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T'\ [Jemocracy History, Theory, Practice Plural Autonomy: Roman and Later Republicanism Sanford Lakoff Athenian democracy-as the direct self-government of an entire community--did not set an example that later societies would seek to emulate; Roman republicanism-a form of balanced or mixed govemment in which public opinion had only a restricted role and in which power was divided among different assemblies, with an aristocratic senate the most important--did provide such a model. Although the republic was succeeded by an imperial monarchy, it provided a source book for republican government that was to be carefully examined centuries late4, when monarchy t)l r WestviewPress A D it i s ion o/ HarperCollin sP*blishers ( nre) came under attack and opponents sought a practical alternative. Roman republicanism resembled Athenian democracy in locating ultimate authority in the citizenry, but differed in dividing legislative and elective authority among several assemblies. Because of the Roman example, a republic came to be understood as a system of mixed or divided government combining monarchy, aristocracy, and popular government in what was often thought to be the most stable political arrangement. The Roman constitution was also "rnixed" in the sense that it distributed power among various constituencies, based upon kinship, status, place of residence, and wealth. In the popular assemblies, voting was by group rather than by individual suffrage. The balance or equilibrium among these constituencies was thought to provide a form of power sharing among the major groups composing society, but one that respected the need for social hierarchy. In recognizing the political legitimary of these groupings or factions, Roman republicanism differed from Athenian democracy, which united all citizens in a single assembly and gave much less recognition to differences of wealth. It may therefore be thought of as introducing a form of "plural autonomy" modifying the communal autonomy claimed as much by the Roman cioi fas as by the Greekpolls. As a result, when a Roman citizen went into battle to defend his city or to extend its poweq, he fought both as a proud Roman citizen, exhibiting patriotic "civic virtue," and as a member 65 History a class-divided army carrying a banner inscribed SPQR, for "the Senate and People of Rome." At home, the same citizen would be identified with different parties whose struggle for control was sometimes so divisive as to lead to intemecine warfare. Along with its greater size and pluralistic characteX, other factors also made the Roman experiment more influential than the Athenian in later centuries. Rome lasted much longer and was regarded as the proud symbol and foundation of western civilization for centuries after its collapse. The republic, because it created the conditions for Rome's successful expansiory could notbe dismissed as a failed experiment contrary to human nature or a system of government fit only for a very small and homogeneous community. Memories of the grandeur that was Rome blended the spirit of republican citizenship with the might of empire and associated of both with military and organizational prowess. When opponents of feudalism and absolutism sought an alternative that would create an operational and not merely theoretical form of popular sovereignty, they were able to point to the history of Rome and they found in Roman law and political practices a veritable handbook of procedure. The fact that the Roman Republic had been more oligarchic thanAthenian democracy made it more congenial to aristocratic and upper middle class reformers who feared that unbridled popular sovereignty would lead to mob ru-le, but the fact that over time the powers of the plebeian assembly had been greatly strengthened also made it appealing to champions of a broadened franchise. The Roman model, with its elaborate constitutional engineering and its stress on law and the authority of magistrates, seemed less susceptible to demagoguery and incompetence than the Atheniary which hadbeen roundly criticized by the city's own philosophers on that score. Rome had suffered even more than Athens from corruptiory as sallust and other historians had pointed out, but this could be guarded against by drawing lessons from Roman failures (especially by avoiding the conditions of poverty and dependence that helped produced caesarism) and emulating its elforts to inculcate patriotic loyalty and an ethic of civic virtue. outrigrrt democrats found Roman republicanism a source of inspiration because it yielded a more expansive concept of citizenship than the Athenian polrs and because the struggle of the orders resulted in a gradual widening of popular participatior; coming close, in the revolt led by the brothers Gracchi, to establishing a much more democratic constitution. When later republicans sought to imitate the Roman example, they sought to emulate both its emphasis on civic virtue and its recognition of the pragmatic benefits of checks and balances, functional and social, in preventing €rny one group from monopolizing power. Under the influence of natura-l rights-social contract theory, howevel, the association of republicanism with social hierarchy was at first muted and then all but Plural Autonomy: Roman and Later Republicanism abandoned. what was retained was the commitment to functionally mixed goverrunent and a pluralism of sociopolitical groups-interests, iactions, and parties-as well as the understanding tliat republican govemment requires civic virtue. when republicanism also became a sinonym for popular representative goverrunent, often unicameral and based on universal suffrage, the difference between republicanism and democracy became more a matter of historical connotation than political reality. Before the revival of republicanism, however, th; entire Roman experience was put under a cloud because of the Christian denunciation o? pag""ir-t" teachings and the use made of religious teachings by the pri-u beneficiaries of feudalism. All that was Greet and Romanland not merelv their pantheism, was condemned as idolatrous, including attachment to the "earthly city," whether polis or cioitas. A "great chain-of being,, was said to extend downward from the heavens and to assign everyone a place in the social hierarchy. As the unity of Christendomlequired subordination to a single church headed by a single bishop, so tire unity of society was held to require subordination to a single temporal oider under a Christian king. Even within the idealized " corpus christinnum," howeveq, dissension had to be dealt with. when it was not ruthlessly suppressed in campaigns against heresy but allowed to express itself in churchibuncils, the mediei,at church provided an experience of self-government that helped prepare the way for the reappearance of secular republicanism. The 'tort iuur movement,, led by figures like Marsilius of Padua, Nicholas of Cusa, and John of paris, championed representative goverrunent both for the church and for secular society. some heretical movements repudiated episcopacy and called instead for covenentalism, a tendency which finally found political expression_among groups like the Levellers among the Lngfish Furitans. when the Protestant revolt created a schism of faith that could not be resolved by the wars of religion, the way was finaily open for the toleration and separation of church and state that became a bulwark of modern democracy- substantively, Protestantism also provided powerful support for secular individualism, both in economic and political behavior, even though its leaders usually preached political quietism and support for Protestant princes. The Rise of the Roman Republic Rome differed from AJhens in encompassing a larger territory with a more varied populace. "The difference between the Greek polis and the La$rr ciaitas," A. N. sherwin-white has pointed out, "corresponds to the differencebetweenthemountains of Greece and thehills of Lati'um.,, Latium plain not broken by impassable mountains but encircled by hills. ig-a \A/hereas the Athenians had no choice but to remain within Attica and to 68 History found colonies and make alliances by seaborne expeditions, Rome could more readily expand to incorporate neighboring peoples.r Like the Greek democracies and soon after them, the Roman Republic also arose after a long pre-history in which the immediately prior form had been monarchy. originally a collection of villages on the banks of the Tiber, Rome is thought to have become a monarchical state as a result of Etruscan conquest in the middle of the seventh century 8.C., not as legend would have it, because its eponymous foundet, Romulus, had been a demigod who passed without dying to the dwelling-place of tire immortals.z The conquerors seem to have fused the mostly small villages into a single political unit, with an elective kingship that became hereditary.3 The republic is thought to have arisen in 509 B.C. in a revolt led by patricians (ftornpater or fathe{, connoting clan elders), a noble class of long standing, with the support of the royal military forces, against the tyrarnical rule of the last Etruscan king, Tarquin the Proud. It reached the zenith of its power in the several centuries following the decline of the Athenianpolis, during which the form of govemment that prevailed elsewhere in the Mediterranean world was d1'nastic. Unlike Athens, however, Rome went through a second transformation when the republican constitution was replaced, after it had lasted over 400 years, by an imperial monarchy, which eventually succumbed when the lr.succeeded in invading and sacking br<Llcicrrs *to A.D. Rome in I at first more explicitly oligarchical was republicanism Roman Although into a more popular form of its development than Athenian democracy, maintain is hard to once the principle of oligarchy goverrunent shows that hard the Romans much experience, After popular sovereignty is adopted. that the great divide in Athenians came to understand as clearly as the popular. The very term res forms of govemment is between autocratic and publica implied that popular government is the only form in which all citizens could enjoy liberty. Even aristocrats saw monarchy as a form of domination analogous to the relationship between master and slaves.a Cicero expressed the Roman appreciation of the link between popular government and liberty, even as he also expressed the Roman view that popular govemment must be tempered by respect for superior merit: In a monarchy all except the king are too much excluded from the protection of the law and from participation in deliberative functions, though these rights belong to the whole people. In a government dominated by an aristocracy the