Constitution of the Roman Republic
The constitution of the Roman Republic was a set of uncodified norms and customs which, together with various written laws, guided the procedural governance of the Roman Republic. The constitution emerged from that of the Roman Kingdom, evolved substantively and significantly – almost to the point of unrecognisability – over the almost five hundred years of the republic. The collapse of republican government and norms beginning in 133 BC would lead to the rise of Augustus and his principate.
The republican constitution can be divided into three main branches:
- the Assemblies, composed of the people, which served as the supreme repository of political power and had the authority to elect magistrates, accept or reject laws, administer justice, and declare war or peace;
- the Senate, which advised the magistrates, acting primarily not on legal authority per se, but rather with its influence, and
- the magistrates, elected by the people to govern the republic, exercising religious, military, and judicial powers, along with the right to preside over and call upon the assemblies.
The republic's constitution, while malleable and evolving, still had substantive entrenched norms. Institutions such as the consuls, the senate, and tribunes evolved significantly in the early republic but remained relatively stable from the fourth century BC. Starting from a period of patrician domination, the Conflict of the Orders eventually granted plebeian citizens equal political rights, while also creating the tribunate to check patrician power and empowering the plebeian assembly, an assembly composed of the plebeians of Rome, with full legislative authority. Nor was it entirely unwritten, as there were many laws which required procedural changes or changed the number of magistrates elected.
The late republic saw a breakdown in elite cohesion which led to its loss of control over the state to a limited number of powerful dynasts within the elite. The resources of the provinces and a growing culture of political violence heightened competition within the Roman elite while weakening republican political norms that maintained cohesion. The increasing legitimisation of violence and centralisation of authority into fewer and fewer men would, with the collapse of trust in the republic's institutions, put it on a path to civil war and its transformation by Augustus into an autocratic regime cloaked with republican imagery and legitimacy.
Assemblies
In Roman constitutional law, the assemblies were a sovereign authority, with the power to enact or reject any law, confer any magistracies, and make any decision. This view of popular sovereignty emerged elegantly out of the Roman conception that the people and the state were one and the same. With a single law, the people – properly assembled – held the authority to override the norms and precedents of the republic as well as ancient laws long unchanged.There were two necessary components to any assembly: the convening magistrate and the citizens in the assembly itself. Assemblies did not participate or discuss matters laid before them, they heard the speakers put forth by the presiding officer. And after such discussion, the presiding officer could call for a direct up or down vote. Without a magistrate, there would be nobody to legally call upon the assembly; and without the citizens – or at least those who represent the citizens divided into voting blocks – there is naught but a magistrate.
Assemblies did not consist of the whole Roman people as only adult male citizens were permitted to participate. Those who actually showed up to form the Assemblies were most likely overwhelmingly members of the upper class with the time and leisure available for politics. Rome had no middle class shopkeepers: it was divided extremely unequally between the massive underclass and the very few tremendously rich. Until the Social War around 90 BC, Italian non-Romans were prohibited from voting as well due to their broad lack of citizenship with voting rights. That civil war, between Rome and her Italian allies, led to various laws granting citizenship and voting rights to their Italian allies.
Even after the massive expansion of the citizenry in the aftermath of the Social War, however, the Romans made no efforts in republican times to make voting easier or make the assemblies more representative. Votes were never called on the market days on which rural citizens might be present in the city; arcane and time-consuming procedures persisted unchanged. This was in part because the Romans did not view legitimacy to rest in the people qua multitude, but rather, in the few people assembled as a structured assembly observing the rules of procedure and symbolically representing the will of the people.
Procedure
There were three types of gatherings, the comitia, the concilium, and the contio. The first two were formal gatherings where legal decisions were made. The first, the comitia, was an assembly of all Roman citizens convened to take a legal action, such as enacting laws, electing magistrates, and trying judicial cases. The second type of legislative meeting was the council, which was a gathering of a specific group of citizens. For example, the concilium plebis, or plebeian council, was for meetings of plebeians only.The third type of gathering, the convention, was an unofficial forum for communication where citizens gathered to hear public announcements and arguments debated in speeches as well to witness the examination or execution of criminals. Here, no legal decisions were made. Voters met in contione to deliberate prior to meeting in assemblies or councils to vote. These contiones were very common and served as means for politicians to engage with the public and receive feedback on their proposals, although only from whatever crowd that appeared on the day of the contio, which might bear no resemblance to the different crowd which voted on the final proposal. A substantial amount of public business also was expected to be conducted in public and in view of the people, forcing regular contiones for affairs ranging from reading decrees of the senate to renouncing provinces.
Assemblies and councils operated according to established procedures overseen by the augurs. The assemblies did not possess a right of legislative initiative of their own, instead being convened by magistrates and voting only on matters put before them by the presiding magistrate. The power granted to a magistrate was such that he could reject votes given by a voting block and request that it reconsider its choice. Over the years, laws were passed which mandated a written ballot, attempted to reduce voter intimidation, and established procedures to watch over voting and prevent voter fraud. For elections, it was not a matter of who received the most votes, but rather who could first be approved by a majority of the voting blocs. All votes had to be completed within a single day and had to be done again if interrupted or abandoned.
Assembly types
Roman citizens were organized into three types of voting units: curiae, centuria, and tribus or tribes. These corresponded to three different kinds of assemblies: the curiate assembly, the centuriate assembly, and the tribal assembly. Each unit cast one vote before their assembly. The majority of individual votes – all given by male citizens – in any century, tribe, or curia decided how that unit voted.In legislative matters, the assemblies very rarely rejected bills put before them, serving more as a legitimising symbol than a deliberative body. In the middle republic, only a few bills were rejected, mostly due to counter-mobilisation from other politicians. In still later periods, laws were rejected only rarely and under special circumstances, reflecting division within the elite and resulting mobilisation of opposition.