Reform the Roman republic

A good start would be having the state pay and equip the soldiers, rather than the general.

This, plus a clear pension scheme and clear career pathes like the early principes introduced is a must have. But would this alone help to stop legions to usurp? They usurped during the principate, too. Sometimes the legionairies coerced the commander or replaced him, sometimes the commander convinced the legionaries to march on Rome. This is a very complex subject.

I guess, without a princeps, who is hard to attack and to dethrone, and aristocrats still competing about the highest office and power in a republic, the chances for usurpations are even higher.
 
Reforming the Comitia Centuriata to accurately reflect the demographics of the military would help greatly. The majority of the military had no representation in the elections and that only got exponentially worse when Marius reformed the legions and let the proles enlist.

To give the legionaries a kind of representation and legal power in a republic is a very interesting idea! Actually some historians believe, that this was reached to a certain extent in the late empire. I remember the term comitia militaris, which is a modern invention, of course.

But honestly. The comitia centuriata never represented the army. At least not the legionaries. It was fully dominated by the aristocrats and the equites, due to the voting rules. Just needed in order to rubber stamp decisions of the senate. As long as this worked, the republic worked greatly!
 
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But, aside from Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus, are there Roman politicians who REALLY want to reform the republic making a real democracy out of it?

1. A roman democratic republic was impossible.

The ruling class are the aristocrats. They are challenged by the equites, the nobiles of the cities and the nobiles of the provinces. But never were the 90% ordinary people revolutionary. They had no power and they had no will or idea why to change something.

2. The Gracchi never wanted to make Rome a democracy. That was beyond their imagination. They used the comitia to fight the optimates in the senate. Just in order to carve out a career. Finally they were not killed, because they were distributing the ager publicus to the people. They were killed, because they found a working system to use the tribunate as a powerbase against the senate.
 
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A good start would be to have the poorer centuries vote first, ...

Forget the comitia. The republic worked as long as the comitia had no power. It stopped working, when the comitia were instrumentalized to fight the senate.

Another thing with the tribal assembly is to add more tribes rather than incorporating everyone into the standard 35.

Now you have a sympathetic ear!

The first major fault was, to integrate the italians into the exisiting 35 tribus. And the romans in the provinces also never got additional tribus.

Now imagine we have about 100 tribus all over the empire, e.g. the tribus of the romans in Baetica. And due to the fact, that there are no comitia anymore, these tribus elect a tribune (not just 10 in total) and send him to the senate, like discussed above.

Of course the romans had no clue what a representative democracy means. And as mentioned above, democracy makes no sense in an aristocratc society. But something like representation could have happened by accident, e.g. starting after the social war, if the italians get their own tribus.
 
Pompeius law was nice. But the real important changes were never approached. Like division of powers (not in a modern sense) in the provinces, establishing a huge independent buerocracy, disempowerement of the comitia as a legislation, taxation without publicani, or a military reform with clear pension schemes. This all was against the interests of the aristocratic class. You can't let the wolves herd the sheeps.

It needed a dictator like Caesar, in order to get rid of these exploiting publicani in Asia and the principes to do the rest. Because the principes were not interested in the profits of the aristocrats, but in a profitable empire.

I don't say, it is impossible, but so far I have not found any realistic approach to let the aristocrats reform themselves.

The problem is, that the roman republic was an aristocratic republic. And that was fully right, because the aristocratic class was the most powerful class. They had to open up and share their power with the nobiles of the socii during the social war, and I am convinced, that they must also share the power with the equites and the nobiles of the provinces. Even if just to get the manpower to administrate such an empire.

So in order to rescue the republic, you have to strengthen and to a certain extent enlarge the ruling class: the nobiles. But on the other hand, these guys have to decide to restrict themselves, in order to not ruin the empire longterm. A monarch could do that. But how and why should aristocrats do it?
What youre looking for is not a Caesar. You want a Sulla. A man whose a boni through and through but also ruthless. The only difference is, he'll need to be smarter at knowing what exactly to fix. You want Caesar's intelligence and Sulla's philosophy.
This, plus a clear pension scheme and clear career pathes like the early principes introduced is a must have. But would this alone help to stop legions to usurp? They usurped during the principate, too. Sometimes the legionairies coerced the commander or replaced him, sometimes the commander convinced the legionaries to march on Rome. This is a very complex subject.

