July
14
/ 2025
Forms of governance tend to evolve through stress testing and adaptation, sometimes in response to crises, sometimes through civil conflict and sometimes just to attain some particular objective; violent revolution though, tends to be rare, which is probably why dates like 1649, 1789 and 1917 stick in the mind. Rome was no different. According to its earliest history, Rome was a monarchy which had arisen in the eighth century BC and which was swept away by a revolt of the great and good, the patrician aristocracy, and replaced by a republic administered by these same patricians and therefore best described as an oligarchy. By the mid-fifth century, though, those outside the charmed circle of leading families – patricians – whose
