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Roman Government
INTRO
The Roman Empire was one of the largest and most enduring in world history.
The saying "All Roads Lead to Rome" alludes to this central hub of technology, literature, culture and
architecture in the ancient world. The engineers of the Roman age created an unparalleled network of
roads in ancient history.
Nearly 47,000 square miles (76,000 sq. km) of roads spread Roman civilization, influence and the mighty
legions throughout the western world. They built strong arched bridges, and mastered the concept of
“running water” using aqueducts that, among other things, supplied public baths rivaling today’s modern
water facilities.
At the height of its power in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, the Roman Empire consisted of some 2.5
million square miles (4 million sq. km). 60 million people (or as much as 1/5 of the world’s population)
claimed citizenship of Rome and as many as 120 million people may have lived within its borders.
Ancient Rome Government
The Roman government was a mix of a democracy and a republi
republicc. The Romans took many of their ideas of
government from the Greeks. The Roman state was described as the republic (respublica) and its consuls,
or chief magistrates, continued to be appointed even after the establishment of one-man rule under the
empire, but in its pure form it lasted only until the beginning of the first century B.C.
At the creation of the republic, supreme power probably resided with a popular assembly, but early on the
Senate became very influential, and the traditional formula, which survived for centuries, was S.P.Q.R. Senatus Populusque Romanus - the Roman Senate and People acting together.
The Offices of the Cursus Honorum in Imperial Rome
The government of the Roman Empire changes significantly from that of the Republic. While most of the
following offices, taken from the time of the Emperor Trajan, are the same or similar to that of the
Republic, the real power lay with the Emperor himself. The senate, the elite class of Rome, functioned
more as a club of the rich and famous families than as a governing body in the Imperial system. Most all
of the offices listed here were filled by members of the senate and was still an indication of great status
despite their reduction as true law-makers. These positions, mostly appointments rather than elections,
are still the basis for the governing class, and performed the duties listed, within the agenda of the
Emperor.
Vigintiviri
Military Tribunate
Quaestors
Tribunes of the Plebs
Aediles
Praetors
Consuls
Censors
Censors
Caesar & Augustus
Vigintiviri - (XXViri or 20 men)
An office held for one year only around the ages of 18-20. In 13 BCE, a law was passed making the holding of one of these
offices necessary for future entry into the Senate. The duties fall into the
the following 4 categories:
XViri Stlitibus Iudicandis - 10 men responsible for legal cases involving freedom or slavery.
IIIViri Monetales - 3 men in charge of the overseeing the imperial mints.
IVViri Viarum Curandarum - 4 men in charge of maintaining the roads in Rome.
IIIViri Capitals - 3 men in charge of prisons and state executions.
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Roman Government
Military Tribunate
An office normally held at the age of 19-21 with a term of usually 2 or 3 years. There were 29 of these posts available after
105 CE. Each legion had at least one Tribune of senatorial rank and this was usually his first significant command post.
The Senatorial rank tribune was generally second in command behind the Legatus. This post could be skipped by young
senatorial candidates not interested in military duty, but was among the quickest ways to gain political awareness and
respect.
Quaestors
Being appointed by the Emperor (candidati Augusti) or elected as Quaestor actually allowed entry into the Senate. There
were 20 per year and could be attained at the age of 24. 10 served in Rome acting as treasurers and keepers of the public
record. They conducted funding efforts for military operations and supervised the distribution of booty gained in war.
Another 10 served as assistants to provincial governors in a similar capacity.
Tribunes of the Plebs
There were 10 Tribunes annually. Tribunes represented the interests of the plebs (common people). Tribunes could
introduce measures and laws and had the right to veto acts of other magistrates (including other tribunes). This power, of
course, had very little meaning in the Imperial system as an Emperor could override any such attempt at a veto. They
could convene the senate and much like a Quaestor could be enrolled in the senate. The 10 tribunes were broken down
with the following titles:
Tribune Aeraii - Tax collectors oversaw the payment of tribute and war taxes.
Tribuni Militum - Senior officers of the legion.
Tribuni Plebis - asserted a right of veto against higher magistrates.
Aediles
There were 6 Aediles per year. Originally they oversaw the plebeian temple and cult of Ceres. The job eventually grew to
include maintenance of public buildings in general, especially archives. They also were responsible for the supervision of
water supplies and administration of public market and weights and measures. They were divided up 3 equal ways:
Curule Aediles - 2 per year - were elected or appointed from the patrician class.