mass of the people have hardly any share in freedom, since they have no part in corunon deliberative and executive Powers. And when the state is governed by the people, even though they be just and self-disciplined, yet their very equality is inequitable in that it does not recognize degrees of merit. Therefore, even if Cyrus the Persian was a perfectly just and wise king, nevertheless the condition of the commons-that is, the commonwealth . . . does Plurnl Autonanry: Ronrart anri Later Rcpublicnnisnt 69 not seem to have been one which we should particularly covet, since it was subject to the caprice of a single man. Similarly, even if our clients, the Massalians, are governed with the greatest justice by their oiigarchy of nobles, still in a people so situated there exists something like slavery. And even if the Athenians at certain periods after the fall of the Areopagus conducted all public business through enactments and decrees of the people, still their state did noi preserve its glory, since it failed to regard di{ferences of worth.s The Roman effort to achieve Ciceronian balance involved a constant struggle which ultimately failed when reliance on patronage made voting in the popular assemblies too dependent on bribery and when control over the armies passed from the Senate to military cornmanders. Internal conflicts among the orders led to a broadening of political participation which in some respects resulted in a stronger sense of unity, but the later shift toward populism exacerbated problems caused by corruption and helped open the way to demagoguery and the rule of generals who made themselves emperors. The republican constitution fell victim, the historian Sallust observed, mainly to a combination of avarice and ambition.6 Roman republicanism differed from Athenian democracy in several important respects. Like Athenian citizens, Roman citizens were divided into classes denominated by status and income with different military roles, but these distinctions were far more influential in the structure of Roman government than they r,l,ere in the Athenian. The predominance of the Roman upper class, at first completely patrician and eventually also composed of wealthy plebeians, was reinforced by the insiitution of clientela (clientship), a form of personal dependence unknown in the Greek world. Clients performed a variety of services for their patrons in exchange for protection, and they also provided important political backing, by delivering their own votes and those of their friends.TAt first the Roman republic had separate assemblies for patricians and plebeians (from plebs or common people, equivalent to the Greek dentos) and property qualifications for all high offices. By not providing salaries for elected officials, Rome effectively barred its highest offices to all but the wealthy. Even the Roman notion of aequilas, or equality before the law, differed in connotation from the Athenian id eal of isonomrc, its literal counterpart. Initially, Chaim Wirszubski points out, the plebeians did not enjoy the same civic rights as patricians and had no political rights. They therefore "attached great importance to equality before the law and to the fundamental rights of citizenship. But the right to govern was not considered a universal civic right. The Athenians sought to establish equality in respect of the right to govem, whereas the Romans sought to safeguard their rights against the power of government."8 Although this understanding changed over time, as the plebeians gained full civic rights and a greater degree of authority and access to high office, Rome remained a largely oligarchical republic. A unique form of History group voting, which had been introduced early on, continued to serve as a usefui instrument for the elite to frustrate majority rule. A differential notionof civicfghts allowing for variations in degrees of citizenship encouraged the affiliation of foreigners but was also used to vitiate the popular character of Roman republicanism. The Roman form of govemment became the model of the mixed constitutiory celebrated by rolybius, who cited it as the reason for Rome's success, blending monarchy (the Consuls), aristocracy or oligarchy (the senate), and popular govemment (the Tribunes and the plebeian council). From Monarchy to Republic Thcitus began lis _ Rome was from Annals with the categorical statement that the cify of its beginning in the hands of kings. This claim is consid- ered higNy doubtful by modem historians, even though they acknowledge that local kingships did efst in Italy before the Etruscans imposed monarchy and with it the status of a city-state or ciuitas on Rome.eAll that it is known with reasonable certainty is that a period of monarchy arose during the Etruscan conquest and that the republic emerged afterward. The Etruscan kings were said to have imperium-a teim that came to sum up for Roman jurisprudence everything that would be connoted by the word sovereignty when it came into use in the sixteenth centurv. Thev used the symbol of the/asces, an axe bound with rods, which was of Etuscan origin. The king was not only a political authority, but at the same time the religious authority, military commander-in-chief, and chief justice. He held powerbyvirtue of religious sanction and by force of arms, butnotby popular concession. lhe patres or elders formed a senate which the king'o,ilttt choose to consult and to which royal authority initially reverted on ihe death of the king. The senate would appoint an interrex who would hold office for a-short period before a,new king could be nominated. popular councils called curiae are reported to have had the role of giving appioval to the nomination.l' The king was assisted by several offrcialslppbinted byhim. within early Roman society, the authority of the king was paralleled by the authority of the pater familias. These patres and their legitimate sons formed the patrician order and lived as landowners on the Se.ren Hills of Rome or in the countryside. The patricians had a standing in society that brought with it a sense of social superiority and a still uncertain sense of authority. They alone had ciaitas optimo iure, tt.e full rights of citizenship, including personal freedom, ius commercii, the right to hold and exchange prope*y, ius conubii, the right to intermarry with other members of the gent:s-or dans, ius gantilitatis, the right to share in the worship of the clan, and the political rights: ius sufragii, the right to vote, and. ius honorum, the right to hold office. Foreigners who settled in Rome, either to better their Plural Autonomy: Roman and later Republicanism Zl conditions or because they had rived in conquered territory or had been freed from slavery became t,.e clientes of a_patrician patronis,exchanging serv.rcls and payments f9r the privileg"s thir status accordei ttrem.tt etordeq, the plebeian, had come ryady {uring the mo-narchical p-eriod, i into being, which at first did not have the^"* same legal status as thi patrician, but was considered a motrey co'ection of outsiders, p"rrrup, rormed of conquered populations. The penultimate Etruscan king, servius Ttrllius, is reported by Livy to have established a census and used it to form five classes subdiviaed into "centuries" or hundreds, ail based on wearth, and all with Jifferent tary roles, rather like the four classes established under soron mili_ and Cleisthenes in Athens, except that in Rome those whose fortunes did not meet the minimum were assigned to a single separate."r.tory-u*umpted froT rnj,ury service. The cavalry centuries were raised from the First class, and the burden of supporting the cavalry was said by Livy to have been borne by the rich.12 The p.rocess by which civic rights as well as duties were given the plebs may well have begun because the kings needed their finan"cial assistance and wanted to use theS t? offset patrlcian pressure. The plebeians were apparently keen to make this bargain becauie it gave them a measure of protection for their persons and goods. They received ius cammercium in furr at an early period and won qualified citizenship when civic rights were granted on the basis of wearth and residence ratirer than excrusively by birth. The reforms were not the work of the Etrusc"" ti"g, t o*eve4 and came to fuX fn1i,lrl only after they were "r,iir"ty, a*ing tf," sixth and fifth centuries 8.C.13 It was then that the ptJbeians "*p"jt"J, *"." org"_ nizedalong with the patricians into four urban,,hi6es,, *JuJ^ittua to partial citizenship. The exp'lsion of the Etruscan kings red at first to the replacement of by-two chief executirres, th-e prnetores,who were chosen *gryrc\r annuby the whole body of citizens----organized in various councils-and lly later given the title of ionsul. other offi"iul, were also i^"ruding frte censor, whose function was to assess property, "r".i"a, prepare registers of citizens according to tribe, crass, and military organizatior; and who rater acquired the function of moral guardianship. A"certain number of prebeians were admitted to.me-mbeplip i" the senate,but these conscriptiwere 81vgn only a restricted role. Although kingship was retained, the function of that office became purely religioirs and"ceremonial, until the early part oj urc.rirt\ celtury when ihe ki-ng's rerigious role was removed and assrgned to the Pontifex Mnximus. To decrease the likelihood that the consul_ srup wourd become a basis for a revival of kingship and tyranny, two consuls were elected to hold the office joinJly, ealrr na.ring Jq*iio-", 1po, potestas) and the right of mutual control (ntercessio). rf,e a^uat consurship History was sometimes criticized for producing contradictory directives, especially harmful in war, but it reflected a belief in dividing power as a way of preventing arbitrary rule-a belief which has always been characteristic of republican polities. The consuls and all other magistrates, well over fitty by the time of Cicero, were elected annually by several assemblies, after the early period when they were elected by the military assembly, the Comitin centurinta.rA The patricians recognized that a weak and disunited executive could be dangerous in an emergency, so to forestall that eventuality they early introduced the provision for the appointment of a constitutional dictator who would rule by decree as Magister Populi (afterwards Dictator) for a period of no more than six months.1s The most famous such Dictator was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who was called by the Senate from his small farm to rescue the city, and after doing so gave up the office and returned to the farm-an example which led George Washington to form the Society of the Cincinnatiwhenhe refused to stand for reelection and instead returned to Mount Vernon. At first the