Thematic Essay: Roman Political and Social Thought

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Introduction

Thematic Essay: Roman Political and Social Thought

Thematic Essays combine a broad survey of a particular topic with key supplementary readings to create a comprehensive learning experience. This essay by historian Arlene Saxonhouse traces the development of Roman political and social thought. Accompanying the essay are Sidebars consisting of excerpts from the works of some of Rome's most influential thinkers.

By Arlene W. Saxonhouse

Many of the concepts that influence political life today have roots in the regimes that governed Rome during the 1,000 years it dominated much of the Western world. Various strains of political and social thought emerged when the Roman Republic, and later the Roman Empire, expanded and strived to optimize its form of government. But exactly how did political and social thought develop in republican and imperial Rome?

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In 509 bc a group of nobles who were dissatisfied with autocratic rule overthrew the kings that controlled the area around Rome and founded the Roman Republic. The republican government divided power among various representatives rather than placing it in the hands of a king. In the five centuries that followed, Rome grew from a small city on the Tiber River into a great power that dominated the Mediterranean basin. The Republic was characterized by a struggle between the plebeians, or peasant workers, and the patricians, or landholding aristocrats. The challenge of creating harmony between these two classes captivated some of Rome’s finest thinkers. By the 1st century bc civil wars raged in Rome, and during this tumultuous period some of the most important strains of Roman political and social thought developed.

The Republic ended in 27 bc when Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, founded an autocratic regime known as the Principate. The establishment of the Principate marked the beginning of the Roman Empire, which survived until the 5th century ad and became one of the great empires in world history. The Principate replaced the shared rule of the Republic with the independent authority of a single emperor and ended the political participation of Rome’s citizens.

Both the Republic and the Principate established models of political organization that have since been widely imitated. Great thinkers of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment drew extensively from Roman political and social thought in developing their own ideals for society and government. Aspects of Rome may still be seen in forms of government ranging from dictatorship to liberal democracy. The Republic and the Principate each fostered authors whose writings expressed the principles underlying the political regimes of Rome. The richness of Roman thought is thus captured in a broad variety of sources, including legal documents, formal histories, epic poems, and dialogues.

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Roman Law

Perhaps the greatest legacy bequeathed by ancient Rome was the development of a society regulated by an extensive legal system. Around 450 bc, probably in response to the conflict between the plebeian and the patrician classes, a commission of ten decemvirs, or magistrates, codified Rome’s laws. The code of laws, written on 12 wooden tablets, became known as the Twelve Tables. This codification ensured that all Roman citizens, not just those in the patrician class, had recourse to the laws of the city. The wooden tablets have perished, but fragments survive and other writings refer to them. From these sources, scholars have learned that the laws included details concerning legal procedures, such as methods for bringing witnesses to court, as well as laws concerning private matters, such as marriage.

In private life, the Twelve Tables affirmed the authority of the paterfamilias, or male head of the household. When a woman married, she became subject to the authority of the paterfamilias in the house into which she moved. Children were likewise subject to their father's absolute authority, even if he decided to expose them to certain death or to sell them into slavery. So long as the father lived, he retained authority over the life, death, marriages, and divorces of those within his household. The Twelve Tables also articulated laws governing the control masters had over their slaves and the manner in which the slaves could be freed.

The Twelve Tables served as the cornerstone for laws in subsequent centuries. They were codified when Rome was a small agrarian community, making later adjustments necessary to adapt them to an increasingly commercial and complex society. The Roman legal system flowered through interpretations of laws offered by Roman jurists. Unlike praetors, the officials in charge of assigning legal remedies, the jurists acted in an informal capacity. Jurists were learned men who gave opinions, called responsa, on how to apply the law to particular cases. Responsa formed a body of legal interpretations that served as precedents in the application of laws. Along with discussions of particular cases, responsa and their surrounding commentaries included complex hypothetical cases. Modern legal systems still recognize precedents as their foundations.

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The Roman Republic

After the establishment of republican rule, the political structure of Rome grew to include two chief magistrates called consuls, a Senate of patricians, several popular assemblies, and a tribune of the people. Myths and stories of the early Republic helped to establish heroic models of selfless devotion to the state. Patriotism of citizens and leaders helped Rome’s power to expand first over the Italian peninsula and then over Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean. The Roman historian Titus Livius, known as Livy, recorded many of Rome’s myths in his 142-volume History of Rome (26 bc-ad 14). In one story, the hero, Horatio, defended a bridge against attacking forces while the Romans destroyed the bridge behind him. In another, Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Republic, executed his own sons after they conspired against the new regime.

As Rome became a huge empire, its leaders were confronted with the problem of how to rule distant territories. Rome used different rules for different territories. The Latin inhabitants of the Italian peninsula outside Rome became Roman citizens, but their rights of citizenship differed from those who lived in the city of Rome. Yet, they also had rights not granted to those who lived beyond Italy. The Latins outside Rome had rights of trade and marriage, but they could not participate in political affairs of Rome except as soldiers in the Roman armies. The Romans called their regime a republic, which reflects the Roman view that citizenship entailed rights rather than political participation. The term republic comes from the Latin words res publica, meaning “public thing.” As Roman statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero explained in the 1st century bc in De Re Publica (On the Republic), the state belonged to the people, but the people did not necessarily participate in the state’s upkeep. According to the Roman perspective, statesmen, patricians, and noblemen had special personal and moral qualities. These qualities enabled them to care best for the public thing and for the welfare of the whole state while others enjoyed the benefits of their guardianship.

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Polybius

Polybius, a Greek historian who lived in Rome during the 2nd century bc, wrote a 40-volume work, the Universal History, which traced Rome’s development from the beginning of the first Punic War in 264 bc through the destruction of Carthage in 146 bc. In this work, Polybius analyzes the Roman constitution. He praises Rome’s stability, which he claimed was due to mixing three distinct regimes—monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Polybius adapted the thinking of Greek philosopher Aristotle, who had posited six types of rule. Polybius categorized these types according to who ruled and whether the rulers acted for their own good or for the welfare of the city. According to Polybius, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy were good regimes, while tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy, or mob rule, were bad ones. Polybius believed in a political cycle in which each of the pure regimes ultimately degenerates into its closest counterpart. For example, a benevolent monarchy gives way to a malevolent tyranny. Leadership in the tyranny subsequently becomes divided and is replaced by a benevolent aristocracy composed of a small elite group, and so on.

According to Polybius the brilliance of the Roman constitution was its incorporation of all three good regimes into one. He felt that this balancing of three good regimes into one enabled Rome to end the cycle of political instability. In Polybius’s view the two consuls served as the monarchical element, the Senate as the aristocracy, and the assemblies of the people as the democratic element. Although his description of the Roman regime is not entirely accurate, Polybius introduced to Western thought the theory that a mixed regime will prevent individuals and branches of government from gaining excessive power. Over the centuries this concept of separation of powers has influenced the development of the structure of government in many countries, including the United States government, which is known for its separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches.