Recent debate has concentrated very much on the issue of how the system of the Republic should be assessed. Differing views on this have led to the reexamination of many of the basic practices, particularly in the later Republic, where the evidence is so much stronger, but also in earlier periods. On what has in the past proved the dominant view,46 the constitutional set-up, as described, e. g., by Polybius, had little to do with the realities of power, except as a framework within which the dominant elite operated. Control, on this view, was exercised wholly by a landowning oligarchy of noble families, which succeeded in monopolizing access to the senior magistracies, in manipulating the business of the Senate in its own interest, and in controlling the actual voting by a mixture of persuasion and bribery, but above all through their long-term influence over their dependants, who included many citizens and the descendants of their freed slaves. The picture offered was therefore one in which there was virtually no limit during the middle republican centuries to the dominance of the great patrician and plebeian noble families. These families did indeed compete for office, for commands, and for the profits that could be derived from commands; but they did so to an extent that did not admit outsiders into the circle of power and therefore did not compromise the complete domination exercised by their class. Quite elaborate techniques were devised by scholars to extract from evidence, often consisting of no more than lists of names, theories as to which families worked together in long-term alliances, which were hostile to one another (see also Chapter 1).47
The plausibility of these ideas always depended on treating the late republican period as radically different from the preceding centuries. With the revival progressively from 133 onward of tribunician resistance to senatorial control over decision making, political life in the late Republic became competitive and violent in ways inconceivable in earlier centuries. One possible factor in the change was the introduction of the secret ballot in the 130s, which may have destroyed the capacity of the noble families to check how their clients voted (see Chapter 19).
Since the mid-1980s a counter-theory has been developed that seeks to bring out the democratic elements and even to claim that the constitution of the Romans should be seen as democratic in its essential nature.48 The argument is based on the reversal in two respects of the dominant theory’s assumptions: first, it treats Polybius’ analysis of the constitution as first-class evidence; secondly, it uses the rich evidence from Cicero’s productive years in the 60s and 50s as evidence of Roman political ideas, assumptions, and attitudes. There is no argument that Cicero’s speeches and letters reveal his constant concern with the state of public opinion among the People of Rome. To a great extent, he fears it and fears the success of his enemies in manipulating it to suit their own purposes, especially in the case of his archenemy Clodius. There is all the same an assumption behind what he writes that voting in the assemblies is of the highest importance; this is not a culture in which the ruling elite can afford to ignore popular wishes. There is a good deal of evidence to support this basic perception. So far as elections go, a late republican pamphlet - the Handbook on Electioneering (Commentariolum petitionis) - gives a cynical analysis of how to win votes: persuasion, promises, personal approaches, canvassing in the Forum, using all possible influence, and so on. There is much evidence of, or at least constant allegations of, the massive use of bribery by politicians, and enormous sums were spent putting on entertainments to please the voters: nobody spends money buying votes that do not matter.49 In the case of legislation, there is repeated evidence that laws were sometimes passed of which the senatorial majority strongly disapproved.
This view has been powerfully argued and attracted support; and few seem currently to wish to defend the old dominant view in its extreme form. But there have also been strong reactions.50 The democratic view rests very strongly on the evidence of the constitution; but that assumes precisely that descriptions of the constitution can be taken as at least approximating to the political realities at some point in time. As argued above, Roman practice seems to have been far too changeable over time, far too liable to improvisation for this to be at all a reliable guide.51 Again, the interpretation of late republican rhetoric is itself a highly contentious field: Cicero speaks as if the comitia provided satisfactory expressions of the will of the Roman People; but he must have known better than we do the inadequacies of the system as an expression of the popular will. His language may reflect the necessities of political argument rather than the actual conditions of the time. Recent work has emphasized the problems of the voting system itself and generated lower and lower estimates of the percentage of those who had with the right to vote who could actually have voted on a single day.52 All theories have to reckon with the possibility that the voters were in fact only a slightly wider section of the political elite than the senatorial class, and that the whole political process had little or nothing to do with the poorer classes in Roman society, let alone those living in other parts of Italy (see also Chapter 18).53
Much scrutiny is currently focused on the character of public debate at contiones, of which we hear a good deal in Cicero’s speeches and letters. The truth may well be that such meetings resembled political theatre - or political advertising - rather than an ideal rational debate.54 Certainly at these debates, as in all political matters, the initiative rested with magistrates all drawn from rich, powerful families, who monopolized the wealth, the patronage, the rhetorical skills, the authority, not least the religious authority, that Roman society had to offer. These considerations lead naturally enough to the suggestion that the activity of politics in the late Republic would be better understood not on the model of modern preoccupations with the discovery and expression of the popular will, but rather as a highly ritualized expression of the relative powers of magistrates, Senate, and People aimed at achieving the consensus needed for common action (see also Chapter 1).55 Interesting though this approach may be, there are still factors that it has difficulty explaining: actual decisions are taken by vote that the dominant elite deplores; and ideas and policies come to be associated with the two groups of political actors, both populares and optimates.
Underlying much of this debate is the controversy about how far the picture of Roman political culture that can be drawn from the rich evidence of the 60s and 50s can safely be transferred to earlier periods. It is still arguable that the democratic elements in the constitution became important when and only when the ruling elite were deeply divided on particular issues and the comitia became the only place where the disputes could be resolved.56 If so, then the evident concern with public opinion in Cicero’s day can be explained not as a long-term feature of the constitution, but as a function of the progressively more polarized attitudes within the elite as the challenge to the authority of the Senate by tribunes and proconsuls became ever more frequent. A good formulation would be that the constitution from early days carried with it a democratic potential which the dominant oligarchy strove to limit with varying degrees of success in different periods.57 Their greatest assets were their social and economic power, while the Senate’s constitutional position was an abiding vulnerability. In the late Republic, the personal restraints on which the system once depended had given way to an individualism to which there was no quick enough answer.
World History