populace was organized in military form as t}re Comitia centuriata, which usually convened outside the city at the Campius Martius.lsAlthough in origin a military organization, it gradually acquired political functions. The centuriate assembly gained importance because it was here that the consuls were elected and endowed with total control and that supreme decisions were taken overwar and peace as well on laws. It also had the judicial function of hearing appeals of those condemned to death and pronouncing on their cases as the court of last resort. The political version of thLe Comitia canturiata consisted of centuries, so called because they originally consisted of 100 soldiers. Even after they retired from active military service, members of the various cenfuries retained their membership in them for political pu{poses. The 193 centuries included eighteen of cavalry or equites,LT0 of infantry and five of militarily qualified non-combatants. The infantry centuries were subdivided into five classes based upon ownership of landed property, and one underclass of non-landowning proletarii (so called because their only possession was their offspringor proles).In each class, the centuries were further divided by age into senior and junior. Eighty of the infantry centuries were senior and junior centuries of the first class. Each century cast a single voice vote previously decided by the majority, and the votes were cast sequentially by class. Because the equites were asked to vote first, their centuries were called "prerogative," the origin of the term that would in later European history be used to denote the exclusive right of the sovereign. If the equites and the eighty fust class infantry centuries were in agreement, they there. fore controlled ninety-seven votes, one mor€ than the necessary majority.lz Over timg moneove1 the political centuries ceased to be of uniform size, further advantaging the patricians and wealthy plebeians. Cicero reported Plural Autonomy: Roman and Lnter Republicanism 79 that in his day there were more members of the one century enro'ing proletarians than in ail the first crass centuries combinedi8 Initiaily, the celturfte3ssembly was almost as much an instrument of patrician control as the senate. As pressures were felt to make Roman go.rJ,,,*"r,t -or populal, the rules of the centuriate assembry were .rru"s"".l, i";it remained in control of the upper classes.re The republican constitufion was compreted by the addifion to the senformally tri-cameral:yrt"T of popular assembries. qf.u 1t" Alongside the comitin centuriata were recognized thecunita curiata, compo""J or *r" tt irty curine or ten sub-divisioru of each of the three originar t iues (the Tities, Ramnes, and Luceres), and the comitia ti\ufu, "iu""o, or tribar assembly. T}ne comitin curiata had been estabrished under,"o"";.hy;;an assembly of subjects convened to hear announcements and endorse initiatives. un_ der the republican constitution, it had the largely formar firming the authority of the magistrates to tite auspices""a"riry of con_ in their officiar capacity, and it soon seems to have lost much u.r".,'of its t;tea signifi_ cance.m The Comitin tributa included all mare citizens, as listed in the cen_ sus as belonging to thirty-five territorially defined tributaor ,,tribes,, in the sense of administrative units and, after izt n.c.,voting dishic;; based on domicile. Four of the tribes were urban, the rest rural. New citizens were assigned to tribesby the censors. These new tribes were created to replace the old system of kinship tribes or clans represented in the comitit curiata. The tributa were themselves also sub-govemmental units with the task of collecting the citizen t ax or tributum. Tli.e comitia tributag.uJ";riy the power to elect all the lower magistrates as ""quired well as ce"rtain juiiciar func_ tions and an increasingly importarit role in legislation.2l '-'-'' This tribal assembly consiited of traro bodiel: the concilium plebis, or pre_ beian assembly, probably the first of the two to be created, and the ress formally recognized aiita poputi triuuii,-ortribal assembry of the whole people, as it was commonly called. patricians were excluded from the former but the_y were infruentiar in the ratteq, and even aprebisscifa or resorution of the plebs at first required patrician sanction (auctoritas patrum) to acquire the force of law. Bv ihe thiid century B.C., howeve4 the plebeian assembry had acquired the authority to legislate without restriction on behalf of the whole people.z The patricians contained the power of the military assembry by imposing elaborate constitutional cheiks. Although th;.;'*"b;;rl Jiu","o uy tlte comitia centurinta, their power had to b'e conferred in two stages. The potestas or right to deal with the people and senate was confeirei by the comitia ienturiata,but the imperium-thetotarity of civil, military and judicial power---could be conferied onry by m"co*iti iurii,*ff"Liney conuntil the plebeians succeeded'in achieving a greate*r,ui" |ox9d or thority and power. In effect, the comitia c:uriataratified the election of "rthe History consuls, who could only be chosen from the ranks of Patricians and who had formal and inIormal power in the choice of successors. The outgoing consuls had to transmit tlne auspices-the religious legitimation of secular rule-to their successors by means of a definite statement on their part. In addition, because they served as presidents of the centuriate assembly, who had to narne (nominare) candidates for the succession, they might refuse to announce names they disapproved of or to proclaim such a candidate if he were to be elected nevertheless. The Comitia centurinta, moreovex. could only discuss bills the presiding Coruul chose to put forward; it had no initiating power of its own. ln these ways, the patricians sought more or less successfully to limit the authority of the Comitin centuriata in order to foreclose the possibility that the plebeians might make use of it to gain a stronger voice. This patrician or oligarchical system might have persisted but for the fact that in the fifth century and the first half of the fourth century 8.C., Rome was hard pressed by Etruscan and other enemies and by inhabitants of Latium who rebelled against its hegemony. The patriciate, which had been more open to new recruits earlier ory had become a closed caste which began to be depleted in numbers. As the patrician clans or gentes were depleted, their clients were released to swell the ranks of the plebeians. The patricians therefore had no choice but to turn for help to the plebs, who in turn insisted on greater Power in recognition of their increased military and financial burdens. In494, when Rome was engaged in a fierce struggle with theAequi and the Volsci, the plebeian soldiers refused to march against the enemy until the patricians agreed to allow them to elect annually officials called tribunes (tribuni plebis). As a result of concessions made to the plebs, differences between patricians and plebeiars in respect of military service and tax obligations all but disappeared by the end of the fifth century B.C. All members of the ciaitas were required to serve in various capacities in the military and to pay taxes according to their means.As Rome expanded its control over the surrounding territories and then over most of Italy, those absorbed were granted a Iimited form of citizenship, becoming citizens without the vote (ciaes sine suffragio), which meant that they were required to serve in the Roman legions and pay taxes to Rome, and enjoyed certain civic rights in return, but could not vote in any of the assemblies.a The plebeians, once they had gained more civic rights, demanded that their voting right be given more in-fluence over policy and that the disabilities limiting their participation in the Senate and magistracies be lifted. In particular, they insisted on a series of reforms: authority to legislate debt relief and agrarian reform; the establishment of a written Iegal code, corunon to all, a demand which led to the publication of the TWelve Tables, the first codification of Roman law; authorization of inter-order marriages; the right to serve as consuls and in Plural Autonomy: Roxurr and Utter Republicanisnr other magistracies that might be created, and as mernbers of the senate; recognition of the legal validity of all plebiscites; the right to cast a secret written ballot; and the right of admission to the priestlood on the same terms as patricians. Debt relief was of particular concern to the mass of small landholders who formed the bulk of the rural plebeians. They were compelled to bor_ row frequently at often usurious rates of interesi; insolvency could result in enslavement or execution. The urban proletarians also demanded land and distributions of food to feed their children. Goaded by pressures from both qrrarters, the plebeian leadership aimed to achieveiotal equality of rights between patricians and plebeians in recognition of their eqiral share in the burdens of maintaining Roman security ind power. Theiiability to withhold critically needed support by calling a skik! of taxpayers and sol_ diers put them in a strong position in which to make these demands. The Struggle of the Orders The result was the epic conflict known to classical scholars as ,,the struggle of the orders," a conflict which tookboth social and topographical form: because the patricians lived in the older parts of the ci'ty such as the seven Hills, and the plebs in the newer quarteis, the conflict of orders therefore also became a conflict of districts or neighborhoods. The patri_ cials.yeleclear\' 2 social class, whereas the prebeiins were a ,,pure multitude," in Michel serres'imaginative contrast. The patricians had long ,,been perfectly organized; attached to agricultural property, domestic altars, the tombs of their ancestors, familiar hierarchy, junior bianches, clientele, servants, and slaves. There is an order. The plebs has no social order, no de- Iimited agrarian terrain, no religion, no law, no magistrates. It is not a people, a body, not a group; it is a true collective. It is th-e pure muJtitude. Crowd, aggregatiory populatiory cloud, confusion, herd oi cattle."2a The struggre of the orders was therefore not a class waq, Serres suggests, fought between two organized and disciplined groups, each with iis-own ur*""a forces; it was rather a conflict between "a class and a nonclass." In the process ,,the classical patrician order resists, undoes itself, redoes itsell falfo into disor_ plebeian disorder fluctuates, organizes itself, orders itself, undoes 9*..fu itself, redoes itself, moves toward ordeq,-and falls back into disorde r.,,8 rrt more prosaic terms, the conflict forced the central governing apparatus controlled by