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Key Themes in Ancient History
Politics in the Roman Republic
The politics of the Roman Republic has in recent decades been the subject of intense debate, covering issues such as the degree of democracy and popular influence, 'parties' and ideology, politics as public ritual, and the character of Rome's political culture. This engaging book examines all these issues afresh, and presents an original synthesis of Rome's political institutions and practices. It begins by explaining the development of the Roman constitution over time before turning to the practical functioning of the Republic, focusing particularly on the role of the populus Romanus and the way its powers were expressed in the popular assemblies. Henrik Mouritsen concludes by exploring continuity and change in Roman politics as well as the process by which the republican system was eventually replaced by monarchy. This original and readable book will be important for all students and scholars of Roman history and of politics in general.
214 pages, Paperback
Published March 6, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 23, 2024
Inspired by Mary Beard and by the meme about the Roman Empire that went around last year, I've decided to read some books about classical antiquity this year. A quick google revealed this brief text on the Roman Republic.
Mouritsen's basic assertion is that the Roman Republic was essentially an aristocracy, albeit one in which the power and prestige of the elite was derived from the offices and honors which they received from the populus. This meant that - rhetorically and ideologically at least - the Roman elite understood themselves as the guardians of the people, above them and yet dependent on them. This system functioned as long as the elite maintained relative consensus. But the breakdown of that consensus in the wake of Rome's imperial expansion eroded the norms which allowed Rome's aristocratic republic to function.
More full summary:
Mouritsen's text is largely a description of the nature of the Roman constitution and how politics worked within it; this is not a narrative text, and indeed at times was difficult for me to fully grasp, because he assumes familiarity with the figures in his study. He begins with a discussion of Polybius's vision of the Roman constitution as a perfect blend of the three Greek political systems (Democracy, Aristocracy, Monarchy). For Polybius, the Roman state balanced these three tendencies by playing consuls, senate, and tribunes/popular assemblies off of each other. For Polybius it was "the interdependency of the Roman institutions" which was central; "none of them could act independently but had to rely on the co-operation of the others, a co-operation that was forced upon each element and essentially was motivated by self-interest tempered by fear" (11). In sum, Polybius's view was that "Roman politics [was] a logical system, in which each element fulfilled a specific role in maintaining the all-important stability" (13).
Mouritsen rejects Polybius's view as that of an outsider, and cites instead Cicero's Res Publica to show that while the populus held the power and were in principle the main legitimizing force in the Republic (the other being the Gods) the senate possessed auctoritas, a "pervasive influence that went far beyond what was formally enshrined in law" According to Mouritsen, Cicero's constitution "is both aristocratic and bipartite, with the populus holding the power but exercising it on the advice of experienced councilors and delegating executive functions to appointed magistrates" (14). The populus was an "essentially passive" group which "did not exist as a political body independent of its leaders" who called it to meet in comitia and contiones (17). This circumscription was justified on religious grounds - the auctorictas of the elite was ultimately grounded in their role as mediators between the people of Rome and their gods. This “represented an autonomous source of authority - embedded in religious concepts and practices - and allowed them to claim formal ascendancy over the populus" (23). In other ways as well - block voting, magisterial control of popular assemblies, restrictions on campaigning - the capacity of the populus to act autonomously and express the "will of the people" was highly circumscribed. Thus we see that it was not exactly a balancing of three constitutional principles which made the Roman republic function, but the guidance and management of the people by the aristocracy.
Mouritsen then turns his attention from Polybius to modern historians who, following him, have looked for the democratic element in Roman political culture. By looking at the spaces where comitia and contiones were held, he shows that they could not possibly have held a meaningful number of the population of the city (56-7). There was therefore a wide gulf between voters and populus. This was not a problem for the Romans, who appear to have seen these popular assemblies as significant on a symbolic and ideological level as the source of legitimacy, but were not intended to express the popular will. Although institutions and ideas made it conceivable that citizens could participate in politics, practical limits on those institutions (especially the extent of magisterial control of comitia and contiones) meant that for the small minority who attended assemblies, they were compliant subjects rather than political actors (91-2).
Public office was "the source and measure of dignitas and auctoritas, and crucially it was the populus that assumed the role of external arbiter in the elite's ongoing contest over power and influence, dispensing the vital honores" (96). This made the aristocratic character of Rome different from contemporary Greece and from many other aristocracies throughout history. The source of aristocratic prestige came from below, rather than from above, and produced a view among the aristocrats of themselves as the guardians of the people (96-97). Military service also helped to form bonds across roman social divides, by allowing all soldiers to see their interests (in spoils and glory) as aligned with the nobilitas (99-104). This affinity of interests was the central pillar in the whole Roman political system. "All participants in public life appear to have subscribed to a unified vision of the res publica, in which the senate's auctoritas and the people's libertas were not defined in opposition to each other. They were complimentary and inseparable precisely because the elite saw itself as the protectors of the public interest" (163).
