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 members made up an assembly which evolved into the senate, the plebeians, were agitating for their own involvement. Various compromises were essayed in order to satisfy both elements, a process which went on in various forms for a century. A final upheaval, supposedly in 367, led to the arrival at a status quo, in which plebeian families were fully eligible for election to the senate and could put themselves forward for some of the magistracies which had, by that date, evolved. The consulship – the highest permanent office of the state, consisting of an annually elected pair of senior senators – was henceforth shared between the two castes, so for each year one patrician and one plebeian consul was elected to serve for and to bestow their names on the year. The post of aedile was split so that patricians and plebeians could both aspire to it and most important of all, ten plebeians were elected as tribunes of the people each year, with the power to veto legislation.
This dispensation continued, more or less, for the remainder of the life of the Republic, along with the three temporary magistracies: dictator, elected for six months to cope with serious crises; the Master of Horse, his effective deputy, and the Censors, two being elected from the ranks of senior ex-consuls from time to time, to regulate the membership of the senate, enquire into public morals and evaluate the state of public finances, a proceeding supposedly initiated by king Servius Tullius in 566BC. The first plebeian censor was elected in 351.
Otho: an eighteenth century grand tour bas relief, with the emperor’s nomen mis-spelt Silvius. [Bamfords Ltd.]
Most early pressures upon the system of government came from external threats and, as time went by, it became apparent that holding senior office for only one year was not necessarily sufficient to see through a military campaign and thus one could have one’s tenure extended by being voted a pro-magistracy in order to finish the job, although consuls as such were still elected for the year following, rendering proconsuls supernumerary magistrates but with imperium: the power to lead an army.
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Top Image: Constantine, bronze statue of 1998 by Philip Jackson at York [Leila Appleton]
By: Maxwell Craven
