Question about the concept of the 'Roman Republic'

[moxn]

I recently finished Ancient Rome by Thomas Martin, and in the book he claimed that even after the rule of Augustus and the foundation of the Empire, the citizens of Rome continued to call it and consider it a continuation of the Republic, and that the separation between the two is more a modern invention.

But now I'm wondering, if this is true and the citizens continued to call their state a Republic, just when did they abandon the concept, or recognize that their form of government had irrevocably changed?

 

[Booster Gold]

The two aren't mutually exclusive. British society, for example, was both a republic and an empire in the 19th century. Also, arguably, the US of A

As for the Romans, they kept up the pretext for a long, long time. Constantine even felt the need to establish a senate in Byzantium which lasted until the Crusaders eviscerated it.

 

[moxn]

The two aren't mutually exclusive. British society, for example, was both a republic and an empire in the 19th century. Also, arguably, the US of A

Oh I'm under no illusions of the amount of democracy following the transition to empire, or even during the height of the Republic, but I'm more concerned with the term itself and how it was used and identified with.

As for the Romans, they kept up the pretext for a long, long time. Constantine even felt the need to establish a senate in Byzantium which lasted until the Crusaders eviscerated it.

So would you say they would have continued to use the term 'republic' when referring to themselves even until their fall?

 

[Amelikite]

Oh I'm under no illusions of the amount of democracy following the transition to empire, or even during the height of the Republic, but I'm more concerned with the term itself and how it was used and identified with.



So would you say they would have continued to use the term 'republic' when referring to themselves even until their fall?

The form of Roman Government under Augustus was still republican. It was still one man, one vote. It was just that Juilius Ceasar was the one man, and he had the one vote.

 

[Amelikite]

The two aren't mutually exclusive. British society, for example, was both a republic and an empire in the 19th century. Also, arguably, the US of A

As for the Romans, they kept up the pretext for a long, long time. Constantine even felt the need to establish a senate in Byzantium which lasted until the Crusaders eviscerated it.

The fact that Britain had a King was deceptive, a lot of people would have mistaken it for a monarchy.

 

[Mikestone8]

So would you say they would have continued to use the term 'republic' when referring to themselves even until their fall?

L Sprague de Camp put it rather well in Lest Darkness Fall.

"An army of Hunnish, Moorish and Anatolian mercenaries, commanded by a Thracian Slav, who worked for a Dalmatian autocrat who reigned in Constantinople and didn't even rule the city of Rome, called itself the Army of the Roman Republic and saw nothing funny in the act".

 

[Salvador79]

Res publica meant "the public thing". I suppose the modern use of the word comes from political philosophers of the enlightenment or a little earlier looking at late medieval Italian repubbliche.

 

[Amelikite]

It goes back to the 'other' Julius Ceasar. His gain of dictatorial powers became something of a sticking point with the optimates. The point of Octavians manner of Government, was for the Romans to get the point, without Augustus getting the 'point'.

 

[Russian]

It goes back to the 'other' Julius Ceasar. His gain of dictatorial powers became something of a sticking point with the optimates. The point of Octavians manner of Government, was for the Romans to get the point, without Augustus getting the 'point'.

Actually, Octavian saw himself as the man who resurrected the Respublica, and it may sound funny, but a lot of the Romans saw it the same way.

Octavian made Rome more Roman, returned to many old Roman values. He gave the senatorial class the traditional most crucial posts in the government and in the army (with a notable exception of Egypt, maybe).

It is a surprising fact, but he somehow convinced the Romans that he (and his pattern of government) was as close to the old good Roman ways as you can possibly get.
Compairing it to the disastrous years of the Civil wars it was probably so.

 

[Amelikite]

Actually, Octavian saw himself as the man who resurrected the Respublica, and it may sound funny, but a lot of the Romans saw it the same way.

Octavian made Rome more Roman, returned to many old Roman values. He gave the senatorial class the traditional most crucial posts in the government and in the army (with a notable exception of Egypt, maybe).

It is a surprising fact, but he somehow convinced the Romans that he (and his pattern of government) was as close to the old good Roman ways as you can possibly get.
Compairing it to the disastrous years of the Civil wars it was probably so.