Aediles Ceriales - 2 per year and were also in charge of the Games of Ceres.
Aediles Plebis - 2 per year and were also in charge of the Plebeian Games.
Praetors
There were eighteen praetors per year and the office could be held at the age of thirty one. The position could be
military
y command, provincial governorships, grain
responsible for any number of duties including judicial matters, militar
supplies or road and treasury supervision.
A Praetor Urbanus was responsible for the administration of duties at Rome. A Praetor Peregrinus provided for
government in the provinces. In the empire this became an increasingly honorary appointment.
At the end of an official term as Praetor and if still being used in the same capacity, a person in this position would be
called Propraetor. Since there were more positions than there were praetors appointed every year, this, of course was a
regular practice. The following is a more specific breakdown of a Praetor’s possible functions:
Legatus - Fifty available posts included several forms of command with varying terms of service. There were
twenty four posts for the command of a legion within a multi-legion province; fourteen posts to assist provincial
governors; 8 posts serving as a provincial governor without a legion; 4 posts for provincial governors with a
legion to command.
Praefectus – Sixteen available posts including two for distribution of the grain supply; Three posts to oversee the
military treasury; Two posts to oversee the treasury of Saturn; Nine posts for the maintenance of each of the
nine major roads in Italia.
Roman Consuls
There could be as few as 2 or more commonly, as many as 20 consuls appointed per year. Consuls served in much the same
capacity, but a little more advanced than Praetors. Generally, 42 was the minimum age to hold this title. In the Republic
the 2 Consuls were the leaders of the government and military commanders during their 1 year terms, but in the Empire,
while many duties remained the same, they obviously didn’t wield the same power. Consuls and Proconsuls functioned as
military commanders, provincial governors and curators of public works. The following highlights these responsibilities:
Legatus – 14 total posts with varying terms. There were 7 provincial governor posts with 0 – 2 legions to
command; 5 provincial governor posts with 3 or 4 legions to command; and 2 proconsular posts governing Asia
and Africa.
Praefectus or Curator – 6 total posts to manage various public interests.
2 Curators of the Public Works
Curator of the Tiber and Sewers
Curator of the Water Supply
Praefect of the Alimenta – supervised subsidies for orphans and the infirmed
City Praefect – supervised Rome in the Emperors absence
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Roman Government
Censors
Censors in the Republican government were highly esteemed and had to be former Consuls. They maintained the role of
the Senate, deciding who was morally fit to sit on the Senate. They also conducted the census of Roman citizens for
conscription into the army. This office was regarded as the crowning of Roman civic life, and in a sense the culminating
achievement of a political career. Its powers were very extensive and they included the right to inquire into the lives of
citizens and punish any tendency to indulge in immoral habits that departed from the traditional and established way of
living. It is difficult to say what power, if any they may have had in the imperial system as this sort of supervision was
really at the whim of the Emperor himself. They may have still maintained the census, but doubtful that they did much
else.
Caesar and Augustus
The title of Caesar, taken from the hereditary name of Gaius Julius Caesar, eventually
eventually became synonymous with the heir
to the throne. The title of the Emperor (Imperator) was actually “Augustus”. Octavianus, the heir of Julius Caesar and
first Roman Emperor is known by the name Augustus, as he was the first to be appointed with that title.
This position, essentially granting absolute power over the senate and people for life, replaced the old periodic Republican
title of Dictator. While we today know Octavian as Augustus, each Emperor was actually awarded the title. When an
Augustus named an heir to the throne, that heir would be known thereafter as Caesar, until his ascension, when he too
would become Augustus.
Did you know?
The most renowned member of the Julian gens (clan) was Gaius Julius Caesar. His adopted son, Gaius Octavius, assumed
assumed the name
Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman custom, later adding the title Augustus (Latin, “majestic”).
Ancient Roman Laws
Since the days of the Law of the Twelve Tables, developed during the early republic, the Roman legal
system was characterized by a formalism that lasted for more than 1,000 years.
Early Roman law was drawn from custom and statutes, but later during the times of the empire, the
emperors asserted their authority as the ultimate source of law. Their edicts, judgments, administrative
instructions, and responses to petitions were all collected with the comments of legal scholars. "What
pleases the emperor has the force of law." As the law and scholarly commentaries on it expanded, the
need grew to codify and to regularize conflicting opinions.
