Henrik Mouritsen, The Roman Republic
Understanding ideology of liberty and absence of democracy in the Roman Republic..
In his chapter on the Roman Republic in The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean, published in 2013, Henrik Mouritsen wrote:
The Formation of the Roman Republic
… Virtually all aspects of early Roman history are open to dispute, and here only a very broad and tentative outline will be attempted, mostly based on inferences from later, better-documented periods, above all institutional “survivals,” that is, relics of previous evolutionary stages that were preserved in the classical republican constitution.
The Roman “Constitution”
Republican Rome did not have a constitution in the modern sense so much as a set of practices and conventions, whose authority increased over time and eventually gained the status of hallowed ancestral custom. Thus, despite continuous evolution no institution or practice was, as far as we know, ever formally abolished. Instead they were drained of political significance and left as empty constitutional shells.
Informing the political practices and conventions of republican Rome were a set of fundamental concerns, all focused on the spreading of power and the prevention of undue influence being concentrated in the hands of a single individual or small groups of families. These concerns dictated the shape given to individual institutions and procedures and defined the political character of the Roman republic as a whole.
The early republic appears to have had a relatively simple political structure based on the tripartite model of magistrates, council, and assembly, typical of many ancient city-states. Executive powers were in the hands of annual magistrates, who were elected by a popular assembly to which all male adult citizens formally had access although the influence of some groups was highly restricted.
During their year in office the magistrates were supposed to take advice from a permanent body of elders, the senate, which was itself mostly composed of former magistrates.
Laws were proposed by the magistrates in cooperation with the senate and passed by the assemblies. The populus remained the only source of political legitimacy in the Roman state, all laws and appointments requiring the approval of the assembly. …
The Magistrates
… The Romans invested immense power in their chief magistrates, who held what was known as imperium. Their tenure of office was short but during that period they held the ultimate authority in the Roman state. … During their term in office they held an “autonomous” authority over the people, to whom they were formally superior, hence the term magistratus derived from “greater”.
… [By] the late republic almost one hundred individual positions were filled by popular vote each year. The magistrates were assisted by a limited “civil service,” which comprised only a few handfuls of administrators and assistants, apparitores, and a number of state slaves, servi publici.
… The magistrates’ power was founded on a mandate granted by the populus. It is common to describe the procedure by which this authority was bestowed as a “popular election” but that needs to be qualified. Technically the process involved both the presiding magistrate and the assembly, which would jointly appoint the successor, and the procedures followed may suggest that the people’s role originally was acclamatory rather than elective. …
The Assemblies
Over time Rome developed a bewildering number of popular assemblies, comitia, each with its own distinct organization and functions. …
… It is widely assumed that the procedure was acclamatory… The new magistrate(s) would be presented to the comitia and receive its formal approval. There was probably no vote, and no choice of candidates would be offered. The acclamation was in principle unanimous, and the process was at the same time a conferral of political legitimacy and a declaration of allegiance to the new leader.
The comitia curiata introduced what would become one of the most distinctive features of Roman political procedure, the practice of block voting. The magistrate would be presented to each curia separately in order to receive its public declaration of support. It meant that politically the voice of each citizen would be heard only as part of a group that would express a single opinion or verdict. This unique principle would be applied universally to all Roman assemblies, where collective units rather than individual citizens would count.
It gave political participation in Rome an abstract quality, which stands in sharp contrast to the Greek world where citizens always were politically active as individuals.
The political body in Rome was not defined as the sum of its citizens but of the units into which they had been distributed. So long as all these units took part in the proceedings the entire populus was formally present and could take decisions binding for the whole population. Thus, it only took a handful of citizens from each unit to constitute the Roman people politically. The formalism highlighted by this practice underscores the strong ritual aspect of all public proceedings in Rome.
