How real was the power of the People in the Roman Republic? The legal powers of the assemblies were wide-ranging. Throughout the history of the Republic, all laws and elections of magistrates depended on a popular vote in these assemblies. Major political (and some other) trials were regularly brought before the People down to the time of Sulla; popular votes often determined issues of war and peace, either directly or indirectly, through tribunician bills conferring ‘‘extraordinary commands’’ (see also Chapter 12). But how real was all this? Wasn’t the Roman Republic, after all, an oligarchy run by a narrow ruling class? Were the various forms of popular participation in politics more than a charade, a smokescreen, mere lip service? And even if they were more than that - how much more? How free were the voters when they voted, and did the wishes of the populace, in the final analysis, really matter? How did the enormous economic and social disparities within the citizen body affect the balance of power within the Roman political system? Did this system include a significant democratic element - something that was claimed by Polybius in his famous account of Rome’s ‘‘mixed constitution’’ (6.11-18), but denied or doubted by many modern historians?
These questions have for some time been at the heart of a vigorous scholarly debate (see also Chapter 1). Anything approaching a consensus can hardly be expected. This, of course, is not unusual for debates touching on broad questions of interpretation. Perhaps, however, there is a deeper reason for the persistent and rather fierce disagreement in this case. Not uniquely, but still to a greater degree than in many other cases, the debate on the power of the People versus the power of the elite in Rome resounds with echoes of our own views, perceptions, assumptions, and prejudices on some of the most vital and controversial issues of modern society and
Politics. This inevitable modern ‘‘contamination’’ of the scholarly controversy might as well be acknowledged, so that we may try to contain and control it.
We may, and should, remind ourselves that our business is to analyze Roman society, not to make value judgments about it; that, for the purposes of this analysis, our own views on democracy and oligarchy, populism and elitism are irrelevant; that, moreover, modern political terms sometimes have a very different meaning than ancient ones, even when the same words are employed. Nevertheless, we find it hard to operate with such terms as democracy, popular power, elite control and manipulation, as if these were purely analytical concepts. In our world, ‘‘dignifying’’ a political system with the name of democracy (or, in Rome’s case, conceding that it had a significant democratic aspect) amounts, almost inevitably, to a value judgment - sometimes highly controversial, often influenced by ideological preferences. Moreover, we are used to various modern regimes posing as democracies without justification, or pretending to be more democratic than they are; we will not always recognize as genuinely democratic even a political system which (unlike the Roman Republic) has all the trappings of a democracy and officially defines itself as such. Finally, a modern critical observer tends to look beyond constitutional and legal norms and examine whether a given social structure can be described as truly democratic. Do we then wish to use this term (even in a qualified way) when describing the Roman Republic with the immense wealth, power, influence and prestige of its elite, with its powerful Senate, with its proud nobles who, in Sallust’s famous metaphor (lug. 63.6-7), passed the highest offices of state from hand to hand?
On the other hand, it may be objected that our reluctance to concede that there were genuinely democratic elements in the Roman political system (i. e., that the formal competence of the assemblies translated itself into real political power) stems largely from an unrealistic, idealized concept of democracy in general, and, in particular, of how a modern democracy actually works. Is not a modern democratic electorate sometimes influenced, manipulated, brainwashed, bribed by the political and social elite - occasionally into betraying what some consider to be its true interests? Do not huge disparities in wealth and social status often go hand in hand with a highly developed political democracy (and sometimes with an officially proclaimed social one)? Is a voter in a modern democracy always free from social and economic constraints? Is not he (or she; here, indeed, there is a radical difference between our world and the ancient one; see also Chapter 15) sometimes influenced by patronage, by deference to social superiors, by family and clan loyalties, by the prestige of a renowned family name, by the power of a dominant ideology? And when the People have voted - are all important questions of public policy invariably settled according to the outcome of their vote? Have modern social elites never monopolized (or nearly monopolized) the higher offices of state? And generally, how far is the life of a modern democratic society really shaped by the wishes of ‘‘the populace’’?
It can thus be argued that many (though not all) of the ‘‘oligarchic’’ features of Roman society and politics are merely another example of the ‘‘iron law of oligarchy’’ in action. This modern maxim asserts that in every social system, including formally democratic ones, a powerful ruling elite will inevitably emerge. Indeed, it has been argued that the People’s power was exercised in Rome (principally through legislation) more directly, and thus, in an important sense, more effectively, than in modern representative democracies.1 In the Late Republic, the People’s power to legislate against the wishes of the majority of the elite was repeatedly exercised by tribunes of the plebs bringing highly controversial measures before the plebeian tribal assembly. From time to time this had also happened in earlier periods. Polybius, in his mid-second-century account, describes legislation against the wishes of the Senate, initiated by tribunes, as a realistic possibility - part of the balance on which the republican system rested (6.16.3). What, it may be asked, would modern democratic politics look like, if every law had to be passed by popular referendum, in a manner comparable to the Roman system allowing each of the ten tribunes to propose laws on issues of highest importance? What, indeed, would modern democracies look like if every year were to be an election year, as in Rome (with the campaign taking up a good part of it, as canvassing for the consulship often did in the Late Republic)? The relative importance of such considerations on the one hand, and of the undemocratic features of Roman politics (including the absence of universal and equal suffrage) on the other, is of course debatable. It is worth noting that in Athens, ‘‘one man, one vote’’ obtained since the days of Solon - long before the emergence of democracy. In a modern democracy, ‘‘one person, one vote’’ is such a fundamental principle that no polity can even pretend to be democratic without applying it. It is, then, highly significant that this principle did not apply in Rome - especially in the centuriate assembly (although the extent of the resulting inequality and disfranchisement is debatable). On the other hand, it is a historical fact that the representative system has been advocated, in preference to direct democracy - for example, by the authors of the ‘‘Federalist Papers’’ - precisely on the grounds that it made it possible to ‘‘tame’’ the dangerous power of the masses. The American ‘‘founding fathers’’ were willing to accept wide (though not universal) popular suffrage, but not a direct power of political decision-making by the People.
These observations may produce in some, instead of openness to the idea that certain features of Roman politics were genuinely democratic, a cynical dismissal of democracy in general. But this need not be so. What the ‘‘iron law of oligarchy’’ asserts is that there is always an oligarchy - not that all oligarchies are alike, that powerful elites are necessarily (or even typically) all-powerful and free to disregard the people’s wishes, that constitutional structures are merely a charade, or that public opinion doesn’t matter. Thus, while it is obvious that any account of the Roman assemblies’ legal powers cannot be regarded as ‘‘the whole story,’’ we should not therefore assume that it is not an important - perhaps very important, vitally important - part of it. Or should we? Given the well-known formal and informal constraints and limitations, how important, in the final analysis, could the power of the Roman People be? While I strongly incline to the view that the power accorded to the People was, so far from being mere charade, a vitally important part of the republican political system, it might as well be admitted that there can probably be no clear-cut, ‘‘scientifically objective’’ answer to such a question.
World History