the patricians to accept a series of comlromises]Tfiese held the society together, but the unity of the ciaitas oit"n nearly lost in the -as struggle between the optimates-as the ruling oligarchs calledihemselves to emphasize their supposedly superior moial cLims-and their less co_ hesive opponents, who had in common that they sought the supfort of the populus and were therefore called the populares.l6 not History Inpursuingtheirends,t}replebssoughtandgraduallywonbothmore in the oo*u, for the coirc ilium plebis and greater opportunity to take Part The with the patricians. footing equal more a on itt er uodies and offices which was Concilium plebishad, gained formal recognition in a convention of the form th: held-office leadership Its peace. in effect a ireaty of ciric T TWo such ofleader. tribal for word the from triUrt urrup, u i"rrr, derived assembly fices wereireated, a number later increased to ten. The plebeian could (which first at plebiscites by decisions made elected the tribunes, cases' court in judgment exercised geiial and apply only to plebeians), as and individually both plebs the represent to fhe itib.tn"s hid authority "I (literally "veto" to intercession" oJ "right their a group, and they used the within b.ut a consul, includittg fo?fia;jdecisiors of magistrates, 9nly. inviolabilcity.u Tire free exercise of"this right was g'aranteed by the legal of a trisafety personal or authority the to ity of the tribune; challengers bune risked being outlawed or put to death' by The struggle oT the plebeiansfor a greater share of power succeeded of was that first at enjoyed they iight civic several stagfi. The oniy specific and testament, marriage, of rights the civic commerciuir. Next they giined adoption. In the past ihise rights had been denied to them on the gror:nd thaithey entailed religious acts from which plebeians, as strangers/ were barred. New secular f6rms were devised to enable the plebeians to enjoy and ihese rights. Another major advance took the form of the codification proa tribune century, fifth the of publicaiion of Roman law. In the middle resisting, posed that the laws be published in a.code, and the senate, after the Greek of the codes study to iinally agreed to appoint a commission cities of-southern 1ialy. Upon their return, a ten-member commission (Decemairi)was appointed in 451 to draft a new code, resulting after great the founstrrrggte in the La*s of the TWelve Tables, celebrated by Livy as Roman this action, Prior to dation of all Roman public and private rights.28 because patricians by the law had been based upon custom as interpreted of of their virtual *onopoly of the institutions of government- Publication implewas the law which the laws did not make public the procedures by mented and justice delivered, which continued to provide an opportunity too for patrician manipulation, until, at the end of the fourth century, these Thbles, the TWelve of were set down and published. Shortly after the drafting in 445, it is thoughi another tribune introduced a bill abolishing the prohibition of intermarriage between the classes, and it too was carried over the vehement opposition of the patricians' for The achievement of theseiivic rights emboldened the plebs to press political rights as well. Its leaders demanded admission to theComitia curinta ' more influ-ence in ttte Comitis centuriata, and more power for the Conciliunr curiataplebis. They succeeded in gaining entrance into the Comitia centurista when is not clear-and in gaining a larger role in ttre Comitia Plural Autononry: Roman and Lnter Republicanism comrnensurate with their growing military responsibilities. In this council, howevel, wealth had been made such a key organizing principle that greater plebeian participation in effect meant that wealthy plebeians shared power with wealthy patricians. The new power of the concilium plebis was recognized in a series of laws giving plebiscites the force of law provided they were subsequently ratified by the senate. This law was later changed to prowide that the senate must first authorize laws, which would then be put to the vote of the people. It was changed again, finally, in the Ler Horteisin of 287 8.C., to eliminate the need for any senatorial sanction. This was still a far cry from full democratization. No one but a magistrate could bring a biil before one of the popular assemblies for action, and the Senate .s.tully found ways to maintain control over the magistrates.a In 445 B.C. a tribune demanded that the consulship be shared by plebeians and patricians. lnstead, some of the powers of the consuls (notably the census and public works) were transferred to new magistrates and the consulship was replaced by the military tribuneship with consular power. These tribunes, who varied in number from three to six, might be chosen from either order. In 376 8.C., in one of the Licinian laws, howevel, a military exigency was met by reviving the consulship with the stipulation that one of the two annual posts should be reserved for plebeians. once this barrier was overcome, the plebeians gained admission to all other magistracies. Eventually all offices, including the dictatorship and the priesthood, were open to them. The end result of these changes was that the plebeians were ad^itted to membership of the senate in 400 B.c. The plebeian minority in the senate increased in size steadily until it became a majority by the end of the third century B.C. The ranks of the plebeians swelled with the annexations that resulted from the conquest of Latium and the unification of peninsular Italy and as Rome itself became more important as a center of trade. Rome,s expansion increased the wealth and influence of some plebeian families. Military conquests also enhanced the power of the plebeiars, who were the backbone of the army. with the passage of the Ler Hortensia,by which plebiscites no longer needed senate approval, the plebeian assembly became more and more powerful. with the resolution of the con{lict of orders, all Romans except those foreigners who had been granted conditional citizenship became formally equal citizens with the same civic rights and obligations, though with military and political roles and power corresponding to their wealth. The city's political institutions were divided, so as to accommodate both patricians and plebeians, but combined, in order to prevent civil war. Each assembly was founded on a different principle: the curiata on the right of birth (based on membership in one of thirty clan sub-groups), the cen turiata on military role as determined by wealth, thetributaon domicile. This complex system was made to work because a new elite emerged, a nobilitas compoied of History 7B patricians and plebeians, which gave it unify, although each assembly had a faction unwilling to compromise with its old enemies. William R. Everdell sums up the system of shared power about as clearly as possible, given its complexity: The legislative power, based like ours on the theoretical sovereignty of the people, was vested in no less than four assemblies, each elected on a different pattern of constituencies. The old Comitia Curiata, divided by families, still met to elect the rex sacrorum or confer imperium (executive power) on a magistrate. The prerepublican Comitia Centuriata, divided by wealth, elected consuls, praetors, and quaestors, and retained the power to make law. Made supreme n 287 8.C., the Comitia Tiibuta, divided according to residence, made law declared war and peace, and elected the tribunes and aediles. Finally, there was the Senate, composed entirely of former elected magistrates, which issued advices (senatus consulti\ to both the consuls and the assemblies on foreign and military policy. To ensure that all these assemblies would maintain their representative character and that the members of the Senate would remain worthy despite life tenure, the Romans in 443 B.C. created the censorship, tvvo magistrates with the uniquely long term of five years (later shortened to eighteen months). Their duty was to maintain and revise the census, or list of citizens, and to impeach members of the Senate.s Social tensions persisted, and were met by a variety of policies. Usury continued and the burdens faced by poorer plebeians continued to rankle, leading to debtor rebellions. The moderate coalition tried to address the problem by easing conditions for the rural plebeians. In 326 B.C. a law was adopted abolishing the seizure of the person (nexus) for debt. Colonies were founded, mainly for the benefit of the rural plebeians. Booty from Roman conquests was also used to allay discon- tent. Nevertheless, at the end of the fourth century B.C., a clever patrician die-hard, who might also be considered the first Tory democrat, Appius Claudius, succeeded in uniting the unreconciled patrician faction with populist elements among the plebeians. He did so by using the power he had acquired as a leading patrician to infiltrate plebeian allies into the institutions that had become the bastions of power for ihe coalition. The coalition succeeded in repelling his subversive efforts but the reforms adopted under plebeian pressure launched Rome in the direction of rural democracy. Despite these changes, the practi- cal difficulties of achieving effective self-government by 250,000 to 300,000 citizens, many living great distances from Rome, whose assemblies were expected to make decisions affecting foreign regions of which they had no direct knowledge, enabled the Senate to continue as the effective seat of government. Plural Autonomy: Roman and Inter Republicanisnt 79 ldeology of Roman Republicanisn According ta Cicero A_s the republic mature-d, it acquired an ideology. According to cicero, the foremost spokesman for this ideology, the republic is the b-est form of goverlxnent because it is held together by the twin strands of a common sense of right and self-interest. The commonwealth lres pubtical is ,,the people's affair; and the people is- not every group of men, associated in any mannex/ but is the coming together of a considerable number of men whb are united by a common agreement about law and rights [consensus juris] and by the desire to participate in mutual advantagei."sl Libertas or freedom consists not in the power to do as one pleases but to live according to thelaw which applies equally to all, and the law is respected because it is understood to be extremely advantageous to all.32 Republican govemment, Cicero argued, is preferable to monarchy and aristocracy because in monarchy everyone but the king is excluded from the protection of the law and from participation in deliberation, whereas in aristocracies the mass of the people is excluded. Rule by the people, however, is also deficient, in that it does not recognize degiee of merit.s Cicero was typically Roman and republican in believing that although equality before the law means that in principle democracyls the only go-vernment that deserves to be considered republican,s the success or pJpular government depends.ot on mass participation or majority rule, but on the willingness of the ablest citizens to take part in the politital life of the ciuitas rather than withdraw to their private affairs. ln an obvious allusion to the drastic remedy proposed by plato for the ills of Athenian democracy, that of compelling thewise to take part in government, Cicero appealed to a sense of duty as well as self-interest: The It is asserted . . . that political life attracts in general only utterly worthIess men, to be compared with whom it is disgusting, and to contend with whom, especially when the mob is aroused, is dellorabre and dangerous. Therefore, it is said, a wise man does not grasp the reins of government, since he cannot restrain the mad lunges of the untamed rabble, nor does a free man strive against vile and savage opponents, or submit to the lash of insult, or suffer injuries that a wise man should not bear. As if a good and brave and high-minded man could find a more honorable reason for entering public life than the desire to avoid the rule of scoundrels or to prevent them from rendering the commonwealth, while he himself, though eager to aid, looks impotently on!35 Hierarchy, Pluralism, and the Republican Constitution Although in principle the republican constitution was understood as Soverrunen! by the people, as in democratic Athens, there were important irstitutional differences as well as differences in understanding, especially History of the degree to which inequalities of merit and wealth shouid be reflected in political authority. The Roman system did not provide direct seif-government to the same extent as the Athenian system, but neither was it representative in the modern sense of elections based upon universal suffrage. All magistrates or public officials were elected for one-year terms in the various public assemblies. All legislation initiated by the magistrates had to be confirmed in the assemblies. Each of the assemblies, however, had a different characteq, though this character became more uniform in the course of time as the plebeians gained access to all of them. After the Ovinian Laws (339-312 B.C.), membership in the Senate was open only to those who had served as magistrates, offices for which only patricians were eligible. Only after much struggle did plebeians become eligible to enter the Senate. As the Comitia centuriata became more powerful, plebeians rose in power, but wealth continued to determine access to power and influence. The Senate and the other assemblies became in effect arenas in which the patricians and the plebeians struggled for control. In the process, wealth was gradually joined to social status and oligarchy succeeded aristocracy. It is in the voting arrangements that Rome's emphasis on plural autonomy contrasts most plainly with the Athenian emphasis on conununal autonomy. Rome's use of group voting set a precedent for the later use of districting in parliamentary elections and for the electoral college in American presidential elections.s The Athenians practiced voting by group in only one respect, when delegates to the Council of 500 were chosen by each of the artificial tribes created by Cleisthenes. The use of the system in Rome functioned both to make it more broadly reflective of the regional distribution of population, as theAthenian system did, and to confirm class divisions and open the electoral system to manipulation. As the Roman populace expanded to include people with full rights of citizenship who lived too far from the city to take part in the popular assemblies, the system of group voting created incentives for corruption and enabled oligarchy to survive a broadened franchise by means of patronage or clientship. Owing to group voting, a candidate for office in the various assemblies could succeed with the support of as few as a quarter of the voters. The votes of smaller elite groupings consistently outweighed the votes of the larger groups comprising poorer citizens. In the tribal assemblies, the powerful and influential could control the votes of blocs of followers, even though, unlike the procedure for recording and announcing votes in the military assembly, the order of voting was determined by lot. Anyone assured of the support of a bare majority of voters in half plus one of the regional districts could win election even without capturing a single vote in the remaining districts. The inllexibility introduced by the assignment of voters to district tribes made the system particularly disproportionate when the rural areas were depopulated in the second cenfury B.C. and Plural Autortonty: Rotnn and Later Republicanisnt 81 those who came to Rome were not reassigned to the urban diskicts or tribes. These new urbanites outnumbered those from the rural areas willing and able to make the journey to Rome to participate in the deliberations of the Comitia tributa. As Staveley explains, Those who migrated to Rome at this time appear to have retained theirmembership of the particular rural tribe in which they had been registered while they were still farming the land. Consequently, as their numbErs grew, they found themselves in a position to outvote any fellow-tribesmenivho happened to be present from their home areas, with the result that the comitia gradually came to be dominated by urban interests. This trend could very readily have been checked if the censors had taken the simple step of reas_ signing the immigrant urban population to one of the foui city tribes; but there is no suggestion that they ever attempted to do so, or that ih" id"u *u, ever seriously mooted.37 The censors' failure to reassign these voters very likely reflected the inter_ est of those who secured their election. Electorally and institutionally, Rome was a more divided society than Athens. More starkly than in Athens, nobilitas and populus and rich and poor stood apart from each other and opposed. The military assembly might have held a balance of power but it too was dominated by the patricians at first and then by the new patrician-plebeian elite. The of several "*irt"r,"" assemblies with different qualifications for membership instead of one uniting all citizens on the same basis was in iiself a formidable barrier to majority rule. But the patricians could not rule without any check because the plebeian assembly had the constitutional right to cali magistrates to account after their term of office. By contrast, there is no case rlorded of any but a unicameral legislature in Greece.s . Another peculiariy Roman institution which enabled the majority to check the power of the oligarchy was the tribunate. The power or *r" t ibungs was not positive, as was that of the consuls, but oiy negative. Like modem-day ombudsmen, they co rlcl protect plebeians who "were being badly treated by exercising a right of heip o, ouiilir^.They could forbid or veto any administrative act. The Roman republican system functioned to preserve the dignitas of the nobility and at the same time the /ibertas of thecommon people-je Even this h11mony, such as it was, did not come about by accident. It^was the result of the power struggle in the republic between tire old families and the new citizens or plebeians. The plebeians had in effect organized themselves into a kind of state within a state, with assemblies of tieir own under officials elected by themselves. (There is asimilarity here with the struggle during the French revolution between the aristocracy and the newfren of the third estate.) The plebeians fought hard enough to force the patricians History to recognize the right of their officers to check the action of the senate or ordinary magistrates judged to be oppressive. They also forced them to accept the resolutions of the assembly as having the force of law. elthough the plebeians won considerable victories in the early phaseof the history of the republic, a period lasting more than 150 years after the fall of the monarchy, the patricians retained the exclusive right to be elected as chief magistrates or consuls until 367 B.C. when the Licinio-Sextian law established that one of the two consuls must always be a plebeian. Why was their victory not carried forward to establish a more complete form of dernocracy? \a/hy in fact did the administration of Roman govemment remain substantially aristocratic while Rome was conquering much of the known world? During this period the plebeian assembly became a legislative body that normally worked in harmony with the Senate and .tt dut its influence, and the tribunate was changed from an office of oppo- sition to a rung on the political ladder that led to the consulship and the Senate. This harmonization may have been due to the Pressure of external conflict which led to a sense of the need for discipline and obedience on the part of the people. Another conceivable reason is that because votes in the plebeia.r assembly were decided not by the majority of individuals but by tribal ut its, the landowning rural elementpredominated. The more mixedstatus, relatively poorer urban element of the population, in other words, was subordinated until the decay of the republic set in. As Rome's population swelled with annexation and conquests, landless citizens were given the right to vote, but they could exercise that right mainly in the four urban tribes whichwere readily outvoted. These urban tribes came tobe the least prestigious, indeed the tribes in which the most despised members of the population were concentrated. Thus, as Sidgwick Points out, when, after a prolonged struggle the plebeians had established a system of control over their goveming class "so effective that, judged by Greek analogies, it seems likely to lead to complete democracy, they stopped at this point for the two centuries that decided the fate of Westemcivilisation; leaving the administration of affairs in the hands of what in Aristotle's sense as well as onrs may be called an'aristocratic' body."o The struggles between the two social groups were not altogether onedimensional. Th"y involved a clash of economic interests, especially those dividing the poor farmers from those who had more land and sought to control even more. They also led to a struggle on the part of "new" families to gain access to high offices monopolized by the old. The victory of the pteueians in 367 B.C. led to the coalescence or cooptation of the leading ptebeians with the old nobility. Anew nobility was formed in which rank was given not by patrician extraction but by having ancestors who had held ihe highest offices. That left the old nobility