Political initiative lay in the hands of the magistrate who presided over the meeting. The people could not act without formal leadership or even convene. They could not debate current issues and they could not make any suggestions, nor could they alter or reformulate proposals. Their role was purely reactive, reduced to a simple “yes” or “no”, and they could in principle only affirm or withhold their support. Thus, it is striking that the Latin word for vote, suffragium, only has a positive meaning of lending support. There was no word in the Latin language for the exercise of political choice by the populus, only the expression of approval. …
The Senate
… Former magistrates could from the middle republic onward expect to gain a seat in the council of elders, the senate, whose constitutional role was primarily advisory. During most of the republic it was made up of 300 members who in practice were appointed for life (at least after 318), although they could be expelled by the censors for misconduct. …
While the senate had no legislative powers, its approval, covered in the elusive concept of auctoritas patrum, was apparently required for new laws to be fully valid, at least in the centuriate assembly, although much remains uncertain. This gave it a central role in the constitution …
The simple fact that the senate represented the only permanent deliberative body in the Roman republic, which counted among its members most men with practical political and military experience, also gave it an influence that went far beyond its formal powers. …
The Early Roman State
The Roman state was in many respects “primitive”, in the sense that the Romans did not conceptualize the state as distinct from the Roman people. Thus, the term used to designate the “state” was res publica, meaning the “public affairs” or “affairs of the populus,” and these “affairs” were largely confined to the areas of justice and security. The Roman state (in the modern sense) had very limited scope, essentially just concerning itself with law, public order, justice, and security, the latter comprising both secure borders and peace with the gods.
Beyond these basic responsibilities the state rarely involved itself in the lives of its citizens. All expenditure was focused on financing the army, religion, and a few public services such as sewers, public buildings, and water supply. Very limited funds were therefore raised through taxation. The main source of revenue was the tribute, which was levied on the basis of a census conducted every five years. Each citizen would then make a monetary declaration of his wealth to the censors. Other sources of state income were state contracts and leases, managed by the same officials, and above all the revenues accrued from successful warfare abroad.
Law and Order: Conflict and Coercion
The magistrates exercised a monopoly of physical force. Magistrates with imperium originally held the power of life and death … Laws were passed that guaranteed the rights to a proper trial before the ultimate penalty could be imposed. Roman citizens gained the ius provocandi ad populum, which allowed them to appeal to the people …
… The pursuit of justice was in principle a private matter, and the state would only actively pursue cases of treason and other serious threats to the state … The role of the state was to provide a framework for citizens seeking justice. … Criminal disputes were originally held in the centuriate assembly and later in public courts presided over by a magistrate. Jurors would deliver the verdict. Gradually a more complex system was developed with standing courts, quaestiones, dealing with different types of crimes. The proceedings involved speakers from both sides of the dispute, and legal advocacy became one of the main functions of the Roman patronage system. …
… The Roman state was exceptional in the degree to which it delegated coercive powers to the heads of individual family units. The pater familias held absolute authority over all those under his potestas, including the power of life and death … His authority also covered the entire family estate. The extent of the patria potestas meant there were similarities between the position of children in potestate and slaves …
… The maintenance of public order was structured according to a religious distinction between the city of Rome and the territories outside of the city. Rome was surrounded by a ritual boundary, the pomerium, inside of which no armed force was allowed. It was in principle as well as in practice a demilitarized zone … [The] existence of a standing force would have posed a latent threat to the republican form of shared government. However, it also made that system highly vulnerable to any armed challenge against which it would have been largely powerless …
Faced with the rise in political violence in the late republic, the senate in 121 introduced the so-called final decree, senatus consultum ultimum, which asked the consuls to take any action necessary to protect the state against harm. … It did so by legitimizing the use of violence by some citizens against others, who were deemed guilty of seditio and condemned as enemies of the state.
Civil and Military Power
… The army was in principle inseparable from the citizen body, since it was structured as a militia in which all adult male citizens were obliged to serve. …
… [The] army could convene as a political body, in the form of the so-called comitia centuriata. Formally representing the citizens under arms … the assembly would be called by the chief magistrate, who was also its commander. Originally the assembled crowd was asked to give the new leaders its support and allegiance through acclamation, and after the introduction of multiple candidates it would be asked to choose between them. In addition they would elect the other senior magistrates, the praetors and censors. Reflecting the military origins of the comitia centuriata, it was this assembly that would be asked to vote also on matters of war and peace. …
Elite and Masses
Traditionally it was believed that the entire Roman plebs [commoners] was tied to aristocratic families through a dense network of patronage, a so-called clientela system. This idea has since been questioned by many scholars, and there is now broad agreement that although patronage relations undoubtedly played a central role in the practical functioning of Roman society, they were probably not as crucial in maintaining the political order as it has previously been assumed. Not only do clientela relations appear to have been far more complex, often short-lived ad hoc arrangements, but there were also simple issues of scale that would have prevented the direct control of all Romans by individual senatorial families.
