Encyclopedia Article

Find | Print | E-mail | Blog It

Multimedia

56 items

Article Outline

Introduction; Early History; Life in Early Rome; The Roman Republic ; The Legacy of the Roman Republic

Political Institutions

The early Romans were a practical and conservative people whose political organization evolved very slowly; as a result, there was considerable continuity from the time of the monarchy to the republic. The Roman constitution always remained unwritten and was changed less frequently by law than by custom. Just as Roman religion retained inexplicable rituals and taboos, outdated political institutions were rarely abolished. The Romans preferred to retain familiar institutions and procedures while adapting them to the changing circumstances of a growing state. For example, the interrex was originally an official whose name derived from his duty of performing religious ceremonies in the interregnum or period between the reigns of different kings. The interrex survived in the republic as an official who presided over elections when both consuls had died or been killed.

Early Rome was ruled by kings who had wide military and judicial powers and represented the people to their gods. After the death of Romulus, the king was selected by the Senate (derived from the Latin senex, which means “old man”), a governmental body comprised of the heads of noble families. The Senate also advised the king. This institution survived into the republic and became the dominant political force through which the noble, landowning families controlled the religious, political, and economic life of the new aristocratic state. Under senatorial leadership Rome conquered Italy and much of the Mediterranean world.

Under the monarchy, another governmental organization, the Assembly of the People, included all male Roman citizens. Members of the Assembly were divided into 30 clans (curiae). In earliest times the Assembly met to witness the announcement of a new king or a declaration of war. Eventually each clan could cast a single vote to approve wills and adoptions, both of which were important for the transfer of land.

Building Projects

The earliest remnants of buildings at Rome are the postholes of huts built on the Palatine Hill. By the 6th century bc, the Romans had drained the swampy area between the Palatine and Capitoline hills and then paved it. They used this area as the main forum where public meetings, markets, religious ceremonies, and burials were held. The Romans also constructed temples and some houses in the Forum, as well as an impressive drainage system, which is still visible where the main sewer empties into the Tiber River. They built the first bridges across the Tiber during this early period of the kings, although most of the surviving stone bridges are from later periods. Contemporary sources suggest that both Romulus and Servius built walls around the early site of Rome, but archaeology has not yet uncovered any walls constructed before the 4^th century bc. By the end of the monarchy, the villages on the hills had added an urban center and a group of public buildings.

The Roman Republic

Print this section

The historian Livy (59 bc–ad 17) described the foundation of the Roman Republic (republic is from the Latin res publica, which means “that which belongs to the people”) as a morality tale. In his account, valiant Roman patriots under the leadership of Lucius Junius Brutus overthrew the cruel foreign tyrant Tarquin in 509 bc. The truth was certainly more complex. The Etruscans faced increasing military threats from the Gauls, a Celtic people to the north, and from the Greeks in the south. The fall of the Etruscan kings was part of a much larger story, but only the heroic Roman version survives.

The Roman aristocrats provided the leadership for the establishment of the Roman Republic, and they continued to dominate it for centuries. During the five centuries of the republic, Rome grew from a small city of 10,000 into a great cosmopolitan metropolis of 1 million whose empire of 15 million subjects encompassed the entire Mediterranean basin. Social and political conflict inevitably arose as the conservative Romans attempted to keep their old values and institutions in place while exercising their authority over subjects of many different nationalities.

The Romans adapted to changing circumstances with a great deal of political struggle but relatively little internal violence. Despite the eventual collapse of the republican system of government in the 1st century bc, it was a remarkable achievement both in its length and scope. Even the collapse of the republic did not lessen Rome’s domination of the Mediterranean world, for its empire remained largely intact for another five centuries under the rule of the emperors.

Political Institutions of the Republic

The Senate and the citizen Assembly survived from the monarchy into the republic. In theory the Senate played only an advisory role, but because it contained mostly former civil officials, called magistrates, it was respected as the repository of Roman wisdom and tradition. The Senate had such great authority (auctoritas) that magistrates consulted it on all-important issues, and it became the dominant force in the areas of religion, foreign policy, and public finance. The Senate did not pass legislation, but its decrees were treated with the greatest respect. See also Thematic Essay: Roman Political and Social Thought

Citizens participated in the Assembly, which could pass laws, elect magistrates, and declare war. Over the centuries the Romans organized these popular assemblies in different ways, but the voting system always favored the rich. For example, one popular assembly, the comitia centuriata, which probably developed in the 6th century bc, consisted of 193 voting blocks, each with a single vote. Citizens were assigned to those 193 “centuries” on the basis of wealth, and the centuries of the richest class had few members, while the one century reserved for the landless had tens of thousands of members, but could only cast a single ballot. No free discussion took place in Roman assemblies, and citizens could only approve or reject proposals presented by a magistrate.