I guess, without a princeps, who is hard to attack and to dethrone, and aristocrats still competing about the highest office and power in a republic, the chances for usurpations are even higher.
There were a grand total, counting the republic, of 4 civil wars until the third century crisis. The principate, if anything, made the cause for usurpation easier-one guy rules the empire, and you think your guy should be that guy. Its a lot more complicated and, imo, difficult to justify civil war during the republic, and harder to get to that point.
 
You want Caesar's intelligence and Sulla's philosophy.

Rather a mix of Octavian, Agrippa and Claudius than Julius Caesar. Caesars reforms about administration outside of Rome regarding province administration and military were not that impressing.

And yes, I am convinced that Sulla was right basically. He tried to strengthen the aristocracy. But he overlooked, that this aristocracy has to integrate the equites and the nobiles of the provinces in order to govern an empire. He also found no measure to restrain the greed of the aristocrats for power and wealth. And so many of his laws were canceled later on. Actually the roman republic collapsed not due to a revolution between classes. This conflict was mainly amongst the aristocracy itself. And these aristocrats used the flaws of the roman constitution and military organisation in order to make a career. Even with the risk of ruining the republic. I cannot see, how Sulla approached that issue at all.

The principes took almost all the necessary measures, to stabilize the republic and reorganise the empire. So it is clear to me, what has to be done at the minimum in order to rescue the republic. The question is, how these measures could happen in a republic without a princeps.

There were a grand total, counting the republic, of 4 civil wars until the third century crisis. The principate, if anything, made the cause for usurpation easier-one guy rules the empire, and you think your guy should be that guy. Its a lot more complicated and, imo, difficult to justify civil war during the republic, and harder to get to that point.

I count 5-6 plus some minor usurpations and revolts. But numbers do not matter. Since Sulla there was always a high risk for usurpation. And this threat alone influenced roman politics of the principate detrimentally. So we have to reduce this risk anyways.

I agree, that usurpation is a very complicated subject. I am not sure, if usurpation was easier in the principate than in the republic. Maybe it was the other way around. We don't know what could have happened in a republic with 4 big armies standing at Rhine, Danube and Euphrat.

And finally, a republic should do it better than the principate. Is'nt that the reason why we discuss about rescuing the republic at all? The empire should not collapse as soon as it gets under external pressure at multiple fronts. But how should that work? And why should it work better in a republic?
 
Many threads are about the question how to save the Roman republic. Now my questions is: how, when and by whom?

Some thoughts...

In 43 BC, Caesar is dead and Octavian hasn't the power to enforce his demands. The republic has two consuls with a decent army; Mark Antony is beaten at Forum Gallorum and than at Mutina. Now, imagine that Hirtius and Pansa survive the two battles, while, with some luck, Octavianus could die... The legions of the senate, controlled by republicans, can now chase Mark Antony and defeat him, even if he merges with Bassus and Lepidus, whereas the senate can rely on Decimus Brutus and his forces. Mark Anthony is ultimately made prisoner, brought to Rome and judged as a traitor to the res publica.

Of course, this isn't the solution. New powerful imperatores can rise at any points, the Caesarians have stil many supporters. But I think that if the senate can regain the control of the empire and the legions, he can enact the necessary reforms without facing armed resistance. Thus, he can get rid of the actual causes of the problems of the republic.

Now, my question is, were there some visionary politicians having ideas which could solve this problems? And what could they propose? What could be adopted by the senate?

I think this is far too late to save the Republic. By this time you already have the precedent of the unconstitutional consecutive consulships of Marius c.100BC, and you have Sulla's march on Rome c.80BC. The rot goes back to the time of the murder of the Gracchi, c.133BC. This was the first open bloodshed in Roman politics for nearly 400 years, and it set a brutal precedent.

The fact that differences could no longer be resolved through peaceful politics, leading to physical violence, suggest deep divisions in society. It suggests an increasing polarisation of views, with no middle ground. We know that the gap between the rich and poor was growing, and that the fruits of Rome's conquests were not distributed equally, but went disproportionately to the rich Senatorial elite. All of this while the ranks of the urban poor grew, living in squalor and poverty.

The root problem thus appears to be the expansion of Roman power, which had brought in such wealth and sowed the seeds of social division. And the root cause of Roman expansion was its astonishingly successful form of Republican government.

Therefore, we are faced with the logical conclusion that the Republic was, ironically enough, destroyed by the forces unleashed by its own success.
 