Following the modification of the clientela theory, some scholars have argued that the masses represented a free and active agent in Roman public life. A few have even gone so far as to suggest that the people had a decisive influence on politics and state governance, thereby challenging the prevailing view of the Roman republic as an oligarchy.
The political role of the Roman people was, however, full of contradictions. On the one hand, the people made all major decisions affecting the state. On the other hand, they were also defined as profoundly passive participants in public life.
This paradox led some ancient observers such as the Greek historian Polybius to construe the Roman constitution as the embodiment of the Greek ideal of the mixed constitution, which blended elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy into a single harmonious and stable system of “checks and balances”.
His model has been highly influential but it was in essence a theoretical exercise that largely failed to grasp the uniquely Roman features of the constitution.
We must distinguish in Rome between formal authority and powers that were to be actively exercised, and the “democratic” element was in essence a formal requirement that the populus ratify all laws and acclaim all magistrates.
A closer analysis of the functioning of the political institutions suggests that republican Rome was an oligarchy in all but name. The masses had a very limited input into policy making, since new legislation was not formulated in the assemblies, which merely gave it its formal approval.
Laws could be rejected in the assembly but the evidence suggests this happened quite rarely—no certain case is known from the first century BCE. A rejection was probably considered something of an anomaly, since the rationale of the occasion appears to have been to ratify the proposal and not to exercise any specific judgment on its merit.
A central regulatory factor in the legislative process therefore appears to have been the tribunician veto, and the public debates preceding the vote may typically have evolved around the question of whether a threatened veto should remain or be lifted; or, in other words, whether the proposal should go forward toward a formal ratification or not.
Public policy was formulated by the senate and magistrates, and while access to office relied on a popular mandate, the electoral crowds were generally small and unrepresentative. In practical terms it was impossible for more than a tiny proportion of the citizen body to take part in public meetings, and given the time-consuming nature of the proceedings it was probably mostly men of substance who could afford to devote their time to public affairs.
The higher offices were filled through election in the centuriate assembly, where the voters were organized according to economic standing and the greater influence was given to the propertied classes. The choice of candidates was limited, since they all belonged to the elite. Moreover, there is little evidence for any overtly political content in the elections or the campaigns that preceded them. Usually legislative programs were not presented in advance nor were “party” affiliations declared. There are even indications that controversial issues may have been avoided by candidates during their electoral campaigns. The choice was therefore made on the basis of personal qualities (and family background) rather than any specific policies.
The people’s ability to exercise any direct influence on state policy appears to have been limited, which in turn makes the relative stability that characterized the Roman republic so much more remarkable.
An explanation must be sought in a number of different areas, practical as well as ideological.
The formal construction of the Roman state would have made it difficult to formulate a “democratic” alternative to the existing order, since in theory the populus already played a pivotal role in the governance of the state. The often-mentioned “sovereignty” of the Roman people (the concept itself is of course a modern invention and belongs to the early modern period) was rooted in the primitive notion of the state as indistinct from the people, which therefore represented the only possible source of formal legitimacy. While in practice the people’s influence may have been highly circumscribed, the populus remained the focal point of all political proceedings and arguments.
This construction of the state was supported by a common ideology that celebrated the libertas populi Romani. Allegiance to the “freedom of the Roman people” was an all-pervasive political creed and central to the collective identity of the Roman republic. It lay at the heart of the Roman perception of the res publica as a community of free men, but importantly “free” did not in this context mean “democratic”; essentially it meant absence of dominatio, which in the most basic terms was defined as the freedom from the capricious rule of one man or a small clique.