The basis for Roman law was the idea that the exact form, not the intention, of words or of actions
produced legal consequences. Romans recognized that there are witnesses to actions and words, but not to
intentions. Roman civil law allowed great flexibility in adopting new ideas or extending legal principles in
the complex environment of the empire. Without replacing older laws, the Romans developed alternative
procedures that allowed greater fairness.
For example, a Roman was entitled by law to make a will as he wished, but, if he did not leave his
children at least 25 percent of his property, the magistrate would grant them an action to have the will
declared invalid as an "irresponsible testament." Instead of simply changing the law to avoid confusion,
the Romans preferred to humanize a rigid system by flexible adaptation.
It was not until much later in the 6th century AD that the emperor Justinian I, who ruled over the
Byzantine Empire in the east, began to publish a comprehensive code of laws, collectively known as the
Corpus Juris Civilis, but more familiarly as the Justinian Code.
The Ancient Roman law was one of the most original products from the Roman Empire.
Did you know?
Roman Law provided the following concept
concept for its citizens."What the law says, is right." And from the law alone, we get the idea of
right and wrong. What the law says to be done, that is right. What the law prohibits, that is wrong and that is the reason why it is
right or wrong."
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Roman Government
The Roman Twelve
Twelve Tables of Law, circa 450 BC
Cicero, De Oratore, I.44: Though all the world exclaim against me, I will say what I think: that single little book of
the Twelve Tables, if anyone look to the fountains and sources of laws, seems to me, assuredly, to surpass the
libraries of all the philosophers, both in weight of authority, and in plenitude of utility.
Table I
1. If anyone summons a man before the magistrate, he must go. If the man summoned does not go, let the one summoning him call
the bystanders to witness and then take him by force.
2. If he shirks or runs away, let the summoner lay hands on him.
3. If illness or old age is the hindrance, let the summoner provide a team. He need not provide a covered carriage with a pallet
unless he chooses.
4. Let the protector of a landholder be a landholder; for one of the proletariat, let anyone that cares, be protector.
6-9. When the litigants settle their case by compromise, let the magistrate announce it. If they do not compromise, let them state
each his own side of the case, in the comitium of the forum before noon. Afterwards let them talk it out together, while both are
present. After noon, in case either party has failed to appear, let the magistrate pronounce judgment in favor of the one who is
present. If both are present the trial may last until sunset but no later.
Table II
2. He whose witness has failed to appear may summon him by loud calls before his house every third day.
Table III
1. One who has confessed a debt, or against whom judgment has been pronounced, shall have thirty days to pay it in. After that
forcible seizure of his person is allowed. The creditor shall bring him before the magistrate. Unless he pays the amount of the
judgment or some one in the presence of the magistrate interferes in his behalf as protector the creditor so shall take him home and
fasten him in stocks or fetters. He shall fasten him with not less than fifteen pounds of weight or, if he choose, with more. If the
prisoner choose, he may furnish his own food. If he does not, the creditor must give him a pound of meal daily; if he choose he may
give him more.
2. On the third market day let them divide his body among them. If they cut more or less than each one's share it shall be no crime
3. Against a foreigner the right in property shall be valid forever.
Table IV
1. A dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed.
2. If a father sell his son three times, the son shall be free from his father.
3. As a man has provided in his will in regard to his money and the care of his property, so let it be binding. If he has no heir and
dies intestate, let the nearest agnate have the inheritance. If there is no agnate, let the members of his gens have the inheritance.
4. If one is mad but has no guardian, the power over him and his money shall belong to his agnates and the members of his gens.
5. A child born after ten months since the father's death will not be admitted into a legal inheritance.
Table V
1. Females should remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority.
Table VI
1. When one makes a bond and a conveyance of property, as he has made formal declaration so let it be binding.
3. A beam that is built into a house or a vineyard trellis one may not take from its place.
5. Usucapio of movable things requires one year's possession for its completion; but usucapio of an estate and buildings two years.
6. Any woman who does not wish to be subjected in this manner to the hand of her husband should be absent three nights in
succession every year, and so interrupt the usucapio of each year.
Table VII
1. Let them keep the road in order. If they have not paved it, a man may drive his team where he likes.
9. Should a tree on a neighbor's farm be bend crooked by the wind and lean over your farm, you may take legal action for removal of
that tree.