Sulla, after he attempted to restore the republic, resigned, there was never any prospect that Augustus would resign, and it was always projected that some member of his family or Agrippa would succeed him. Presenting the respublica as being restored, may have been good politics, but there could be no mistaking that one family had been raised above all others, in what was intended to be perpetuity.
It certainly didn't take long for the idea that the imperator was just one of the guys, to change, and for Caligula be get too big for his boots

 

[BMN]

The fact that Britain had a King was deceptive, a lot of people would have mistaken it for a monarchy.

LOL good one

yeah, democratic constitutional monarchy =/= republic.

France was a republic and a colonial empire. No king, no emperor. I think France is a better example.

 

[Mikestone8]

The fact that Britain had a King was deceptive, a lot of people would have mistaken it for a monarchy.

Istr that a British politician used to tease his American friends by observing that the US was a monarchy whose king was elected for four years with the approximate powers of William III, while Britain was a republic whose hereditary lifetime president had about as much power as the President of France had pre-1958.

 

[carlton_bach]

Valerian is addressed as saviour of the res publica in the Historia Augusta with no hint of irony. It simply means "state" or "body politic" to contemporary Romans. Distinguishing it from "imperium" made absolutely no sense - imperium was what the res publica conferred on its magistrates. The period designations Roman Republic - Principate - Dominate - Byzantine Empire are completely modern concepts.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

The form of Roman Government under Augustus was still republican. It was still one man, one vote. It was just that Juilius Ceasar was the one man, and he had the one vote.

????
'republic' and 'democracy' have NOTHING to do with each other.

 

[Agricola]

The roman term res publica has a much broader scope, than the modern term republic. IIRC it was Tacitus who used the therm res publica libera for the res publica before Caesar. It shows, that he himself lived in a res publica. Just the democratic element was gone and the aristocratic power diminished. But that does not matter at all for the res publica itself. The res publica, the public affairs, were still there and managed every day.

Even the modern term republic includes democratic republics and aristocratic republics, without any voting rights for the people. And the roman term res publica did even not exclude autocracy. Well perhaps a kingdom would not be called res publica anymore, even if the old roman kings were responsible for the res publica: the public affairs.

Despite this misinterpretation of the latin word res publica: Every roman at the end of Augustus reign knew, that he was living in an autocracy. At least the educated aristocrats did. But after decades of chaos, they saw no alternative to the principate. They also must have seen, that administration for such a big empire worked much better than ever before and offered great opportunities to increase wealth, auctoritas and dignitas. Even after Caligulas death, just a minority of the senate made the funny proposal to re-establish the republic. The majority disputed, who should become the new princeps. They disputed for about a day, but could not agree on one person. Until the people on the streets required loudly a new princeps and the praetorians presented Claudius.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

But now I'm wondering, if this is true and the citizens continued to call their state a Republic, just when did they abandon the concept, or recognize that their form of government had irrevocably changed?

Others have said this: the idea was never given up on. The Byzantines called their state the Roman Politeia, which is just a Greek rendering of Res Publica first used by writers like Plutarch and Cassius Dio well before Late Antiquity. A fairly decent argument can be made that, after the imperial court settled down in Constantinople at the end of the fourth century, the power of the Roman people actually increased considerably.

 

[Agricola]

A fairly decent argument can be made that, after the imperial court settled down in Constantinople at the end of the fourth century, the power of the Roman people actually increased considerably.

Actually, the good old balance between plebs urbana, senate and emperor worked again and much better in Constantinople, than it did in Rome during the last 200 years. It helped the eastern emperors a lot in order to control their mighty civil and military magistri. Well, this eastern senate was structured differently, too. Its members have been mainly longtime high career officers and civil servants, with a good standing and network. Not like in Rome, traditional sinecures of big landowners with increasingly no interest in this state at all anymore. Once the plebs urbana of Constantinople even saved the ass of the eastern emperor, fighting in the streets against an ursurping gothic magister militum.

The different structure of the society of the East and its senate was one of many reasons, that the East survived and the West did not. And of course the western emperors went to Mediolanum and later Ravenna. Also to get rid of this "useless" but demanding and annoying plebs urbana and senate of Rome . When the western emperor became a puppet of his high civil and militarian magistrates, he probably missed the senate and the plebs badly for balancing. The eastern emperor did not! The roman model worked again in Constantinople.

Of course the influence of the senate and the people of Constantinople was not as big as it perhaps still was in the early decades of Augustus' reign. But probably more than afterwards. Which is astonishing, looking to the very autocratic system of the late empire.