with the lion's share of the offices but opened access to power for some previously excluded. Plural Autonomy: Roman and I"ater Republicanism Rebellion and Imperial Monarchy Itis an intriguing question why this compromise worked for so long to quell the conflict between the plebeians and patricians until, in the hlter half of the second century 8.C., revolution broke out led by the Gracchi. Agu''u the answer may lie in the history of Rome's wars of Lxpansion. As Italy was being subdued, the conquered were forced to cede i portion of their land. This land--considered ager publicus or public land-belonged in the first instance to the community, and large portions of it were distributed among Rornan citizens who held it in complete ownership. This was done largely by founding colonies. unlike Greek coronists, theiettlers did not create new poleisbut extended Rome's control over outlying territories. In other cases, those in conquered territories who held office could therebv acquire Roman citizenship. This system provided a network of garrisons and extended the Latin language in such a way that it protectld Rome from assault and enabled the two assemblies to govern an extended i*p"rial republic. Although there were tensions between the colonists and the natives, eventually Roman citizenship was broadly extended. By the middle -banks of the second century 8.C., therefore, the Rome located on the of the Tiber contained 328,000cifu9* capable of bearing arms. when expansion stopped for a time, trouble developed. The demand of the pooreriitizens for land could notbe satisfied.Acentury of conjlict, dissolution, and agony followed through which the republic was transformed into a monaichy. Land reform led to the enlargement of the number of citizens. The senaie pragmatically recognized that it had to accept these reforms, and sought in vain to cling to power. The wealthy and powerful surrendered all self-restraint and became a "gang of venal and avaricious tyrants. To keep their poweq, the plunderers of the provinces threw large handfuIs of the plunder to the people at home. They distributed grainiirst at low price, then at merely nominal prices, they practiced wholesale bribery at elictions, turning yeoman farmers into a metropolitan mob."alsailuit saw the underlying conllict as a struggle between the few and the many in which the bilance of dignitas andlibertas was destroyed: "For the nobility began to push to excess its claim to dign #as, the people its claim to lfuertas;everyonesought to draw or snatch everything to himself. And so everything feli to one side or the othe1, and the res p ublica , wlichwas the bone oi contentiorv was tom to pieces."' Rome moved from-monarchy to republic, and therl after nearly 500 years, back to monarchy. In the period of republican expansiory the central power was held by the senate. It had the power to assign provinces gorg magistrates and allocate troops, money and staff; consisting of exofficials given life membership, it was in a better position than the consuls, wfro wgre appointed annually, to exercise continuous power. I4/hen the role of the consul was effectively replaced by that of theprinceps, who was History at the outset only the nobleman considered first among equals, and the principate became institutionalized underAugustus, republicanism became a veneer for monarchy.4 The transition from republic to imperial monarchy was in the first instance a function of the growing inadequacy of the republican form for the management of a far flung empire, but it was also due to internal difficulties which overwhelmed the republic's balance of power. The causes of change are many, having to do with the absorption of a larger population into citizenship; with the anornaly of a govemment based in Rbme trying to rule over a large country and then a large empire; and with the changE in the character and loyalty of the army. when the Roman legions were still composed of citizens in arms, their loyalty went to Rome; is they absorbed non-citizens, their allegiance shfftia more to the commanders of the army units. The predominance of the cit5r's govemment could not be maintained against those who were the masters of the Roman legions. At first the power of the proconsuls was increased. Finally the emperor succeededinbecoming chief of the Roman legions. Gradually the siaffolding of republican institutions fell away and the unlimited mbnarch stood re. vealed in the form of the Caesars. whery during the third centuryA.D., full Roman citizenship was bestowed on all subjects of Rome, the list relics of the distinction between Italy and the provinces fell away and the city-state disappeared into the empire. The revolt of the Gracchi brought Rome to the brink of a fully democratic-system, lhough it is impossible to know whether their succeis might actually have brought about greater democratization or merely their own personal control. They were tribunes who appealed to the principle of the sovereignty of the people in their demand for military and ecoiomic reforms. The result was civil war. The fustbrother was aisassinated, the second who took up his banner fell in the civil war that followed. one of the causes they fought foq, the enfranchisement of Italians under Roman rule, was eventually successful because the government needed the support of the provincials in war. But as the state was enlarged, and as the generals achieved a position in which to use their legions against the senate and people, the way was open for the establishment of tlie rule of the Caesars. The Roman ideal of libertas, having once been understood to mean that Romans were their own masters, now underwent a complete change. "Now," Wirszubski starkly observes, "they were subjects whose welfire depended on the care of an absolute autocrat who ruled them by direct command. In the last resort their freedom depended on whether their ruler was kind'and errlightened. All that remained of the res publica was govemment for the people."e In thehands of Nero and Caligula, unrestrained power furned into oppression on a grand scale, but even that terrible experience did not lead the Roman people to reestablish the republic. However Plural Autonomy: Roman and Later Republicanism 85 much some may have yished to do so, the power of the m'itary in the form of the Praetorian Guard was-too great to overcome and the m'itary insisted on maintaining the ru_le of u p.L"u- History individuals in courts and assemblies from the thirteenth century onward' repreThe convening of general church councils embodied a principle of inJluencedand prefigures also which sentation of th-e wliole community especially through the conciliarist movement of the late middle ages-the rise of modem democracY.6e The Republican Reaioal The rebirth of republicanism gained important suPPort when RenaisThe sance humanists rediscovered and refurbished the classical legacy. the of the antithesis Renaissance republic was, Bouwsma has observed, and Venice of respublica chrisiiana. The tone of Giovanni Botero's eulogy Genoa is completely different from the earlier christian disparagement of the Roman republic: From good government derive all those good qualities in-subjects-that belong to"civillnd virtuous life, every means for doing good things, all the arts of ieace and war, of acquiring and saving, all polite customs,.all noble manneis, every honored form of politeness. For this reason free cities of great size surpass those that are subject to princes, at once in magnificence of buildings ur,i ir, beauty of streets ind squares, in multitude of people, in variety of arts, in refinement of manners, and own every kind of polity and humanity. venice and Genoa prove it, and Florence and siena did so in their time.7o The new secular ideal centered on the human capacity for virtue-unsense of manliness and the Christian sense of derstood both in the pagan -on incorrigible human sinfulness and incapacity. goodness-rather thin i{umanistic rationalism was skeptical not with respect to the capacity for virtue, which was a function of will and could be nurtured by education and good laws, but toward the power of unaided reason, as the theologianinaa used it, to grasp the absolute-structure of creation and the hierIrchical order of the .tt ine.se. In effect this very skepticism broke the great chain of being that made submission and subordination necessary to the very order of"the universe. The capacity for virtue was enough to entitle all humanbeings to determine their own destiny, and the need in civic life for prosperity required a variety of talents and callings and an oPenness to siudy u.rd dir"o,r"ry. The independence of the republican state from control by religious authorities was the sine qua non and primary exPression of ntettylWttuther the state should be ruled by a prince or people became, in the humanistic mind of Niccold Machiavelli, a function of the degree of virtue in society, but that it should be the home of liberty was taken for granted. The infl;ence of republican ideology spread as feudalism was being dis' mantled by the rise of the nation-state under the aegis of absolute monarchy' Plural Autonomy: Roman and later Republicanisnt At first, however, republicanism seemed too closely tied to a small-scale, communitarian perspective to serve by itself as an alternative to monarchv in the era of the nation-state and the incipient market economy. Federalism was embraced by republicans as an answer to the need for lirger associations, and it was to play a very important role in promoting rep'ublicanism as a practical option. As a practical alternative to monarchy, the new outlook took shape in calls for the supremacy of parliament and in demands for the substitution of the rule of law and constitutionalism for the arbitrary power of the monarch. hr the process both ecclesiastical and secu-lar institutjons experimented with schemes of representation that are properly understood as forerunners of modern representation. The idea of representation took root in the medieval concept of the corporation, which came to be understood as a legal fiction in which lemberl were personified by the artificial person of the corporation. hr addition, religious and secular deliberative bodies were often composed of elected delegates.Tl Before Protestantism took hold in the northern regions of western Europe and brought with it resistance to Catholic monarchs and in some instances a spirit of covenantal egalitarianism, classical republicanism was revived in the city states of Renaissance Italy. A civic coniciousness arose in certain of these cities, especially Venice and Florence, deliberately modeled on that of ancient Rome and providing a self-understanding that stood in sharp contrast to feudalism and seemed more appropriate 6 burgeoning urban and