Optimates and populares
Optimates and populares are labels applied to politicians, political groups, traditions, strategies, or ideologies in the late Roman Republic. There is "heated academic discussion" as to whether Romans would have recognised an ideological content or political split in the label.
Among other things, optimates have been seen as supporters of the continued authority of the senate, politicians who operated mostly in the senate, or opponents of the populares. The populares have also been seen as focusing on operating before the popular assemblies, generally in opposition to the senate, using "the populace, rather than the senate, as a means ". References to optimates and populares are found among the writings of Roman authors of the 1st century BC. The distinction between the terms is most clearly established in Cicero's Pro Sestio, a speech given and published in 56 BC, where he framed the two labels against each other.
With the publication of the Römische Geschichte in the 1850s, the German historian Theodor Mommsen set the enduring and popular interpretation that optimates and populares represented political parties, which he implicitly compared to the German liberal and conservative parties of his own day. Mommsen's paradigm, however, has been criticised by generations of historians, first by Friedrich Münzer, followed by Ronald Syme, who considered that Roman politics was marked by familial and individual ambitions, not parties. Other historians have pointed to the impossibility of applying such labels to many individuals, who could pretend to be popularis or optimas as they saw fit; the careers of Drusus or Pompey are for example impossible to fit into one "party". Ancient usage was also far from clear: even Cicero, while linking optimates to Greek aristokratia, also used the word populares to describe politics "completely compatible with... honourable aristocratic behaviour".
As a result, modern historians do not recognise any "coherent political party" under either populares or optimates, nor do those labels lend themselves easily to comparison with a modern left–right split. Democratic interpretations of Roman politics, however, have pushed for a re-evaluation which attributes an ideological tendency – e.g. populares believing in popular sovereignty – to the labels.
Meaning
With the publication of the Römische Geschichte in the 1850s, the German historian Theodor Mommsen set the enduring and popular interpretation that optimates and populares represented aristocratic and democratic parliamentary-style political parties, with the labels emerging around the time of the Gracchi. His interpretation "owe much to nineteenth century German liberal thought". Classicists today, however, generally agree that neither optimate or popularis referred to political parties: "It is common knowledge nowadays that populares did not constitute a coherent political group or 'party' ".Unlike in modern times, Roman politicians stood for office on the basis of their personal reputations and qualities rather than with a party manifesto or platform. For example, the opposition to the First Triumvirate failed to act as a united front with coherent coordination of its members, acting instead on an ad hoc basis with regular defections to and from those opposing the political alliance depending on the topic of debate, personal relations, etc. These ad hoc alliances and many different methods of gaining political influence meant there were no "neat categories of optimates and populares" or of conservatives and radicals in a modern sense. Erich S Gruen, for example, in Last Generation of the Roman Republic rejected both populares and optimates, saying "such labels obscure rather than enlighten" and arguing that optimates was used not as a political label, but instead used to praise a member of the political elite.
Moving away from the 19th century view of political parties or factions vying for dominance, the scope of the modern academic debate focuses on whether the terms referred to an ideological split among aristocrats or whether the terms were meaningless or topics of debate themselves.
''Optimates''
The traditional view of the optimates refers to aristocrats who defended their own material and political interests and behaved akin to modern fiscal conservatives in opposing wealth redistribution and supporting small government. To that end, the optimates were viewed traditionally as emphasising the authority or influence of the senate over other organs of the states, including the popular assemblies. In other instances, the optimates are defined "somewhat mechanically, as those who opposed the populares".This definition relying on a "senatorial" party or fiscal conservatives breaks down at a closer reading of the evidence. A "senatorial" party describes no meaningful split, as basically all active politicians were senators.
A definition to the terms based on whether a politician supported land redistribution or grain subsidies runs into two issues. Such measures were not "the sole preserve of the so-called populares" and "were not per se incompatible with traditional senatorial policy, given the extensive colonisation the senate had overseen in the past and the grain provision which members of the elite occasionally organised on a private basis". Moreover, identifying the populares based on the policies they supported in office would place politicians traditionally identified as belonging to one "faction" into the "opposite" camp:
- Publius Sulpicius Rufus, one of the classic populares, supported policies that had little "to do with the betterment of the populus and in fact appear to have been distinctly unpopular".
- Marcus Livius Drusus, brought agrarian reform laws with the support of the senate, giving his policies a popularis tone, even when senatorial support and agrarian reforms are supposedly dichotomous.
- Cato the Younger, traditionally identified as the ''optimate, becomes popularis for supporting expansion of the grain dole during his tribunate.
- Sulla, traditionally identified also as an arch-conservative, turns popularis for "probably confiscat and redistribut more land in Italy than any other Roman politician".
- And Julius Caesar, traditionally seen as popularis, emerges as an optimate for "substantially reduc the number of grain recipients in Rome during his dictatorship".
Usage of the term by contemporaries also was not highly dichotomised. Optimate'' was used generically to refer to the wealthy classes in Rome as well as the aristocracies of foreign cities or states:
''Populares''
References to populares in scholarship today "do not imply a co-ordinated 'party' with a distinctive ideological character, a kind of political grouping for which there is no evidence in Rome, but simply allude to a... type of senator" who is "at least at that moment acting as the people's man". This is in contrast to the 19th century view of the populares from Mommsen, in which they are a group of aristocrats which supported democracy and the rights and material interests of the common people.The highly influential view of Christian Meier redefined the popularis as a label for a senator using the popular assemblies' law-making powers to overrule decisions of the senate, primarily as a political tactic to get ahead in Roman politics. In this view, a populares politician is a person who:
a certain method of political working, to use the populace, rather than the senate, as a means to an end; the end being, most likely, personal advantage for the politician concerned.
''Ratio popularis''
The ratio popularis, or strategy of putting political questions before the people writ large, was pursued when politicians were unable to achieve their goals through the normal process in the senate. This was in part structural: the "dyadic nature of meant that when a senator opposed his peers... there was only recourse available" to the people. This political method involved a populist style of rhetoric, and "only to a limited extent, that of policy" with even less ideological content.The content of popularis legislation was tied to the fact that politicians choosing to go before the people required needed strong support therefrom to overrule the decision of the senate. This forced politicians choosing a popular strategy to include policies that directly benefited voters in the assemblies, such as debt relief, land redistribution, and grain doles. The earlier popularis tactics of Tiberius Gracchus reflected the dominance of rural voters who had resettled to Rome recently, while the later popularis tactics of Clodius reflected the interests of the masses of urban poor.
Material interests like corn subsidy bills were not the whole of popularis causes: popularis politicians also may have made arguments on the proper role of the Assemblies in the Roman state rather than just questions of material interests. Other benefits proposed attempted to empower supporters in the popular assemblies, with introduction of secret ballot, restoration of tribunician rights after Sulla's dictatorship, promotion of non-senators onto juries before the law courts, and the general election of priests. All of these empowered non-senatorial supporters broadly, including both the wealthy equites and the poor urban population in Rome.