We know that the gap between the rich and poor was growing, and that the fruits of Rome's conquests were not distributed equally, but went disproportionately to the rich Senatorial elite.

I guess we should not overestimate this growing gap between the poor and the rich. This was an issue in the 2nd century BC. But with the marian reforms, grain supply for the plebs urbana, and lots of sportula, games, economic growth, jobs and bribe, the average roman citizen in Italy had a much better life than the real poor guys in the exploited provinces from the 1st century BC on.

The real issue was, that the wealth flooding Rome was distributed disproportionally amongst the aristocracy itself. This ruined the former balance of the aristocracy. Rich guys like young Pompeius could simply finance an army and get dignitas and auctoritas without even starting the cursus honorum at all. And impoverished aristocrats like Catilina had to use illegal measures to make a career.

The golden age, when a few consulares of about a dozen families with roughly equal power controlled the senate and the republic, were gone. Due to the fact, that you cannot regulate the wealth of the aristocrats in order to restore this old balance, you need to adjust your constitution. You must give these new oligarchs a political role. And you have to show the poorer aristocrats, the equites and the local nobiles also a clear career path.

The classic cursus honorum could not manage this challenge. You cannot manage an empire with a system which was developed based on munera (labour service and honorary office) for the government of a city.
 
I partially disagree with some of your statements.

There were impoverished aristocrats. That's true. But Catilina was not such an impoverished aristocrat. He was an indebted aristocrat, which is very different.

Sulla actually was an impoverished aristocrat before he made enough money and riches by dubious ways and became then able to start his cursus honorum.

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (consul 115) was a relatively impoverished aristocrat before he made a lot of money and riches by dubious ways.

Catilina and many other aristocrats of the last 3 decades of the Republic were rich. Very rich. But most of their riches were in real estate. And to run a very costly political career, you need cash. Real estate being a weakly liquid asset, when an aristocrat does not want to sell his capital, he borrows money to have free cash at his disposal.

Catilina had made increased his fortune thanks to the sullan proscriptions.

Caesar, when he was dictator, made very clear why he was against the cancellation of all debts : because it would be the rich (the leading politicians) that would profit the more of such a cancellation, at the expense of other rich (the equites).

Money was not the only nor even the main asset for a political career. Name and fame were decisive, as well as talent. Some very rich families could not break through because they lacked prestige and ancient famous ancestors. Some with a famous name could come back from oblivion and reach the top again.


The civil wars came out of a conflict between members of the aristocracy. That's true. But not only.

There also were deep, long-run and powerful forces that were at work and that made the roman oligarchic regime a fragile building.

Basically, the logic nature of the ones at the top of the pyramid (the roman aristocracy and the plebs that lived in Rome or that could regularly come to Rome to participate in political decision-making) was to keep for themselves as much power and riches of the empire as they could.

Which de facto gave Rome, as head of the empire, a very narrow and weak political base to run a worldwide empire.

The italian elites wanted a bigger share because they felt almost as noble as the old roman nobles and that their local countrymen provided in fact most of the military human resources for the roman army.
They did also no longer want to pay for the selfish irresponsible tantrums of the city of Rome that sometimes still considered them as former enemies (taking in Italy for themselves only lands that had been qualified as ager publicus generations earlier when these italian cities or tribes had been defeated).
Quintus Fulvius Flaccus and Gaius Sempronius Gracchus were the ones who first realized it was time to bring a global and fair solution to this problematic global situation.

And the provincial elite wanted to be more fairly treated and not to be at the mercy of a rogue proconsul that could steal them and kill them.
Sulla was the first who realized and used the full importance of the provinces and used the eastern provinces to force his own personal way on the roman republic by a bloody civil war.
And Pompey went further by building an unequaled worldwide network of clients in the provinces and client kingdoms that was to be the model for Caesar, Augustus, and all the roman emperors.

Caesar had perfectly understood it. His political program as dictator remarkably synthetized this : "tranquility for Italy, peace for the provinces, and security for the empire."

There were 2 ways to deal with these challenges : genuine cooperation between highly competent Statesmen or autocracy.

The first solution was what Caesar always strove to achieve from the moment he was about to become consul for the first time to his last attempts to avoid civil war without enduring political destruction by his enemies.