comrnercial centers. Humanism miae tne new city dwellers acutely aware of the potential conflict between the Hellenisiic view that man was destined to live in society as a citizen among other citizens and the christian view that he was formed to live in coirmunion with God and the community of the faithful. This conllict might be resolved in aesthetic terms, notably in graphic art and architecture] as the humanist phiiosophers recast christian belief to endorse human creativity, especially the service of religion, but active civic engagement remained a stum11 bling block until a new ideal of politics took holi. The Renaissance republi.cs were hardly as egalitariarras their eulogists claimed. The righis of citizenship were always restricted; "the people" was understood as the politically competent, a category that did not included the working classes.z But fear of despotism engendered a concern for the replacement of monarchy by a constitutional and parliamentary system of government in which citizens, even if not all ciiizens, could govern the a"ffairs of the city, check the dangers o-f arbitrary rule and the iifluence of special interests, and better protect the state from extemal threats. The doge of venice may have been described as a "prirtce," because he representui tt soverof the state, but he was very different from other princes because " he was subject to the laws of the city and the control of patricians.T3 listy the History which, The republican constitutionbecame a model of mixed goverrunent, with tire support of the classical authorities, was thought to be the best guarantor of order. " Writ"., who reflected the keen concem for civic life, notably Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini, sought to fashion a republican ideal of civic virtue coupled with a constitutionalist emphasis on law and restraints on popular authority. By refurbishing an ideal that had been decried as paancient republican heritage to mod!ui, ttr"y revived ani transmitted the Machiavelli's Dlscourses on the First !*-enropeans.Ta Lr this perspective, the Roman republic he praised kn Books of Titus Liaius, the work in which virtue to the decivic of for promotng hberty and noted the importance than his important more is fense of the iepublican form of govemment, Prince' The more notorioui and much more in{luential book, while Machiavelli was convinced that the Roman republic had incorporated the wisdom of the ancients concerning the art of Sovemment, as ihe glorious history of Rome had shown, he was too much the realist not to rJcognize that the republican form is appropriate only as long as civic republic spirit iJstrong. will inevitabf r.t.c.t*b to monarchy. If the prince were himself "virtuous," not in the Christian but in the Roman sense of civic ttirtus, he might achieve both personal ambition and the civic good, by assuring the security and prosperity of his realm. Machiavelli did not ar8ue, however, that ttre rep.tbn.an foim was inappropriate for large polities: everything depended on whether the people still maintained its civic spirit or was driven Ly baser concerns. The problem that obsessed him, and many republicans after him, wis that the very liberty republics inspire also pro*ho "u-" motes corruption. The loss of civic virfue and its replacement by a shortsighted selfiihness dooms the republic. The corruption that set in when n|me expanded and became an empire was a cautionary lesson, one that also s.rggested the need from time to time of a great reform€r, a "legislator,, lik-e-solon or Lycurgus, who can rekindle civic virtue by reforming the laws. But Machiivelli was well aware that in such conditions, the opportunity for autocracy presents itself, and that ambitious princes would iet out tb achieve \r"ry different goal from republics, the goal of self" aggrandizement. "fohen the republican ideal spread to England, where particularly 1t rylt in the cities royaliststrongholds the outside lived who appealing to those commonwealth The quality' pastoral a more acquired it and universities, imagined by writers like James Harrington was a society of smallholders, or g;ntry which Harrington thought would replace the feudal system with its-emphasis on large estates held together through primogeniture. Harrington's utopian vision was not so much that of a Roman republic bent origlory and expansion as of a peaceable kingdom in which families Once a people becomes_corrupted, he asserted, a PIuraI Autononty: Roman and Inter Republicanint would cultivate the land and live in harmony with each other and the outside world. This was not a naive view which ruled out all possibilitv of conflict, but rather one that stressed the need for mechanisms to regjate and resolve the conflicts that would arise from efforts to engross the public domain or from rapacious moves by commercial interests (the most likely source of corruption) that would attempt to monopolize manufactures and wring the surpluses out of the agrarian sector. The "commonwealthmen,, who set themselves against the British monarchy and its aristocratic supporters and beneficiaries, saw the future society as one in which communities of farmers would manage their own affairs and send representatives to parliaments which would take care of collective business. To prevent the danger of the emergence of a new aristocracy of wealttr, Harrington called for an "equal agrarian," a law that would limit disparities in land holding, and for the equalization of the suffrage so that property qualifications would be removed or lowered to a point where smallholders would hold the balance of power. By removing monarchy, they also thought they would remove the source of expansion and war. Ihe Puitan Reuolt Against Absalutism The renewal of interest in the classical models of govemment had a profound influence on political life in Western Europe, nowhere more so than in England. As movements for popular sovereignty succeeded in challenging absolutism, especially in Holland and then in England, speculation tumed increasingly toward the republican altemative. At the new university at Leydery "the youth of the country were instructed in democratic principles."ro Puritan writers followed |ohn Milton in rejecting the very principle of hereditary monarchy, pronouncing it contrary to natural law and championing the parliamentary cause. In the turmoil of the puritan Revolution, England came close to adopting a republicanconstitution. Once the decision had been taken to execute King Charles, and the Roundheads defeated the Cavaliers, there was agitation in the New Model Army for a kind of written constitutiory an "Agreement of the People" which would have created a framework for a representative form of govemment. The earlier Petitions of Right had at least adumbrated a belief in universal principles of natural rights rather than arbihary privileges. The proposed Agreement of the People declared such matters as freedom of religion, freedom frorn military impressment, and equality before the law as rights that no government could abridge, and went on to call for the establishment of biennial parliaments to be elected after a redistribution of seats in proportion to population. The Putney debates in which the proposals were considered took representative parliamentary government for granted, even though the debates were often spirited on the question of now broad History representation should be. Colonel Thomas Rainborough made his famous observation that because "the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he . . . nothing . . . can convince me, why any man that is born in England ought not to have his voice in election of burgesses." Nor was there anything'in the law of God" indicating that "a lord shall choose twenty burgesses, and a gentleman but two, ot a Poor man shall choose none . . ."76 Maximilian Petty, another radical figure in the debates, summarized the Leveller position: "We judge that all inhabitants who have not lost their birthright should have an equal voice in elections."n Latet theorists like Algernon Sidney, Harrington, and John Tlenchard and Thomas Gordon, would advance more secular versions of republicanism, couched as advocacy of the commonwealth, the anglicized form of repub' lic,ru but the refusal of Oliver Cromwell and the Independents to endorse l,eveller radicalism during the Puritan revolution and the bad example of Cromwell's own rule dealt the republican campaign a setback from which it never recovered. After Cromwell's protectorate was ended, the restoration of monarchy quelled republican agitation and made the focus of re' form the Whig effort to limit monarchy by transferring power to an elected parliament. The republican movement reflected in the writings of the English "commonwealthmen" had a more revolutionary effect elsewhere, especially when it was reinforced by the development of natural rightssocial contract theory 338 Nofes 26. David Stockton, The Classical Athenian Democraal (Oxford: Ox{ord University Press, 1.990), pp.2-3. 27.1bid.,p.20. 32.Ibid., p. 62. 33. Stockton, The Classical Atheninn Democracy, mocracy,p.216. 43. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy,pp.40-43. 44. Stockton, The Classical Athenian Democracy, pp. 15-16. 45. A. H. M. Jones, Athenian Demouacy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957), p. 81. J of Citizenship, p. Aristotle, 76.Ibid.,p.6I. 77.[bid.,p.62. 78,[bid.,p.64. 79. Kagan, P ericles, pp. 269 -27 0. 80. see Karl R. Popper, The open society and lts Enemies (princeton: princeton University Press, 1966, fifth edition, revised). 89. Ibid., p. 83. 90. Forrest, The Emergence of Greek D emouacy, pp. 65-66. Chapter 4 pp. 11-16. 55.Ibid., p. 3. 56.Ibid., p.27. 57. ]osiah Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and Power of the People (Pfinceton: Princeton University Press), p. 328. 60. Manville, The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens, 61. jones, Afhenian Democracy, p. 107. p.79. 1. A. N. sherwin-white,The RomanCitizenship (oxford: oxford University press, 1973), p.3. 2. George 177. the 58. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Charles Forster Smith (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library 1920), vol. 2, book 3, chap. 43, 4-5, p.77, quoted by Athanasios Moulakis, "The Greeks and Democratic Theory: Moses I. Finley's Democracy Ancient and Modern Revisited," Riuista internnzionale difilosofa del diritto, fourth series,68, 1, (January-March I99I),p.69. 59. Moulakis, "The Greeks and Democratic Theory," pp.69-70. 6. - Politics, book 3, n,74,p.726. 73. Jones, Athenian Democracy, p. 48. 74.See Ostwald, From Popular Sot:ereignty. 75. ]ones, Atheni"an Democracy, pp.56-57. 88.lbid., p.77. M. I. Finley, Ibid., p. 69.Ibid., p.7. 70. ]ones, Athenian Democracy, pp. 47-42, 71. Stocktory The Classical Athenian Democracy, p.169. 