The Democratic Institutions of the Roman Republic

by John G. Matsusaka (USC)

The Roman Republic, an ancient state that overthrew its kings in the 6th century BC and expanded to control most of the Mediterranean over the next five centuries, is not a common subject of historical political economy research. This is a bit curious because the Republic has a claim to being the longest-lived democracy in history (see figure) and was certainly one of the most successful.

The Republic’s democratic institutions included universal male suffrage, direct election of all magistrates on an annual basis, and lawmaking exclusively by citizen assemblies. In addition to these familiar elements, the Republic employed more unusual practices such as electing all magistrates in pairs that had the ability to veto each other, and assembly voting based on groups similar to the U.S. Electoral College.

The Republic has been overshadowed by its successor, the Roman Empire, an autocracy ruled by a succession of colorful emperors, many of them well-known even today.

There are significant barriers to studying the Republic because information on its institutions and political practices is not readily available to social scientists. Here I would like to highlight some of its key institutions that should be of interest to political economy scholars, and suggest that studying the Republic may be fruitful for understanding democratic resilience and performance.

Political Institutions

Institutions are a core concern of political economy research, and it’s a central tenet of field that institutions are important for long-run political and economic performance. The Republic did not have a written constitution – its key political institutions were established and sustained by custom, in a way we don’t fully understand. The Republic’s key institutions were:

Assemblies

The source of all political authority in the Republic was the will of the Roman people, as expressed through its citizen assemblies. The assemblies had two main functions: they elected all magistrates and they passed all laws and made key political decisions such as declarations of war or acceptance of peace treaties. The Republic was both a direct democracy and a representative democracy.

All adult male Roman citizens were eligible to vote in the assemblies, provided they were physically present in Rome on election days. Unusually for an ancient state, Rome gave voting rights to former slaves, of whom there were a great number. Also unusual, the Republic gradually granted voting rights to residents of allied cities within its territory.

There were two main assemblies, the Centuriate Assembly that elected the very top magistrates and had authority over capital trials and war declarations; and the Tribal Assembly that elected all other magistrates and passed the laws. All citizens were members of both assemblies. Voting was initially by voice but shifted to secret ballot in the 2nd century BC.

The assemblies differed in their vote counting rules. Both assemblies used a group voting system – citizens were divided into geographic groups akin to electoral districts – with each district casting one vote based on the majority view of its members. In the Centuriate Assembly, citizens were also divided into property classes in a way that heavily overweighted the wealthy. No wealth classifications were made in the Tribal Assembly.

Unlike contemporary Greek democracies, such as Athens, where amendments from the floor were common and a law could be passed the day it was proposed, the agenda in Roman assemblies was controlled by magistrates. Laws had to be posted publicly weeks before they came to a vote and normally could not be amended without advance notice.

The use of group voting was a distinctive feature of Roman democracy, without obvious parallel in the ancient world. Understanding whether this practice contributed to the stability of Roman democracy is an interesting research question since the contemporaneous Greek cities were notorious for the instability of their assemblies, a problem that did not appear in Rome. One obvious effect of the group voting system was to prevent dominance by urban voters who could easily attend; the interests of rural voters would be reflected in their group vote even if few of them were present.

Magistrates

Roman magistrates (executives) had substantial power and ability to exercise initiative, but Roman institutions took great care to fragment and check their power. All magistrates – more than 60 in total – were elected annually, most for one-year terms, and incumbents were generally ineligible for re-election for a span of years that varied by office. To protect against executive overreach, almost every offices were held by two (or more) men concurrently, who could veto each others’ action. All executive actions could also be vetoed by any one of 10 tribunes. The Republic’s extensive system of checks and balances feels almost modern, and investigating their interplay and role in the state’s longevity could be fruitful.

The apex office was that of consuls, who led the Republic’s armies, oversaw its elections, and handled ad hoc administrative issues. Other key magistrates included praetors, who oversaw judicial matters, aediles, who managed public infrastructure and festivals, and quaestors, responsible for financial administration.

A somewhat unusual position was the tribune of the plebs, 10 of whom were elected each year. The tribunes had no executive responsibilities, but they oversaw the Tribal Assembly and thus served as legislative leaders, with the power to introduce laws. They also had the power to veto actions of all magistrates and the Senate.

There were no restrictions on who could run for office, other than minimum age limits that increased for higher offices. We have only fragmentary data on candidates and no data on election returns, but it seems that elections were highly competitive and candidates engaged in yearlong campaigns.

Senate

The Senate was a central part of Roman government, but the most difficult one to understand from a modern perspective since it has no contemporary parallel. It was composed of former magistrates, who were enrolled for life after holding high office. The Senate did not have the power approve laws, instruct magistrates, declare war, or sign treaties.

Nevertheless, the Senate de facto took the lead in formulating much state policy, including financial matters and foreign policy, met with embassies of other states, recommended laws to the assemblies, instructed magistrates, and sometimes regulated policies in other cities controlled by the Republic – and it’s clear that its recommendations were usually followed.

It is highly misleading to think of the Senate as a version of a modern legislature or parliament. It was more like a collection of former high-officeholders who collectively manage much of the state’s business through the collective prestige of the members.

While the Senate had a preeminent place in governance, this was by custom, and there was no disagreement that the ultimate power lay in the assemblies. The senate’s decisions (decrees) could be and sometimes were overruled by the assemblies, and magistrates did not always follow its advice.

It seems quite likely that the Republic’s long-run performance was closely linked to its Senate. Exactly how it functioned in the constitutional system, and how its authority drew on custom is poorly understood, and would be an interesting subject for research. The Republic’s final decades saw a breakdown of the Senate’s authority as political actors abandoned customary deference.

The Historiographical Debate

It was once thought that the Roman Republic was an oligarchy, in which a small number of hereditary families controlled the government and elections were a mere façade. That view still lingers in popular discourse, even though classical historians have systematically refuted almost all of its assumptions in the last half century. Classicists still hesitate to refer to the Republic as a democracy, preferring instead to note its “democratic elements” but functionally, if it were around today, there is little doubt that it would be binned as a democracy (its main anti-democratic feature to modern eyes would probably be its restriction of voting rights to men.)

One way to put the Republic’s democratic institutions in context is with democracy index scores. The table shows democracy index scores that I calculated for the Republic based on the rubrics of Polity5 and the Economist Intelligence Unit. I also calculated scores for classical Athens.

Polity scores are calculated by giving Democracy and Autocracy scores across five dimensions, and then transforming them into a final score that ranges from 0 to 10. The bottom-line index score is POLITY = Democracy – Autocracy, which can range from -10 to 10. The Roman Republic and Athens both score very high on democracy, low on autocracy. Rome’s POLITY score is 9, squarely in the democratic category. Some comparators for 2018 were United States (8), Japan (10), India (9), Switzerland (10), China (-7), and North Korea (-10).

The EIU scores are based on 60 questions, grouped into five broad categories. Within each category scores are normalized to range from 0 to 10, with higher scores the most democratic. Overall, Rome scores 6.57 and Athens 6.66, putting them in the category of “flawed democracies” with Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, and the Philippines. Both scores are dragged down primarily by the political participation category due to male-only voting and the requirement that citizens appear in person to participate.

This post is based on the more detailed working paper, “The Democratic Institutions of the Roman Republic,” available at johnmatsusaka.com and https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5179765

Author

John G. Matsusaka is the Charles F. Sexton Chair in American Enterprise, Professor of Finance and Business Economics, and Executive Director of Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. His most recent book is Let the People Rule: How Direct Democracy Can Meet the Populist Challenge (2020).