Caesar had always wanted and worked for an alliance with the most enlightened, powerful and influential men in Rome to jointly make the essential decisions for Rome and its empire.

That's why he conceived an alliance with Pompey and Crassus in 60 BC. And one too often ignores the fact that Caesar wanted that this so-called "triumvirate" be a "quadriumvirate". Caesar wanted Cicero to be part of his alliance with Pompey and Crassus because he knew that Cicero had a strong influlence among the equites and the italian municipal elites.

This is only when Pompey decided that Caesar was becoming an equal that he could not bear, as Cicero said, that Caesar was pushed into a corner where he had no other choice but overturning the table the same way Sulla had, or being dishonored and politically destroyed.

If you want the roman oligarchic republic to last longer, you need a cooperative mind in the core of the aristocracy. You need them to compromise. There can be rivalries. There can be political conflict within the oligarchy.

But at no cost can there be a fatal miscalculation such as going to a diehard conflict beteween top players who have the nukes.

In 91 BC, the roman aristocracy had not realized it had played too much on the nerves of the italians. It provoked the social war.
In 88, Marius could not have realized that one should never push into a corner a brillant rival commander who was at the head of a veteran army.

After Sulla's civil wars and the bloody decade 90/80, nobody could ignore those risks and and everybody should have drawn the consequences in the way they acted on the political field.

Some of them did not, partly because they miscalculated and partly because they prefered overbidding than facing the consequences of their miscalculations.


As far as the idea of some kind of public pension scheme is concerned, it's a good idea in theory.

But in fact this would not change the archaic way of thinking ot the ropman citizens and soldiers.

The idea of unpersonal magistrates making decisions in the name of the whole political body just was not the roman way of thinking.

When Clodius established the free corn dole, he needed to be backed by all the other 9 tribunes or at least to secure their neutrality not to face a veto. And however he was credited for this law.

The legionary's pay was at the expense at the public treasury. This did not prevent someone like Caesar to decide he would double the legionary's pay when he began campaigning in Gaul.
This could not prevent the generals giving donativa they could finance through looting.

Augustus built such a system and this did not prevent military rebellions and usurpations.
 
I partially disagree with some of your statements.

There were impoverished aristocrats. That's true. But Catilina was not such an impoverished aristocrat. He was an indebted aristocrat, which is very different.

When I had chosen Catilina as an example, I was so sure, that somebody would pick it up and post that he was not impoverished but indebted. :D
Fortunately it does not matter! Some roman aristocrats have been impoverished, other were indebted, and some former glorious families have been politically unlucky lately. Other became extreme rich. So the gap widened up amongst the roman aristocracy due to expansion.

Unfortunately, the unwritten standing orders of the roman senate based heavily on the consensus of the powerful consulares of the big families. These guys ruled Rome, nobody else.

So we have 2 options: we either restrict Rome to the italian peninsula and write a nice novel about the roman republic until 2015, or we live with this dramatic unbalance amongst the roman aristocracy, when this city-state became an empire. But then we have to develop ideas for different standing orders of the senate! The old ones were not longer functional in the 1st century BC.


The civil wars came out of a conflict between members of the aristocracy. That's true. But not only.

There also were deep, long-run and powerful forces that were at work and that made the roman oligarchic regime a fragile building.

You always get my vote, if you argue that longterm processes and structural changes are often dominating over single events. Perhaps you should be more precise about these long-run and powerful forces, so I can get your point.

The italian elites wanted a bigger share because they felt almost as noble as the old roman nobles and that their local countrymen provided in fact most of the military human resources for the roman army.

Actually, if there was something like a "Roman Revolution" like the scholars of the 19th century claimed, it was the Social War around 90 BC. A revolutionary class, the aristocracy of the socii, revolted against the ruling class, the roman aristocracy, and fought for more political rights and participation. And they won! Unfortunately, this is one of the events during the late republic, which ended pretty succesful. Barely a reason for the Fall of the Republic. It rather prolonged it. Even if the romans managed it lousely.

And the provincial elite wanted to be more fairly treated and not to be at the mercy of a rogue proconsul that could steal them and kill them.

As mentioned above, the integration of the provincial elite was a very urgent issue. But I cant see, how Sulla, Pompeius or even Caesar did more than just try to enlarge their client- and powerbase with their measures. If somebody really started to adress this problem seriously it was emperor Claudius.

There were 2 ways to deal with these challenges : genuine cooperation between highly competent Statesmen or autocracy.

