Roman Government

 

In earliest times, scholars believe that humans were ruled by chieftains
or tribal leaders. These men became the rulers because they were already
leaders in the more powerful clans and families. They usually kept their
position as petty king or tribal chief because of their strength and skill in
battle. When societies began to be melded together to form the earliest
civilizations, an all- powerful ruler or king governed them. Early rulers
like Hammurabi, Sennacherib, Xerxes, and Pharaoh Ramses I held immense power
while their subjects had few rights other than the right to obey thir rulers.
Many of the Greek city-states had a form of democracy. The most well -
known of these early democracies was Athens. The Golden Age of Athenian
democracy began about 500 B.C. and lasted for a little more than one hundred
years. Other city states such as Sparta were ruled by a king. These
democracies were not very much like those governments we call democracies
today because only the propertied classes could vote and hold office. Rights
were few or nonexistent for the poor people of Greece, who were mostly
descended from the native Helots. A system of democracy in which there was
one man, one vote worked well for small city states but was unwieldy and hard
to administer when applied to a large empire. It would be impossible to have
all the men from the distant provinces gather in one place to cast their
votes on even the major issues and whether or not to go to war. Furthermore,
in most classical governments, women had few rights or none at all. (There
were exceptions to this and studying them has always been one of the things
that has attracted people to the study of history.)
Early Rome was a city-state and had kings (Romulus, Servius Tullius, Numa
Pompilius, etc.) The Romans found out early on that they did not have much of
an appetite for kings and their abuses of power, even if the king was a wise
and benevolent ruler. In 509 B.C. Tarquin the Proud was overthrown and the
Republic was founded. Two consuls were elected to serve for one year, and the
Senate, originally consisting of 200 members, passed laws. In order to be
elected to the Senate, a person had to be of the Patrician class. Patricians
were people who belonged to one of the original 35 gens, or tribes. The
people who were not of the Patrician class were the Plebeians. The important
aspect of class was familial relation to the original tribes, and
secondarily, property ownership. Later, the Plebeians agitated for and got
more rights. They won the right to elect tribunes, who could veto any
senatorial law. They only won the right to have the protection of the
tribunes because they protested by refusing to take up arms in defense of
Rome during a war! It must be remembered that power ebbed and flowed and
constantly shifted between these groups. During the time of the Civil Wars
and the Imperators, the real power was held by the generals in command of the
largest armies. Octavian, later given the title "Augustus" by the Senate, was
also given the titles "Princeps" and "Pontifex Maximus", and was given broad
powers to reform the Republic. He is considered to be the first Emperor but
he never proclaimed himself as absolute ruler. The Romans preserved the
delusion of having a Republic until quite late in the Empire. The Emperor was
considered as simply First Citizen or "Princeps" until the time of Diocletian
(A. D. 284-305.) At this time, the Emperor became a remote, absolute despot
surrounded with magnificence and ceremony, much like a Mesopotamian ruler.
Assassination was considered a viable and perfectly acceptable tool of
politics throughout these times. Many emperors were deposed and executed by
the Praetorian Prefect (head of the palace guard) and his troops. The throne
was even sold at public auction in 193 A.D.
The Roman civil service was every bit as complex as our own. Taxes rose
to a huge proportion of the gross national product in the later periods of
the Empire. A document, Notitia Dignitatum, of which only medieval copies now
survive, gives a highly detailed account of the Roman civil and military
service during the late fourth and early fifth centuries. The offices, along
with their duties, responsibilities, powers, and symbols of office are listed
and illustrated. A military count (comes) outranked a duke (DUX) who might
only be responsible for the defense of one province. The Roman civil service
and bureaucracy was almost as complex as our own, and was more of an
oppressive burden on the people than direct rule by the emperor ever was.
At the end of the Classical Age, the Roman West disintegrated into petty
kingdoms ruled in a very similar way to the early tribes mentioned at the
beginning of this article. Although technology and learning had advanced,
political organization and government had regressed several thousand years.
Rulers like Clovis (About 480 - 511) Theoderic (493 - 524), and Charlemagne
(About 756 - 814) ruled kingdoms of the Franks and Ostrogoths that were the
beginnings of modern nations of France and Italy.