The first documented written records of government were from Athens and Rome. Rome’s form of government was a Republic while Athens was a democracy. A republic means a government in which citizens elected representatives to rule on their behalf. A republic is quite different from a democracy, in which every citizen is expected to play an active role in governing the state. A democracy is ruled by the people. The Athenian Democracy and Roman Republic both had strengths and weakness in how democratic the government was, this is shown in their respective voting systems,checks and balances, and social classes.…
According to Fergus Millar, “The Constitution of the Roman Republic made it a variety of democracy.” Having a Constitution does give you checks in the Democratic column, but only allowing Patricians to vote on the laws that go in this Constitution isn’t quite a Democracy characteristic. In order to be a true Democracy, all citizens (and not just Patricians) should have been able to vote. Another faulted part of this democracy is the fact that “The Consuls lead the military and are the supreme…
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization when the government operated as a republic.…
Ancient Rome, located in Italy, is an indirect or representative democracy. They had a different way of organizing and controlling/ maintaining society. The laws were voted upon and the elected representatives make decisions on their behalf. The laws that are decided upon are then engraved and publicly displayed on the 12 tables. The 12 tables were tables publicly displayed in the city with laws engraved so that everyone could see them. The laws applied to every citizen; rich or poor. In Ancient Rome, in order to be a citizen, you had to be a free-born male. The two main classes of people were patricians and plebians. Patricians were the upper class people (nobles and land owners). Plebians were the lower class. Emperor Justinian was significant in the legacy of Ancient Rome because he contributed the code of laws. Rome was a huge factor in the rise of democratic ideas because it influenced us to write the laws down…
The Roman Constitution was written documentation of military and civil power given to two consuls that would serve one year terms. The Roman Constitution also entrusted a single individual to lead Rome as a dictator for six months when there was military tensions. Dictatorship will later be the downfall of the Rome. Even though there was still social conflict as mentioned earlier, the republic was still highly favored because it showed great public virtue (Waalkes’…
As the age of the Greeks was coming to an end, a small kingdom in central Italy was gaining power and growing. During this time, Rome was not yet the Rome as we know it today. In 753 BCE the Kingdom of Rome was founded on a hill top right next to the Tiber River. This kingdom lasted for around 200 years until in 509 BCE when the people of Rome overthrew the king and created a republic. Like the Athenians, the Romans also showed pride in their participation in government. However unlike the Athenians the Romans set up a republic in which the people of Rome voted for representatives and those reps then discussed, voted and participated in the government. This in turn meant that political participation in Rome was less direct than it had been in their Greek counterparts but, this in no way stopped the Romans from participation in politics. The Romans believed in one very important virtue. This virtue was called gravitas and it represented the Roman’s seriousness and importance it put toward aspects of life, one of which was politics. The Romans felt that being involved in government was a civil duty that all Romans must know about it. The people of Rome felt this way because they did not want to revert back to the time when they were ruled by kings. Unfortunately the era of the republic began to fall as a cycle of violence ensued. Rome was in constant chaos at this time and as shown throughout…
In 509 B.C., Rome became a republic, a government in which power is controlled by the common people. It was under this Republic that Rome grew and expanded by conquest into the most powerful nation in the world at the time. As Roman territory increased, however, politicians and generals became more and more powerful and hungry for power. A series of events during the 1st and 2nd centuries B.C. led to the demise of the Roman Republic. Under the reigns of Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar, the Roman Empire was formed. The Empire was ruled by an emperor, who had complete control over his people. Power was no longer in the hands of the people, but Rome continued to prosper and expand for several centuries. Under the Republic, senators were elected by the people to run the government. The vote of wealthy landowners counted for more than others and many elections were fixed by bribes. However, the common people still maintained a significant power in government affairs.…
The Roman Empire seems to have upheld monarchy, aristocracy and democracy together in Rome. Rome was divided into two classes, one being the Patricians, which were the small group of aristocratic people and the second being the Plebeians, which were the commoners and everyone else. Rome was an innovator in that they created the first known body of the senate, chosen by the elite class to represent their decisions. The senate was supposed to set policies for the consuls and elect 2 people as chief executives of Rome, one to take care of Rome domestically and make sure that everything as going well inside the empire and the other to conquer new territories and fight wars. Each consul had a one year term check and a senator was not able to serve as consul again after serving for it once before until 10 years later. There was also a position of dictator in Rome when it faced terrible danger and a person would have to step up and take control of the army to face whatever enemy was opposing them. Yet, once Octavian or Caesar Augustus took over, he made the laws and the senate was no longer useful. The emperors were almost always generals because Rome decided to become an empire and conquer new lands so the republic aspect of Rome was shrouded in the hands of one man with most of…
[ 5 ]. Dennis Sherman, Western Civilization: Sources, Images, Interpretations: Volume 1 (New York McGraw Hill 2004), 27…
In the Information articles, “How Democratic was the Roman Republic?” written by Alan Ward shows the Roman Empire could not be considered democratic because the rome citizens have no likelihood of being able to cast their vote regularly, but a group of unrepresentative voters can easily dominate sovereign popular institution. So wishes of the people as a whole are not expressed.…
The Roman Republic was rather democratic.The Romans were the start of a democracy, and we include many of their ideas today in the United States. They were democratic because they had a constitution two important elements including legislation, and the right for citizens to vote. The Romans still use the same concept as the government does nowadays, such as the magistrates, senate, and assemblies. The assemblies job was to pass legislation, which is the most important reason that Romans were democratic.…
Comparing and contrasting the final turbulent between the Roman republic and U.S. politics were both controlling land outside of their borders, had the three branches of government, system of checks and balance with no branch of government being the strongest. Some of the differences were that Rome conquered control by subjection and the U.S. tires to include people into the nation. Every citizen that was born in the U.S. had natural rights, but in Rome you were just subjects and not citizens.…
The constitution of the Roman republic was a stable system of government that lasted from the middle of the republic until the transition to the Empire in the last century BC (Robinson, “The Sources of Roman Law” 3). The constitution consisted of three major elements: Magistrates, the senate and the legislative assemblies of the Roman people. The senate was the prevailing element. The approval and support of the senate was required to carry out the functions of both the magistrates and the legislative assemblies (Mousourakis, “The Historical and Institutional Context of Roman Law” 70).…
50 BC contained a strong element of popular participation even if balanced by a still stronger aristocratic tradition. The Roman version of democracy suffered from the same limitations in the eyes of a modern critic as did the earlier Athenian version. The voters were all adult male citizens so that women, slaves and those who did not have the citizenship of Rome were totally excluded from poitical life. At 450 years as a republic, Rome became and empire in the wake of Julius Caesars rise and fall century…
Rome had succeeded in abolishing the tyrannical rule of the kings and became a republic, yet she was more of an aristocratic republic. Her power rested more in a particular class than in the whole people (Morey, 1901).…