10. A man might gather up fruit that was falling down onto another man's farm.
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Table VIII
2. If one has maimed a limb and does not compromise with the injured person, let there be retaliation. If one has broken a bone of a
freeman with his hand or with a cudgel, let him pay a penalty of three hundred coins If he has broken the bone of a slave, let him
have one hundred and fifty coins. If one is guilty of insult, the penalty shall be twenty-five coins.
3. If one is slain while committing theft by night, he is rightly slain.
4. If a patron shall have devised any deceit against his client, let him be accursed.
5. If one shall permit himself to be summoned as a witness, or has been a weigher, if he does not give his testimony, let him be noted
as dishonest and incapable of acting again as witness.
10. Any person who destroys by burning any building or heap of corn deposited alongside a house shall be bound, scourged, and put
to death by burning at the stake provided that he has committed the said misdeed with malice aforethought; but if he shall have
committed it by accident, that is, by negligence, it is ordained that he repair the damage or, if he be too poor to be competent for
such punishment, he shall receive a lighter punishment.
12. If the theft has been done by night, if the owner kills the thief, the thief shall be held to be lawfully killed.
13. It is unlawful for a thief to be killed by day....unless he defends himself with a weapon; even though he has come with a weapon,
unless he shall use the weapon and fight back, you shall not kill him. And even if he resists, first call out so that someone may hear
and come up.
23. A person who had been found guilty of giving false witness shall be hurled down from the Tarpeian Rock.
26. No person shall hold meetings by night in the city.
Table IX
4. The penalty shall be capital for a judge or arbiter legally appointed who has been found guilty of receiving a bribe for giving a
decision.
5. Treason: he who shall have roused up a public enemy or handed over a citizen to a public enemy must suffer capital punishment.
6. Putting to death of any man, whosoever he might be unconvicted is forbidden.
Table X
1. None is to bury or burn a corpse in the city.
3. The women shall not tear their faces nor wail on account of the funeral.
5. If one obtains a crown himself, or if his chattel does so because of his honor and valor, if it is placed on his head, or the head of his
parents, it shall be no crime.
Table XI
1. Marriages should not take place between plebeians and patricians.
Table XII
2. If a slave shall have committed theft or done damage with his master's knowledge, the action for damages is in the slave's name.
5. Whatever the people had last ordained should be held as binding by law.
Did you know?
The Twelve Tables are the first attempt to make a code remained also the only attempt for near one thousand years, until the
legislation of Justinian.
Roman Prisons
Romans did not have prisons that relate to how we think of them in the modern world. Accused wealthy
citizens were simply kept under house arrest, provided they behaved, until a trial could take place. The
poor generally found justice swift and usually fatal. Outside of the cities, a villa might have three areas to
keep slaves, one for those who were well behaved, one for those to keep shackled and one for those
allowed a bit more freedom.
Actual prisons in Rome truly served as a holding place for those condemned to die. Occasionally the
accused might be detained to await trial, but usually those awaiting trial were encouraged to go into
voluntary exile. Those awaiting trial were called "carcer" or "publica vincula."
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Roman Government
The most famous Roman prison can still be visited today. It is located just outside the Forum Romanum
buried at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. It was Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome, who, sometime
during his reign (640-616 BC) constructed this dark, damp and foreboding subterranean structure.
One enters the prison today by following steps down from the Capitoline. Looking ahead one sees, on a
sunny day, the remains of the glistening white marble of the Forum. By contrast, a turn to the left and
down a few more stairs finds the visitor at the entrance to the prison. It is a small room, with a hole in
the floor. This was the entrance to the dungeon, constructed by the orders of the 6th king of Rome,
Servius Tullius.
It is described it as about twelve feet deep into the ground. It was into this room, 6 1/2 ft. high, thirty feet
long and twenty-two feet wide, that prisoners who had been condemned to die either by strangulation or
starvation were thrown. One attributes the phrase "to be cast into prison" had its origins here.
Even today one can see an iron door which opens to the Cloaca Maxima, then the main sewer of Rome
which emptied into the Tiber. It is said that the dead were cast away through this door. Sometimes, the
dead were displayed on the marble stairs before being sent into the Tiber.
Did you know?
Roman prisons were not used to punish
punish criminals, but instead served only to hold people awaiting trial or execution.
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