In this interpretation the “freedom” of the Roman people rested primarily on the maintenance of a collective government appointed through proper public procedure as well as on respect for the laws that protected their civic rights, including the right to a trial and to appeal against magisterial coercion, provocatio. In that sense it was equally attractive to aristocrats as to the masses, and no oligarchic alternative to the ideal of libertas populi Romani was therefore ever formulated nor was the “sovereignty” of the people formally challenged. What is striking about political discourse in the Roman republic is therefore what in a narrower context has been described as its ideological “monotony”.
The identity of the elite and the way it justified its leadership was fully compatible with the libertas ideology. Membership of the nobilitas was not formally based on birthright but on personal (or family) achievements. By defining itself as an “office-elite” the nobilitas could claim a direct popular mandate and justify its power in terms of personal merit and services to the state. In practice only persons of considerable wealth may have been able to assume public responsibilities, but the fact that in principle it was open to all talented outsiders was hugely important.
The elite’s meritocratic self-image influenced its style of government and it may also have encouraged it to pursue broadly consensual policies, which contributed to the maintenance of social and political stability.
The elite’s own lifestyle appears to have been relatively modest during most of the republic, which reduced the most glaring social inequality and encouraged an egalitarian vision of the citizen body. This was partly the result of internal self-policing, as reflected in a series of luxury laws curbing excessive lifestyles. Likewise the beneficent ideology of public munificence embraced by the elite may have contributed to a general sense of paternalistic responsibility, despite the evident opportunities for self-promotion that it also offered.
Most important in this context was the fact that the elite ethos of public service increasingly was channeled into a quest for military distinction. Extended military service was integrated into the public career structure, and the glory won on the battlefields became a major factor in the elite’s internal competition. The result was that the nobility in effect became a “warrior elite”, and the establishment of the new ruling class coincided with a major push in Rome’s expansion in Italy. The nobilitas thus consolidated its position through its management of this process.
The military basis for the ascendancy of the nobilitas was reinforced through a wide range of public rituals and manifestations, such as the triumph, funeral processions, and orations that demonstrated not just their capability but also their devotion to the res publica and its ideals.
Moreover, the cityscape of Rome was increasingly shaped by aristocratic self-promotion. Votive monuments and honorific statuary proliferated, which brought home visually Rome’s external conquests and acted as reminders to the populace of the successful leadership provided by the nobility. The public rituals and their associated monuments thus became celebrations of the partnership between the Roman people, its leaders, and the tutelary gods, which manifested itself in the steady expansion of her power and territory.
As such they reflected the increasing militarization of Roman society during the republic. Prolonged periods of continuous military engagement and mass mobilization made warfare a normal, indeed habitual activity for the Romans, and most likely this development also had a profound effect on the relationship between leaders and masses. The line between civilian and military authority became blurred. On the one hand, the citizen body (or at least the politically active section of it) thus became largely identical with the army, which was used to take orders from their superiors, while, on the other hand, the military leaders became accustomed to an element of reciprocity in their dealings with the people and were imbued with a sense of obligation to lead by example. The Roman elite seems to have subscribed to the ideal of an approachable style of leadership, characterized by what has been described as “joviality,” that is, the friendly demeanor assumed by a superior toward his social inferiors.
The continuous military engagements not only had a direct impact on domestic politics but also crucially created the practical opportunities that enabled the elite to pursue moderate, broadly consensual policies that accommodated the interests of the masses. There was, in other words, an intimate connection between internal social and political stability in Rome and her external expansion during the same period. …
[You have now reached the end of this Social Science Files exhibit.]
The Source has been:
Henrik Mouritsen, ‘The Roman Empire I: The Republic’, in The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean, edited by Peter Fibiger Bang and Walter Scheidel, Oxford University Press 2013
Henrik Mouritsen has been a Social Science Files subscriber and regular reader since August 2022.
See also our previous exhibits on Roman political processes:
Michael Heller’s Social Science Files collects and displays multidisciplinary writings on a great variety of topics relating to evolutions of social order from the earliest humans to the present day and future machine age.
‘The Heller Files’, quality tools for Social Science since February 2022.