The
Two censors were elected every five years and served for eighteen months. Their primary task was to set the census status of every citizen (see below) and to legislate on publ 121j913b ic morality.
B.
The Curiate Assembly from the royal period withered under the Republic, and the Plebeian Council declined after 287.
The Senate was originally restricted to patricians, then opened to former holders of high offices. It passed treaties but could not legislate.
The Tribal Assembly constituted the Roman people organized according to districts, of which there were thirty-three, four in the city and twenty-nine in the surrounding countryside-always a boon to wealthy landowners.
The Centuriate Assembly constituted the Roman people organized according to wealth into 192 centuries. The wealthiest Romans made up the majority of the centuries.
Legislation could be introduced by magistrates or ordinary Romans. Bills were read three times in the Roman forum, vigorously debated, and then voted on.
Assemblies used the system of "block voting": There were 33 votes in the Tribal Assembly and 192 in the Centuriate (think of the U.S. Electoral College).
II. The big question is how did this system work?
A. The first critical point to remember is that deference was paid to age, experience, and tradition.
The oldest member of the Senate-the "prince of the Senate"-spoke first.
The Senate did not pass laws but issued influential opinions (Senatusconsulta).
The Senate was made up of former holders of high offices.
Tribes and Centuries caucused before voting, and the seniores spoke and voted before the iuniores.
B. Patron-client bonds were critical to the operation of Roman society as a whole. The rich and powerful had large numbers of people in various bonds of obligation.
C. A remarkably small number of families-fewer than 100-provided
almost all of the officers of the
of its existence.
Historians speak of a "senatorial aristocracy."
This is perhaps understandable before the attainment of essential equality between patricians and plebeians but harder to understand thereafter.
D. The central Roman political and social values contributed to the preservation of the system.
Auctoritas: Romans placed great stress on the eminence, the inner dignity, of their greatest citizens, past and present. This was not, in principle, a matter of wealth or birth.
Mos maiorum: The "custom of our ancestors" was to the Romans the guiding light in all things. This is how most speeches began.
III. Perhaps the greatest critique and assessment of this system came from the Greek historian Polybius (C. 200-c.1 18 B.C.).
A. Polybius was a learned Greek captured by the Romans in
B. He wrote
a history of his times, the sixth book of which is a penetrating evaluation of
C. He wanted to understand how a people so recently barbarian had come to conquer the known world in such a short time.
D. He attributed their success to their "mixed" constitution.
Consuls were like kings: monarchy.
Senators were like aristocrats: oligarchy.
Assemblies were like demos: democracy.
E. Polybius had a characteristic Greek view of the cyclical evolution of
politics
Monarchy~oligarchy~democracy~mob rule*monarchy He believed that the Romans had escaped the cycle.
IV. Was Polybius right? Yes and no.
A. The Roman system was remarkably stable for a long time, and the "mixed" dimension of the constitution was there for all to see.
B. Polybius said nothing about the culture of deference or the senatorial aristocracy.
C. Polybius's views could not address the strains on a small, tradition-bound city-state of the acquisition of world empire.
V. The Roman system has been, in concrete institutional structures and in fundamental ideological notions, formative in later Western political development.
Essential
Brunt, Social Conflicts in the
Scullard, Roman Politics.
Recommended
Polybius, Histories (esp. Book 6).
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