Cooperation, compromise and consensus amongst the (rather not that oligarchic) consulares of the big families during the early- and mid-republic was the key-success factor of the republic, as mentioned above. The key question is: How it could work integrating the real powerful new oligarchs of the late republic?


As far as the idea of some kind of public pension scheme is concerned, it's a good idea in theory.

...

The legionary's pay was at the expense at the public treasury. This did not prevent someone like Caesar to decide he would double the legionary's pay when he began campaigning in Gaul.
This could not prevent the generals giving donativa they could finance through looting.

Not just in theory. A clear regulation of pension scheme and pay was one base of the success of the principate! Pension for legionaries was never regulated in the republic and always a start for huge political conflicts. Of course the state payed the quarterly pay of the legionaries. But the real deal were loot and donativa. And this was again fully unregulated.


But in fact this would not change the archaic way of thinking ot the ropman citizens and soldiers.

I guess you mean the roman patron-client system. This is indead one of the major issues of the roman republic. The princeps could solve this problem by implementing himself as a kind of super-patron (pater patriae). But how to diminish, manage or use this patron-client system in a positive manner in a republican system?

The idea of unpersonal magistrates making decisions in the name of the whole political body just was not the roman way of thinking.

Sorry, I don't get your point here.

Augustus built such a system and this did not prevent military rebellions and usurpations.

Slydessertfox already claimed above, that usurpations were the exception until the 3rd century AD. Well, he neglects the dozens of minor revolts until then. I agree, that the principes adopted a lot of right measures, in order to stabilize the empire. But I also say, they failed, latest in the 3rd century. The question is, how could a republic do better and why?
 
What exactly did Claudius do for the provincials? I'm aware he embarked on a lot of provincial and administrative reforms (to say nothing of being the first emperor to have some sort of bureaucracy), but I've never seen specifics.
 
What exactly did Claudius do for the provincials? I'm aware he embarked on a lot of provincial and administrative reforms (to say nothing of being the first emperor to have some sort of bureaucracy), but I've never seen specifics.

He gave citizen rights to a lot of cities, entire regions and individuals especially in Gallia. Afterwards the senate was flooded with these "Barbarians wearing trousers" like during Caesars dictature. Claudius had a lot of trouble in the senate due to these measures. Actually trousers are myth. These new romans were 200% romans and wore a nice toga.

Claudius was the first emperor, who opened the local elite of the provinces the way up to the highest offices on a broad scale. And it never stopped since then. Just if we neglect Julius Caesars short period. I also guess Caesars motivation was more selfish.
 
Caesar's motives were no more selfish and no less political than emperor Claudius's motives.

Nobody ever made someone senator for altruistic or moral reasons. Ever since Rome began opening its ruling group to foreign aristocrats, it was under the patronage of the most powerful roman political leaders. Be they the kings in the royal period, or the major patrician gentes in the republican period, or the dictator/triumvir/princeps/emperor after.

The point was not that much about whole non-italian cities being granted roman citizen rights. It was about the aristocracies of these provincial cities to be given the ius honorum in Rome, meaning they could integrate the roman Senate through the legal path of the cursus honorum.

Now, since you rightly said that these people were 100% roman, the problem was not that much a question of principle than a question of crude realities. Some of these provincial aristocracts were ... very very rich. Gaul was a very rich province.

What the "old" roman senators of Italy demanded was that this influx of new provincial senators be checked and limited. What they feared was losing too much control too quickly, by being overcome by so rich new competitors in the cursus honorum.

They all had in mind a very fresh example : Decimus Valerius Asiaticus, who was so rich and had become so powerful and influential that Claudius finally decided his downfall in 47 AD.

The ones who knew their roman history, and they were quite many, knew that most patrician minor gentes and even in the end many families of the patrician major gentes were superseded by the richest and more talented aristocrats from the plebeian gentes. And those gentes were nothing more than former foreigners of the other cities of Italy who had been personally granted the jus honorum by Rome.

The solution devised consisted in making compulsory for senators holding at least a certain percentage (25% if my memory is right) of their fortune in italian real estate. That was some kind of fee they had to pay to the italian owners of italian real estate : a giant swap contract, profitable for the italian aristocrats, that the provincial aristocrats had to pay to become part of the top of the ruling elite of the roman empire.

The question of control of the enlargement of the roman ruling elite had always been a major concern in Rome.

