A Brief History Of The Roman Empire, Part 2: The Public Thing

“Republic” has become something of a political catch-all in the modern era — of the 200 odd states on planet Earth, most are or at least claim to be some form of republic.

This was Not The case for vast This was the dominant feature of human history, and it was totally new in 509 BC, when Rome expelled its king. All of recorded history has seen either monarchy or tyranny.

The system they constructed over the centuries was convoluted and sometimes contradictory, but a familiar idea was at its core — that power should never again be concentrated in the hands of one man, and that government should be of the people, by the people, and for the people.

It was called “The Great Escape” “Res publica”: public matters or more literally “the public thing.”

It’s exactly What This is it Who The public would change over time, but it would set the foundation for millennia to come.

The Mixed Constitution

Although political theory was still in its infancy at the time, the Greeks, who had contact with the Romans and were conducting their own experiments in various cities-states, divided governments into three categories.

Monarchy — rule by the one

Aristocracy — rule by the few

Democracy — rule by the many

They were baffled by the Roman system. As Rome conquered Greece, its philosophers considered the mongrel state that controlled the Mediterranean. Polybius — a historian and hostage of the Roman government for 17 years, described it So,:

“As for the Roman constitution, it had three elements, each of them possessing sovereign powers: and their respective share of power in the whole state had been regulated with such a scrupulous regard to equality and equilibrium, that no one could say for certain, not even a native, whether the constitution as a whole were an aristocracy or democracy or despotism.”

If that sounds familiar — three rival parts of government with different powers balanced against one another — it’s because Polybius’s observations were incredibly influential on Enlightenment theorists and the framers of the U.S. Constitution.

Our republic divided the executive, legislative and judicial powers into separate branches. However, Roman institutions were separable by their structure or source of power.

The Magistrates

The magistrates were “despotic” The government is an element. The senior officials — the consuls — oversaw elections, could call and dismiss the senate and the public assemblies, could propose legislation, and got to speak first in any public debate. They were also senior military leaders who held absolute authority in the field — symbolized by special weapons their bodyguards carried called “fasces” — and held a special legal status known as “imperium.”

Imperium in the broadest sense meant the official embodied the Roman state and had unfettered authority within their legal jurisdiction — commanders and provincial governors would be given imperium over certain units, theaters, or territories while senior officials held imperium more generally. Imperium also meant that all Roman magistrates, from consuls to the lowliest quaestors, were immune from legal prosecution during their term in office — a very useful perk in the Extremely litigious Rome.

During the reign of Gaius Julius Caesar, this legal immunity will be vital.

Although this level of authority appears almost dictatorial, the Romans had safeguards in place.

First, magistrates are not allowed to serve a lifetime, unlike kings. For the majority of the Republic’s history there were strict limitations on the number of years that a candidate could wait before running again for the same office. In some eras they were even prohibited from running for another office for their entire lives. However, over the centuries, these restrictions have been relaxed. Particularly These restrictions could be waived at the end. This prevented any official from consolidating too much power during their term — and there was only so much damage a person could do in a year.

A magistrate could have been protected from prosecution while he was still in office. Immediately Once he was a private citizen, his rights were lost. Rome may have been open to letting its leaders break the rules during a crisis but they would be weighed down by the entire weight of her legal system. Every official was aware.

Each consul was then checked by the other consul. Any official of his rank or above could be vetoed by any magistrate. This allowed rival consuls to be in a “mutually assured destruction” Situation where they could unilaterally block one another’s agenda. To avoid gridlock the consuls had to defer to one another to some extent, but neither could push the other too far — if one of the consuls overstepped the other could reign him in.

The Senate

The senate was initially an advisory body made up of the best men in the city. It was not changed when the monarchy was abolished. From its inception, the senate was an old boy’s club — the word “senate” Latin: “senex“Alternate” is a definition of “old”. The root for “senile” is the same. After they were elected to high office, citizens were granted lifetime membership into the Roman Senate. They could also be impeached by another officer or censor under certain circumstances. The theory was that the older and wiser officials would guide them.

In practice, politicians were drawn from a small group of noble families — electioneering was expensive. Roman politics was built around a patronage system. This meant that wealthy men would give cash and other benefits to less fortunate clients in return for their support. Secret ballots These measures were put in place in the 2nd century BC in an attempt to curb corruption and voter intimidation. But, like many anti-corruption efforts in Rome, it was not a great success.

During the beginning of the Republic most high office positions were limited to patrician blood. There was no separation of church and state and political offices were also religious offices — Rome’s founding myth said that the common plebeian was descended from brigands and rapists so it would be sacrilegious to allow them to hold high office. Only the offspring of those pious few who Romulus himself had singled out were eligible — and just to be safe intermarriage between patrician and pleb was forbidden.