The final section of the book is the one which is most interested in historical narrative and change over time. Mouritsen is critical of the tripartite framing of an early, classic, and late republic, suggesting that the framing of the classic republic as a period of idyllic consensus was a later historical invention; in reality, he argues, conflict was just as endemic then (106-111). Likewise, he argues that the ideological framing of Roman politics as a conflict between populares and optimates is incoherent and ahistorical - figures normally associated with either side are difficult to pin down ideologically. For example, Cato, the ultimate optimate, promoted a grain law in 62 BCE; Sulla confiscated and redistributed more land in Italy than any other Roman politician; Caesar reduced grain recipients in Rome during the dictatorship (113-114). This picture also appears substantially supported by Sallust and Cicero, the foremost contemporary sources on "late-republic" politics. Political opinion could be divided, but not into consistent or clear-cut party lines (148).
Mouritsen closes with a fairly conventional interpretation of the Republic's collapse, sans the ideological component. In Mouritsen's telling, consensus was critical to the functioning of the Roman Republic, which was fundamentally an aristocracy. The difficulty was ensuring that the aristocracy remained balanced. This became all but impossible with Roman expansion. The influx of wealth and booty from Roman conquests was not evenly distributed; furthermore, it raised the costs associated with the pursuit of office (169). Conflict within the elite became more intense as the stakes rose, leading to increased violation of norms surrounding aristocratic consensus. This was more than the system could bear. The "complete breakdown of elite consensus" (170) caused by this inequality led to norm-shattering behavior which destroyed the Republic. The Roman political system "worked because of strong social cohesion underpinned by a powerful ideological framework often summed up in the concept of mos maiorum, the traditions and norms passed down from the ancestors. When observance of this unwritten code of conduct began to weaken, the flaws in the constitution became all too apparent." The Republic lasted so long "despite her constitution" rather than because of it as Polybius asserted (166).
Mouritsen's basic assertion is that the Roman Republic was essentially an aristocracy, albeit one in which the power and prestige of the elite was derived from the offices and honors which they received from the populus. This meant that - rhetorically and ideologically at least - the Roman elite understood themselves as the guardians of the people, above them and yet dependent on them. This system functioned as long as the elite maintained relative consensus. But the breakdown of that consensus in the wake of Rome's imperial expansion eroded the norms which allowed Rome's aristocratic republic to function.
More full summary:
Mouritsen's text is largely a description of the nature of the Roman constitution and how politics worked within it; this is not a narrative text, and indeed at times was difficult for me to fully grasp, because he assumes familiarity with the figures in his study. He begins with a discussion of Polybius's vision of the Roman constitution as a perfect blend of the three Greek political systems (Democracy, Aristocracy, Monarchy). For Polybius, the Roman state balanced these three tendencies by playing consuls, senate, and tribunes/popular assemblies off of each other. For Polybius it was "the interdependency of the Roman institutions" which was central; "none of them could act independently but had to rely on the co-operation of the others, a co-operation that was forced upon each element and essentially was motivated by self-interest tempered by fear" (11). In sum, Polybius's view was that "Roman politics [was] a logical system, in which each element fulfilled a specific role in maintaining the all-important stability" (13).
Mouritsen rejects Polybius's view as that of an outsider, and cites instead Cicero's Res Publica to show that while the populus held the power and were in principle the main legitimizing force in the Republic (the other being the Gods) the senate possessed auctoritas, a "pervasive influence that went far beyond what was formally enshrined in law" According to Mouritsen, Cicero's constitution "is both aristocratic and bipartite, with the populus holding the power but exercising it on the advice of experienced councilors and delegating executive functions to appointed magistrates" (14). The populus was an "essentially passive" group which "did not exist as a political body independent of its leaders" who called it to meet in comitia and contiones (17). This circumscription was justified on religious grounds - the auctorictas of the elite was ultimately grounded in their role as mediators between the people of Rome and their gods. This “represented an autonomous source of authority - embedded in religious concepts and practices - and allowed them to claim formal ascendancy over the populus" (23). In other ways as well - block voting, magisterial control of popular assemblies, restrictions on campaigning - the capacity of the populus to act autonomously and express the "will of the people" was highly circumscribed. Thus we see that it was not exactly a balancing of three constitutional principles which made the Roman republic function, but the guidance and management of the people by the aristocracy.
Mouritsen then turns his attention from Polybius to modern historians who, following him, have looked for the democratic element in Roman political culture. By looking at the spaces where comitia and contiones were held, he shows that they could not possibly have held a meaningful number of the population of the city (56-7). There was therefore a wide gulf between voters and populus. This was not a problem for the Romans, who appear to have seen these popular assemblies as significant on a symbolic and ideological level as the source of legitimacy, but were not intended to express the popular will. Although institutions and ideas made it conceivable that citizens could participate in politics, practical limits on those institutions (especially the extent of magisterial control of comitia and contiones) meant that for the small minority who attended assemblies, they were compliant subjects rather than political actors (91-2).