 

[Caesar Biden]

You have to be careful to not project modern ideas about Republicanism back even a millennium. Ask Romans of any age if they were living under a Republican system of government, and they'd say "yes, of course." It doesn't matter if they lived under the old Republic, or Augustus, or Trajan, or Justinian, or the last Constantine.

Republicanism wasn't necessarily about having a government elected by the masses. It was about a government that served the people, rather than the other way around. In many ways, it was the antithesis of the Divine Right that ruled for a while in the West- and yet in other ways, it wasn't that different, because both eventually claimed to have their power from God(s).

In the end, though, I'd say it's up to the individual person whether the Roman Empire was really a Republic or not. A good case could be made that it was not at all Republican, but still followed the Rule of Law. But a good case can also be made that the ideas and even system of laws and governance of the Republic never went away.

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

I recently finished Ancient Rome by Thomas Martin, and in the book he claimed that even after the rule of Augustus and the foundation of the Empire, the citizens of Rome continued to call it and consider it a continuation of the Republic, and that the separation between the two is more a modern invention.

But now I'm wondering, if this is true and the citizens continued to call their state a Republic, just when did they abandon the concept, or recognize that their form of government had irrevocably changed?

There is the word "res publica" meaning "state" or "public affair". Rome was a "res publica" since the Romans abolished monarchy, so a res publica is every state in which laws and traditions are respected by the rulers - the res publica is not a tyranny, but the "res populi", the "popular affair".

The Romans lived in a "res publica" for more than 400 years. But after the agitation of the Gracchi and the reforms of Marius, violence and butchery became common (three civil wars in 50 years) - the laws fell into desuetude, the power of the Senate and the people wasn't respected any more, as was the Cursus honorum, the rites of Roman religion or Roman law in general.

This is why Augustus, when coming to power by ending the last civil war, declared the restoration of the res publica ("restitutio rei publicae"). It's a matter of fact that the first Emperor did nearly everything to respect the rules and formalities of Roman constitution. Temples were renovated, the senate was purged of "indign" senators, the laws made under Augustus were confirmed by the popular assemblies that received a new voting building in Rome.

But even the most ignorant of the senators knew that the state Augustus created wasn't tha simple restoration of the old "res publica". They saw that the senate was purged of the opposition against the Emperor, that the Consuls held no power any more and that the popular assemblies had as much ponderosity as the elections in North Korea 2000 years later. That is why writers like Tacitus distinguished between the "res publica libera" (= republic) and the "res publica restituta" (= principate). Cassius Dio, wring in Greek, used "democracy" and "monarchy".

So, yes, as it was wrote in before, the Romans would have said, even after the fall of the republic, that they live in a "res publica" as we say to live in a "rule of law" or a "constitutional state". Though, Romans with some historical consciousness knew that the res publica of the 4th century AD was another res publica than the res publica of the 1st century BC.

As for the "Byzantines", I doubt they could identify with the concept of "res publica." They might have used "politeia", but "basileia" is much more probable. Greeks, more than Romans, were accustomed to live in monarchies since hellenistic times, and I mentioned the example of Cassius Dio, who, already in the 3rd century AD, spoke, referring to Rome, of a monarchy.

 

[Fredrick II Barbarossa]

rome was always a republic by the roman definition.
See back then republic did not mean a government without a monarch you could have three different sorts of republics I believe in the roman conception of it. When Augustus created the principate he still relied at least to a token amount upon the concept of res publica which was why the senators supported him rather than oppose him like they did Caesar. The emperors who followed him up to the byzantine period included considered themselves as the monarchs who ruled through the will of the people and any endeavor they undertook they had to justify it at the very least as a means of helping, expanding, improving or defending the res publica and you see this in most major documents and it persists even into Leo VI's reign.

You should check out the recent book the byzantine republic by Antony Kellides for more info. Though that is about the byzantines it also pertains to romans and he makes some good points on the topic.

It was only later on that due to politicization republic meant no monarch.

to the romans of the era when the emperors took over the perception was simply that the senate was replaced by an emperor. That was all but at its heart the state remained one of the res publica and every emperor had to justify his actions based on the needs of the state. Essentially the emperors considered themselves stewards of the romans rather than autocratic monarchs. It also meant the palace he lived in and the treasury was not his but that off the peoples unlike a king who considered his palace, servants, and waht not to be his alone, in the emperors case everything he owned was not his but the roman states'