This was unsustainable.

The majority of Romans were plebeian. Armed forces Was plebeian. During the early days of the Republic, there were several occasions where the common soldiers refused to fight unless they were granted political concessions — this multi-century-long political slugfest is known collectively as the Conflict of the Orders.

Some plebeian families went on to become wealthy and successful while patrician families fell on hard times. While political marriages where the plebs exchange wealth for the prestige and honor of a patrician family name were beneficial to both sides, they were still illegal. This created plenty of incentive to change that law.

The distinction between patricians and plebeians had become almost irrelevant by the third century BC. However, a few wealthy families still controlled the Senate and, vicariously for them, Roman politics. Political dynasties were extremely powerful — a young man could easily win election to a junior office by pointing out that his father had been a consul.

Although the magistrates held considerable power the senate still had full control of the state treasury. They appointed provincial governors, steered Rome’s foreign policies, and deliberated over legislation.

The order of speaking in the Senate was determined by seniority. First, the sitting consuls spoke, followed by former consuls and then sitting praetors and then former praetors. The late Republic had two consuls and eight prêtors elected every year. Because of this, debate was rarely below the former praetors. Most of the senate would have consisted of former praetors. “back-benchers” who had only held junior positions within the government and could go years without being allowed to speak — they were called “pedarii” or walkers, as votes in the senate resembled a caucus — at the end of a debate senators would walk over to whoever’s position they agreed with.

This meant that the senate was controlled by a small number of people who were already at the top of Roman society. It was why it was commonly referred to as the “the” body. “aristocratic” A part of the Constitution Technically magistrates could circumvent the will of the senate — bills could be passed by the public assemblies with or without their consent — but bypassing them meant snubbing the most powerful men in the city.

The senate also had prestige and peer pressure to keep the current magistrates in line — the senate was the oldest institution in Rome, dating back to the legendary founding of the city, and it was also the social network most Roman officials would spend most of their lives in. A magistrate would hold office for a year at a time, but membership in the senate was for life — stepping on too many toes during your year in power would make the rest of your political career substantially more difficult.

Despite all its power and influence, however, the Senate did not, in theory, have absolute political authority.

The Public Assemblies

SPQR was at the heart of the Roman Empire. Senatus Populusque Romanus — the Senate and People of Rome, and while the senate shaped policy the citizens got the final say. You can quote Polybius once more:

“It is the people who bestow office on the deserving, which are the most honorable rewards of virtue. It has also the absolute power of passing or repealing laws; and most important of all, it is the people who deliberate on the question of peace or war. … These considerations again would lead one to say that the chief power in the state was the people’s, and that the constitution was a democracy.”

Roman democracy wasn’t egalitarian. It was messy and complicated, but it formed the basis for the state. Numerous bodies, called “Electoral Colleges”, were used to elect citizens. “the public assemblies.”

The Assembly of the Centuries was arguably the most important, and it elected Rome’s highest officials — consuls, praetors and censors. The “century” A basic Roman military unit consisting of roughly 100 men. The assembly consisted of all military-age men and was broken up into voting blocs according to wealth and age. These blocs voted collectively and sequentially — with the First Class blocs voting first, Second Class second, and so on.

The Roman Republic did not have a professional army for most of its history and was comprised of part time citizen soldiers — consuls and praetors could command armies so the assembly was in effect voting for its commanding officers. They were also the only one capable of declaring war.

However, the upper classes were given a disproportionate share of the voting blocs and the poorest citizens — the proletarii — were given hardly any representation. This was a feature and not a bug. Roman soldiers were expected by their country to provide their equipment. The wealthy were more likely to contribute to the war effort with better gear. 

Voting order also mattered — the election was over once a candidate had reached a majority so if the wealthier blocs could come to a consensus a winner could be decided before the poorer blocs even got to cast a ballot.

Although they had no authority to command, the censors were charged with the vital task of tally the population’s wealth and assign each voter to the appropriate class. They were also able to censure citizens as well as civil servants for their public morality. (Giving rise to both ‘”censorship” And the “census.”)

The Tribal Assembly elects junior officials. It can also ratify laws, just like other assemblies. However, voting was also done in blocks. “tribes” They were based more on geography and ancestry than wealth.

The Tribal Assembly was biased against the wealthy. Four of its 35 tribes were transferred to Rome’s residents during the Republic, while the remaining 31 were left for rural residents in Italy. Voting in the city was costly, and only a few wealthy citizens could afford it.

While the other assemblies were deliberately tilted to favor the upper classes, the Plebeian Assembly was created as a counterbalance to patrician influence — only plebs could vote in it. The most important office they controlled was the Tribune of the Plebs — who had veto power, even over the consuls, and who was meant to check state abuse against the common Roman. While most of the magistrates of Rome were aristocratic in interest and background, the Plebeian Assembly created a constituency where populist firebrands could make a name for themselves and the office would regularly be at the center of controversy — more on that later.

Each of the assemblies could pass various kinds of legislation, but unlike the senate there was no debate — the bill was read and the assembly was given an up or down vote. 

Roman Law

Roman law can be quite easily recognized, even though it may seem strange and outlandish to modern eyes. Roman citizens had the right of a public trial with a jury made up of their peers. They also had the rights to legal counsel and to face their accusers in court. The corpus of Roman law would impact both the common and civil branches of western law tradition.

While praetors could command armies in a pinch, if a consul was unavailable, their primary responsibility was to act as judges in Roman courts, which were very busy — any Roman citizen could sue or prosecute any other Roman. That sort of power was usually wielded by kings, so the fact that the Romans delegated it to their elected officials — Junior elected officials — was a major innovation.

Many politicians also made their names as advocates in court — trials were open to the public and law was something of a spectator sport — supporters of a politician might go to see him argue his big murder case — and, obnoxiously, the crowd could get rowdy on occasion.

There were still kinks that needed to be ironed out — unlike the U.S. Constitution, Rome had no protections against ex post facto laws or bills of attainder (laws that make actions retroactively illegal or target a specific individual).

One example is Clodius, a populist tribune for the plebs, who introduced a bill in 58 BC that would have exiled anyone who had executed any Roman citizen without trial. Clodius’s bitterest enemy, Cicero, had done the exact same thing during his time as consul in 1963 BC. Normally that would have been illegal, but the people he executed had been exposed as collaborators in the Catiline Conspiracy — an attempt by disgruntled politicians to assassinate key political rivals and then, when that failed, raise an army to overthrow the government. The senate had declared martial law and given Cicero total authority to do whatever was necessary to save the Republic — they had even approved the executions when he consulted them (even with absolute power Cicero wanted to be certain the senate was on his side).

The executions ended the rebellion and Cicero was hailed as a hero. But, five years later, political winds had changed. Clodius’ bill was passed and Cicero was expelled from the city. His home was then seized by state.

America, however, has never passed a law that automatically imprisons anyone who served as president while also owning hotels.

The 12 tables of Roman Law was another important innovation. In the early days of the Republic’s history laws and decisions weren’t written down. Court rulings were often arbitrary and capricious. Rome’s citizens began to push for a consolidation in the legal code to make all laws publicly visible. The entire Roman government came to a halt when 10 officials (the Decemviri), spent the year making this happen.

The standardization of Roman legal principles, from marriage to property ownership to court procedures, was completed by the end. While other written law codes — such as Hammurabi’s — had existed before, the 12 Tables they created would be the foundation of Roman law for over 1,000 years. It was a great achievement that brought the Romans closer toward their ideal of the rule over men.

That legacy is slightly complicated by fact that Decemviri refused the opportunity to resign or hold elections after their terms ended. This meant that Rome’s great legal writers almost immediately created a major constitutional crisis, and tried to rule the country as a dictatorship. Again, baby steps.

The Dictatorship

Speaking of crises and unusual constitutional arrangements, we come to the most peculiar and fatal of Roman offices — the dictatorship.

Contrary to modern counterparts, the Roman dictatorship was elected. Temporary position — a dictator would be chosen by the senate under the most dire of circumstances and would serve for six months or until the emergency had passed, whichever was shorter.

Gridlock was built into the Roman system, but the Romans believed that when annihilation was on the table quick and decisive action was necessary — for most of its early history Rome was not the master of the Mediterranean but a small city state surrounded by enemies. When the enemy was at the gates, Rome felt it needed a leader who was unencumbered by votes or vetos — a single commander whose word was law.

This office is by its very nature invites tyranny, abuse. But what’s most amazing about it is the fact that the dictators are allowed to run it. Stepped down.

Cincinnatus — who was an inspiration to George Washington — is perhaps the most famous example but dozens Roman citizens were able to take absolute power and then give it up without any major incidents, hundreds of years before Sulla and Julius Caesar became dictators for life.

One could put it down to a loss or civic virtue. But, it may have had more serious consequences. The Roman law that anyone tried to establish absolute power for themselves was one of the oldest. It dates back to the beginning of the Republic. “anyone who should create a magistrate from whom there was no appeal, should be scourged and beheaded.”

Rome’s institutions were flawed, but the Republic survived because its citizens believed in it and were persistent beyond belief. Roman aversion to one-man rule was so strong that even when Augustus took power he had to couch it behind a republican veneer — the first Roman emperor was merely the “first citizen.” Rome’s republic was so strong, despite all its corruption, it took nearly a century of civil wars and convulsions to bring it down.

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“From A Brief History Of Rome’s Empire, Part 2: The Public Thing“

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