Public office was "the source and measure of dignitas and auctoritas, and crucially it was the populus that assumed the role of external arbiter in the elite's ongoing contest over power and influence, dispensing the vital honores" (96). This made the aristocratic character of Rome different from contemporary Greece and from many other aristocracies throughout history. The source of aristocratic prestige came from below, rather than from above, and produced a view among the aristocrats of themselves as the guardians of the people (96-97). Military service also helped to form bonds across roman social divides, by allowing all soldiers to see their interests (in spoils and glory) as aligned with the nobilitas (99-104). This affinity of interests was the central pillar in the whole Roman political system. "All participants in public life appear to have subscribed to a unified vision of the res publica, in which the senate's auctoritas and the people's libertas were not defined in opposition to each other. They were complimentary and inseparable precisely because the elite saw itself as the protectors of the public interest" (163).
The final section of the book is the one which is most interested in historical narrative and change over time. Mouritsen is critical of the tripartite framing of an early, classic, and late republic, suggesting that the framing of the classic republic as a period of idyllic consensus was a later historical invention; in reality, he argues, conflict was just as endemic then (106-111). Likewise, he argues that the ideological framing of Roman politics as a conflict between populares and optimates is incoherent and ahistorical - figures normally associated with either side are difficult to pin down ideologically. For example, Cato, the ultimate optimate, promoted a grain law in 62 BCE; Sulla confiscated and redistributed more land in Italy than any other Roman politician; Caesar reduced grain recipients in Rome during the dictatorship (113-114). This picture also appears substantially supported by Sallust and Cicero, the foremost contemporary sources on "late-republic" politics. Political opinion could be divided, but not into consistent or clear-cut party lines (148).
Mouritsen closes with a fairly conventional interpretation of the Republic's collapse, sans the ideological component. In Mouritsen's telling, consensus was critical to the functioning of the Roman Republic, which was fundamentally an aristocracy. The difficulty was ensuring that the aristocracy remained balanced. This became all but impossible with Roman expansion. The influx of wealth and booty from Roman conquests was not evenly distributed; furthermore, it raised the costs associated with the pursuit of office (169). Conflict within the elite became more intense as the stakes rose, leading to increased violation of norms surrounding aristocratic consensus. This was more than the system could bear. The "complete breakdown of elite consensus" (170) caused by this inequality led to norm-shattering behavior which destroyed the Republic. The Roman political system "worked because of strong social cohesion underpinned by a powerful ideological framework often summed up in the concept of mos maiorum, the traditions and norms passed down from the ancestors. When observance of this unwritten code of conduct began to weaken, the flaws in the constitution became all too apparent." The Republic lasted so long "despite her constitution" rather than because of it as Polybius asserted (166).
July 5, 2023
Instead of a review, a thought: It is the quality of the political elites that matters, large parts of the population live their lives anyway. This sums up Weber's idea: if the quality of political elites is no better than that of pigs, and the intellectual rectitude and aristocracy resides in the plebs, who are excluded from higher ranks and higher positions, then the whole is misgoverned and the majority falls into neglect and corruption because they have no superior people to govern them. Amusingly, in the "Saturnium Regnum", at least the mockery of this age that turned into "Kali Yuga" by collective ill-will and corrupt status-quo preservation by the "elites", quite a number of potential leaders have been driven insane, destroyed, slandered or involved in corruption, murder and suicide, and the idiots who are easy to control, the mean, the mediocre, the arrogant and the stupid have been elevated - it is easier to control imbeciles and religious morons than people with will, values and strength, but was not the destruction planned beforehand anyway? Compare with the Confucian hydraulic societies, Kautilya's Arthashastra and Kamandaki's "On Politics". I'm whiling my time away before death, my spirit belongs to Gods, since all my thaumaturgic, theurgic efforts were rendered useless and levelled to the ground level of hells, not even mentioning compromising any socio-political influence and reforms that were succintly destroyed before they begun.
November 4, 2022
A grad student friend recommended this book along with another of a similar title (by C. Barber) given my interest in an overview of the Roman Republic. Mouritsen's book offers the non-specialist an excellent sense of the more advanced features of Roman politics that you won't find in a textbook or very basic work on ancient history. I would recommend it to anyone seeking a deeper sense of the political landscape, especially those interested in drawing comparisons between the Republic's end and the current state of 'Western' democracies.
July 26, 2023
Among the best books for exploring the complex institutions of the Roman Republic. It manages the rare feat of being extraordinarily informative and persuasive while not getting lost in technical jargon. I continue to regard this book as an essential read for anyone interested in Roman political theory.
August 4, 2021
Excellent history that is easy to read. The scope is huge for such a small tome but somehow the author writes a massively interesting and enlightening work that is also quick to read. Mouritsen also makes a memorable argument against the traditional "optimate" vs. "populare" dichotomy.
December 17, 2025
It approaches its subject without preconceived ideas and then, based on archaeology and the physical layout of the city, redefines how politics must have actually functioned. One of the most compelling and complete accounts, it shows a Republic that could actually have existed
September 29, 2020
excellent
fascinating examination of republican politics and deals out a fair bit of myth busting too. yet again, a reminder oh how alien the roman world is to us
fascinating examination of republican politics and deals out a fair bit of myth busting too. yet again, a reminder oh how alien the roman world is to us
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews