THE ROMAN INSTITUTIONS
SOCIETY AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE REPUBLIC
Transition to the Republic: !
-Aristocratic republic: political power firmly in the hands of the patrician families, the aristocratic
land owners!
-Plurality of magistracies: exercised collegially, elective, of limited duration (one year). In order to
prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one person as during the monarchic age!
Senate
heart of the aristocratic government, controlled the political life!
• up to 300 members: it included former consuls and the heads of the patrician gentes (+ minor
magistrates later on) !
•advisory office, whose official opinion (called senatum consulatum, senatoconsulto) was binding
(vincolante), so that the decisions of the consuls and of other magistrates had the force of law !
• responsible for foreign policy !
• the only stable political office: the title of senator was for life!
Rome in the early Republic age had a situation similar to the Athenian one just after Pisistratus
tyranny. Rome however did not became a democracy because popular will, although manifested
in the assemblies, never became real sovereignty: the levers of power were always held by the
ruling elites, who found their strong core in the senate.!
Similarities:!
-hoplitic model of the citizen-soldier;!
-transition from an organisation based on origin to one based on census; !
-temporary and elective magistracies.
