Customer Reviews

The Constitution of the Roman Republic

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Andrew Lintott's book is a valuable work providing a thourough overview of the Roman Republic's institutions from the Early Republic to the Empire. It is a good companion to Fergus Millar's 'The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic' which explores the dynamics illustrated in this work within the narrow context of Rome from Sulla to the Civil War.

The title of the book is somewhat deceptive as the Roman Republic never had a charter or constitutional document to guide its institutions. Instead, the powers and functions of its various governmental bodies were operated by tradition and ad hoc enactments serving as precedent. The Senate was a hereditary post held on property and wealth qualifications of which the patrician class had the strongest voice but whose members such as Caesar, despite having property, had cash flow problems tied to their slave based agriculture economy. As with Caesar who needed wealthy noble patrons like Crassus or nepotism through his plebeian uncle Marius to get ahead, despoiled patricians needed money or broad popular support to keep their pedigree prestige in the political spotlight. Commanding a war and plundering treasures was usually the most direct route to those ends: the only real impasse being others in the Senate who have the same design which meant virtually everyone. There was also no judiciary oversight in the legislation and execution of laws to define political parameters: the institutions had only themselves to rely on which often meant returning to square one and then fighting civil wars to settle it. All of these elements are in hindsight extremely volatile politically where masses of urban poor who have no land or future are eager to serve in virtually private armies run by politically rused commanders such as Caesar. This led to the formation of large private and violent cult-hero factions fighting in the Forum for the cause of a professional army devoted only to its commander and not the decree simply giving him unlimited authority to command it. If the political process failed, these armies brought their weight into the Forum for a final bearing as to the politics that would be decided there. It is no wonder the Romans eventually preferred being under one dictator permanently instead of always many at once.

The book provides a good analysis of the framework of these mechanics that took place through the span of the Republic. Other authors such as Gruen or Millar focus on these dynamics more in terms of the politics and agents of the Late Republic specifically. This work is important because the Roman Republic's political system was rather convoluted and its dynamics are difficult to grasp as people voted in defined classes based on wealth and fixed geographic regions instead of as individuals. Furthermore, votes could only be cast in Rome in either the Forum or the Campus Martius if they were to be considered. The book relies on classical texts to analyze the development and role of political institutions such as the Senate and the various voting assemlies such as the Comitia Centuriata and the Concilium Plebis and explains how political suffrage through these voting blocks operated in the various political offices and the Senate. The powers of political offices such as the tribunate, praetorship, consulship, censorship, etc., are also defined with detail.

This is a great book giving a thourough overview of the Roman Republic's political institutions and offices. All of the information is supported by thorough research of primarily textual and archeological evidence as well as the previous work of others. I wouldn't recommend this work as an introductory text on Roman history as its depth and scope would already require some basic knowledge of the subject. I do strongly recommend this work to anyone who has more than a fleeting interest in Roman history, political science, or sociology.