72. Thus "the diner not the cook will beihe best judge of a feast.,, 86. Ibid., pp. 37-38 87. Ibid., p. 43. Democracy Ancient and Modern (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1985), pp. 18-19. 62. 67" 85.Ibid., pp.E-26. 8. ones, Athenian Demo cr acy, p. \L 53. jones, Atheninn Democracy, \4iet "Tyranny and Democra cy,', p. g.l. jones, Athenian Democracy, p. S. 68. FinJey, Democracy Ancient and Modern, p.86. 66. Van der 81. Quoted inlones, Athenian Demo*acy,p.47. 82. Ibid. 83. Farrar, The Origins of Democratic Thinking, p.20. 84. Ibid., pp 27-22. 52. See Gregory Vlastos, "Slavery in Plato's Thought," in Mastos, platonic Studles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p.I52, note 22. 54. 63.Ibid., p. 3. 64. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy, p.89 - p.27. 34. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy,p.M. 35. Ibid. 35. Ostwald, From Popular Souereignty, p.27. 37. Hansen, The Athenian D emocr acy, p. 50. 38. See in particular Ostwald, From Popular Sooereignty, pp. 3-84. 39. Manvilie, The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens, p,23. 40. Staveley, Greek and Roman Voting and Elections, p.55. 41. Ostwald, From Popular Sooereignty, p. 79. 42. Quoted from Demosthenes, Firs! Philippic,4,47,Hattsen, The Athenian De- 57. 339 65.Ibid., p. 6. 28. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy,p.30. 29. Stockton, The Classical Athenian Democracy, pp. 6-7. 30. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy, p. 43. 31. Piutarch, TheRise andFaII of Athars,trans" Ian Scott-Kilvert (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1960), p. 60. Solon's poem is among the fragmentary remains collected in Theodor Bergk, ed., Poetae Lyrici Graeci (Leipzig, 1843). Ibid., p. 45. 46.Ibid., pp.97-92. 47. Manville, The Origins 48. Ibid., pp. 8-9. 49.Ibid., pp. 8-10. 50.Ibid., p. 11. Nofes willis Botsford, The Roman Assemblies (New york: Macmillary 1909), p . 3. Frank Frost Abbott, A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions (New York Biblo and Thnnen, 1963), p. 10. 4. see Chaim wirszubski, Libertas as a political Ideal at Rome During the l"ate Republic and Early Principafe (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, i950;, p. 5. 5. Marcus Tullius Cicerq on the Commonwealth, trans. George Holland -sabine and.stariley Bameysmith (Columbus, ohio: TheohiostateUniv:ersitypress,rg2g), book 1, 28,pp.132-133. 6. see the discussion of sallust's account in p. A. Brunt, social Conflicts in the Roman Republic (London: The Hogarth Press, L986), pp.75-76. 7. MichaelCrawford, TheRonunRepublic(Glassow: Fontana/Collins, I97g),p.JS. 8. Ibid., p. 14. 340 Nofes Nofes J{I 9. See L6on Homo, Ronnn Political Institutions from City to State (London; Routledge, Kegan Paul,1929), pp. 3-8. 10. Abbott, A History and Description of Ronun Political Institutions, p.1.4. 39. F. E. Adcock, Ronun Political ldeas and Practice (Ann Arbor: Universify of Michigan Press, 1959), p. 23. Ibid., pp. 1,6-17. 12. Livy's account is quoted in Homo, Roman Political Institutiotrs, p. 15. i3. Ibid., p. 17. 14. E. S. Staveley, Greek and Roman Voting and Elections (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1972), p.121. 15. For a discussion of this insfitution and its modem applications see Clinton Adcock, Ronun Political ldeas and Practice, p.23. 42. Bellum lugurthinum 41, 5, quoted by Michael Crawford, The Roman Republic, p.160. 43. See especially Wirszubski, Libertns, pp. 115-118. 44- Wirszubski, Libertas, p. 769. 45. william J. Bouwsma, venice and the Defense of Republican Lilterty (Berkeley: Univcrsity of California Press, 1968), p. 6. 11. Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Goaernment in the Modern Democracies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948; reprinted Wesport, Conn.:Greenwood Press, 1979). 16. Botsford, The Roman Assemblies, pp. 202-203. 17. Brunt, Social Conflicts, p. 67. 18. See Botsford, The Roman Assenrblies, pp.124-126. 19.Ibid., pp.272-225. ibid., pp. 122-123. 21. Lily Ross Taylor, The Voting Districts of the Roman Republic; The Thirty-fiae Urban and Rural Tiibes (Rome: The American Academy in Rome, 1950), pp. S-9. 22. See Staveley, Greek and Roman Voting and Elections, pp. 129-131. 23. For an elaborate discussion of this stafus, stressing the Roman military interest in granting it to allies and changes over time see Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship, pp. 39-58, who points out (p. 35) that at a relatively late time in the history of the Republic, one tribe was set aside at Rome in the Concllium plebis rn which Latin citizens could cast a vote. 24. Michel Serres,Rome: Thz Book of Foundntbns, ftans. Felicia McCarren (Stanford: Stan{ord University Press, 199L), p. 153. 20. See 25. 26. Ibid. Wirszubski, Libertas, pp. 38-40. 27. William R. Everdell, The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans (New York: The Free Press, 1983), p. 50. Abbott, A History, p. 3I. Ibid., p. 65. 30. Everdell, The End of Kings, pp. 51-52. The praetors were executive officials who assigned legal cases and appointed district judges, among other duties. The quaestors were mainly in charge of caring for decrees of the Senate and otherwise serving the consuls. The aeililes were in charge of public buildings and of maintaining public order. See Abbott, AHistory,pp.375-379. 31.. Cicero, On the Commonwealth, book 1, 25,p.129. 32. See for an exposition of Cicero's views Wirszubski, Libertas, pp. 12-15. 33. Cicero, On the Commonznealth,book 1,, 27 , p. 732. 34. Ibid., book 1, 3?, p.136 35. Ibid., book 1,5, p. 110. 36. See especially Staveley, Greek and Roman Voting anil Elections, chap.7, 28. 29. pp. 133-142. 37. Ibid., pp. 1,36-737. 38. Henry Sidgwick, The Deaelopment of European Polity (London: Macmillan, 1903; New York: Kraus Reprint Co.,1969), p.7M. 40. Sidgwicl The Dnelopment of European Polity, p.748. 41. 45. GianfrancoPoggi,TheDeoelopment of the Modern State: ASociological Introducfion (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978), pp.25-26. 47 . bid., pp. 42-tA. 48. Hannah Arendt, The Hunmn Condition: A study of the Cmtral Dilemmas Facing Moilern Man (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1959),p.65. 49.Ibid., p.287. 50. Saint Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New york: The Modern Library), book 15, 1, p. 479 . 51. Ibid., book 19, 15, p.596. 52. Ibid.,'1.9, 21,, p. 6D 53. See Arthur P. Monahan, Consent, Coercion, and Limit: Tfu Medinal Origins of Parlinmentary Democracy (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's university press, 1987), p. 30. "what can be leamed of the christian attitude towards politics from the writings of early Christianity shows no express concem at all with the issue of consent as a feature of either the theory or the practise of pol,itical authority." Ibid., p. 42. 54. 55. A. P. D'Entrdves, ed., Aquinas: Selected Political Writings (Oxford: Basit Blackwell, 1948), especially SummaTheologica, First Part, '1,., qu.92,96,,,political life natural to man," pp. 103-106. 56. G. W. F. Hegel, "The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate," trans. T. M. Knox, Early TheologicalWitings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. ig2-301. 57. Norman Cohn, Tlre Pursuit of the Millenniurn (London: Secker & Warburg, 1952), especially chaps. 7 and 8, pp. 149-794. 58. See jacob L. Thlmoru Political Messianisnt: The Ronuntic p,tase (New york: Praeger, 1960). 59. This discussion draws on sanford A. Lakoff, Equality in political philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964) and "Christianity and Equality," tnI. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds.,Equality/I,tronros 9 (Newyork: Atherton Press, 1967). 60. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence (Ner.r' York: Harper & Row, 7969), vol. 1, Author's Introduction, p. 16. 61. G. P. Gooch, English Demo*atic ldeas in the Sepenteenth Century (New york: Harper, 1959), p.7. 62. Ibid., p. 48. 63. See for Suarez's views, Martin Sicker, TIre Genesis of the State (New york: Praeger, 1991), pp. 36-39. 64. Monahan, Consent, Coercion, and Limit, p.135. 65.Ibid., pp.137-143. 342 65. Ibid., p. 98. 67.Ibid., p.99. 68. Ibid., p. 109. 69. Ibid., pp. 110-119. 70. Quoted by Bouwsma, venice,p.8. The interpretation that follows is indebted to Bouswma. 71. A. P. D'Entrdves, The Notion of the state: An Introduction to political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University P ress, 19 67), p. 90. 72. Bouwsma, Venice-p. 16 Ibid., pp.62-63. G. A. Pocock, The Machiaoellian Moment: Florentine Political Thousht and the Atlantic RepublicanTradition (Princeton: Princeton university press, 1975), chaps.573. 74'I' 8,pp.ll4-277. 75. Gooch, English Democratic Ideas, p. 46. 76. A. S. P. Woodhouse, ed., Puritanism and Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), Putney Debates, October 28, L647, p 56. 77. Quoted Gooch, English Democratic ldeas, p. 130. 78. see CarolineA. Robbins, The Eighteenth-century Commonwealthman: studies in the Transmission, Developmant anil Circumstances of English Liberal Thought from the Restoration of Charles II until the war utith the Thirteen Colonies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959) and Pocock, The Machiaoellian Moment, chap. 1.2, pp.401-422. Chapter 5 L. Letter to Roger C. Weightman,lune24, 1826. Merrill D. peterson, ed., The Portable lefferson (New York: The Viking Press, 1.975), p. 585. 2. Dorothy Pickles, Democracy (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1970), p.46. 3. Their relationship and the influence of the "exclusion crisis,, on Locke,s work are examined in Richard Ashcraft, Rnolutionary Politics €t Locke's Two Treatises of Gooernment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). 4. Iohn I-ocke, Tzuo Trmtises of Governmenf, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), Second Tieatise,6,61, p.326. 5. Ibid., Second Treatise, 5, 51, p. 320. 5. Ibid., S econ d Treat is e, 1-1., 135, pp. 37 5 - 6. 7. Ibid., Second Treatise, 5, 5i, p. 320. 8. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the principles of Morals, Hume,s Moral and Political Philosophy, ed. Henry D. Aiken (New York: Hafner, 194g), Appen- dix 1, 5, p.269. 9. See Adam SmittU The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie (oxford: oxford University Press, 1976; reprinted, tndianipolis: Liberty Classics, 1982). 10. A. P D'Entrdves, The Notion of the State: An Introduction to political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p.274. 11. Maurice Cranston, "Introduction," Jean-|acques Rousseau, The Social Confracf (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), p. 31. 12. Rousseau, The Socinl Contract, chap. 3, 4, pp. ll2-114. L3. Cranston, "Lrtroduction," pp. 42-43.