The kings left the early Romans with a fear of domination by a single ruler. As a result, the Romans replaced the kings with magistrates who were collegial, which meant that several officials held the same office simultaneously, and each could check the others. The Assembly of citizens elected these officials annually. The two chief magistrates, called consuls, were invested with the military, judicial, administrative, and even some of the religious powers of the king. They could veto (from the Latin word veto, for “I forbid”) each other’s actions, but they usually agreed to share power. Often one consul served in Rome while the other was in command of the army. A consul could not be removed while in office, although he could be prosecuted for corruption after leaving the position.

As Rome grew, the creation of other magistracies removed some of the administrative burden from the consuls. Beginning in 443 bc, two former consuls were chosen every five years as censors; their primary job was to take the census. These men drew up population and property rolls for the state. The censors also kept a list of senators and could delete names, and in that way expel individuals from the Senate, for financial or moral reasons. Censors were also responsible for awarding public contracts and were held in such esteem that they were the only Roman magistrates to be buried in royal purple.

Praetors formed another group of magistrates. They were originally established in 367 bc as junior consuls, but their chief function was to preside over trials under civil law. Praetors were responsible for the early development of Roman legal procedure. Since praetors also had military authority, they later served as commanders of Rome’s many armies across the Mediterranean world.

The dictator was a temporary magistrate who was appointed by the consuls in an emergency, and the title initially held none of its modern negative associations. The dictator exercised full royal power, free of any veto, but could generally hold office for a maximum of six months. The consuls often appointed a dictator when foreign invaders threatened Rome, and they believed that all power should be vested in one general. The office was especially popular in the early republic; it was used infrequently when Rome no longer had enemies in Italy who threatened the state.

Individuals who reached these high offices had extensive political and military experience. Ambitious young Romans could only embark on a political career after ten years in the Roman army, although in early times this military service might entail just a few months each year. They could then progress through a series of elected offices. Preparatory positions included quaestors, who served as financial supervisors, and aediles, who were responsible for the upkeep of public buildings as well as the presentation of state festivals and games.

Internal Political Conflict

Under the monarchy, the primary social distinction was between landholding nobles, called patricians, and their peasant workers known as the plebs or plebeians. Probably few patricians had great wealth, since popular stories portray patrician generals as returning from the battlefield to plow their fields, but they did hold substantial political power. Since Roman society excluded the plebs from all political offices and priesthoods, their demands for more privileges produced a “struggle between the orders” which lasted for centuries.

In 475 bc, the Etruscans threatened Rome and the newly independent city had to recruit infantry for its army. The need to draw soldiers from the plebs gave these downtrodden people their first opportunity to secure power for themselves. Plebs refused to do military or agricultural work until the Senate agreed to recognize them as a distinct element within the Roman state, with rights to an assembly and their own officials called tribunes. The result was the tribuni plebis, or people’s tribunes, who could veto decrees of the Senate or proposals of magistrates

The plebs were particularly angry at the arbitrary use of unwritten custom by aristocratic officials, so the Senate made an important concession with the publication of a code of Roman law, known as the Law of the Twelve Tables, in 451-450 bc. But the law remained harsh to debtors, and intermarriage between plebeians and patricians was still forbidden. It took further social unrest over the next two centuries to produce additional reforms. Eventually, Rome admitted plebeians to all offices including the consulship and the priesthoods. From 287 bc decrees of the plebeian assembly (plebiscita) had the force of law over the entire state. Thus, the struggle between the orders concluded with the apparent triumph of the plebs.

Roman families forever remained either patrician or plebeian, but the practical importance of the division slowly diminished, since the widening gap between the rich and the poor became more significant. Soon, the popular assembly was organized into “classes” on the basis of wealth. Further class conflict lay primarily in the future, however, and Rome experienced its first extended period of social peace between 287 and 133 bc.

‹

Prev.