It caused a standstill in the decades before the Licininan-Sextian laws, which were the acceptance of political equality between patricians and plebeian aristocrats.

It caused another standstill in the years 125/91 BC, that turned into a social war and then into a civil war that was its continuation to a great extent.
 
The point was not that much about whole non-italian cities being granted roman citizen rights. It was about the aristocracies of these provincial cities to be given the ius honorum in Rome, meaning they could integrate the roman Senate through the legal path of the cursus honorum.

Thank you for adding these important details. The ius honorum made indead a big difference.

Sometimes it is a bit confusing. From my understanding the romans often granted citizen rights in stages.

- just latin rights to the local elite, sometimes coupled with the position of a civil decurio in the curia of a city
- then all inhabitants of a civitas (kind of county) got citizen rights, like the Aedui got it relatively early.
- then entire provinces got it like Iberia by Vespasian and Africa by Severus
- and finally these very important details like with or without ius honorum, and even more desired the ius italicum (land tax free)

Claudius measures and the heavy discussions with the senate show, how reluctant the roman aristocracy was to grant citizen rights. During the republic, this often meant, that the client base of a single senator increased heavily. Something which always caused a dispute in the senate. Here we are back to the issue about the roman patron-client system, we discussed above.

I am convinced that these measures were necessary, but the question is, how a republican senate could go this route without a princeps enforcing it.
 
Here's my answer : an oligarchic republic would cool things down and go more slowly than a regime de facto ruled by a Princeps.

When the number of people making the decision is much more important and when these people decide through such a system of checks and balances that they need quasi-consensus, they take only half-measures and they take much time to really implement those measures.

In the time of the oligarchic republic, strong reforms were taken only when Rome had no other choice and was forced to make such moves. They often waited until the last moment. Sometimes they went beyond the last moment and it turned to civil crisis, secession of the allies or civil war.

Take for example the case of the reforms of Tiberius Gracchus. He was not the one who discovered the problem of impoverished citizens who no longer had the census to qualify for legionary service or the problem of impoverished homeless and jobless veterans.
The problem had been identified more than a decade before Tiberius Gracchus became tribune.
The first known attempt to bring a global answer to this problem was made ten years before Tiberius Gracchus by Gaius Laelius, the friend of Scipio Aemilianus. But they finally decided that not angering anyone in the roman ruling class (senators and equites) was more important than adressing this problem.

Concerning the problem of the italian allies in the same terms as those that were going to cause the social war, the roman reling group was aware of it at the latest in 129 BC when Scipion Aemilianus emasculated the agrarian triumvirs of their special judicial powers to protect the italian nobles' holding of ager publicus that the triumvirs wanted to give to impoverished roman citizens.

As someone on this forum brillantly stated, the problem of the roman republican oligarchic regime is that it was by nature too slow to adapt to the too fast growing and changing roman empire. The republic was the collateral victim of Rome's outstanding success.
 
The first major fault was, to integrate the italians into the exisiting 35 tribus. And the romans in the provinces also never got additional tribus.

Now imagine we have about 100 tribus all over the empire, e.g. the tribus of the romans in Baetica. And due to the fact, that there are no comitia anymore, these tribus elect a tribune (not just 10 in total) and send him to the senate, like discussed above.

Of course the romans had no clue what a representative democracy means. And as mentioned above, democracy makes no sense in an aristocratc society. But something like representation could have happened by accident, e.g. starting after the social war, if the italians get their own tribus.

Interesting. Looking at the history of 'tribus' the number went from 3 (legendary) to 21 to 35, with the last new ones being added in 241, according to Wiki. So... For hundreds of years, the numbers of tribes had expanded as seemed appropriate. The Social Wars are only about a century and a half after the last expansion, so surely it should have been possible to continue the expansion then. And then keep doing it as the Republic expanded.

So. It SHOULD have been entirely possible...
 
Interesting. Looking at the history of 'tribus' the number went from 3 (legendary) to 21 to 35, with the last new ones being added in 241, according to Wiki. So... For hundreds of years, the numbers of tribes had expanded as seemed appropriate. The Social Wars are only about a century and a half after the last expansion, so surely it should have been possible to continue the expansion then. And then keep doing it as the Republic expanded.

So. It SHOULD have been entirely possible...

Didn't the Marians promise to do exactly this?
 
Interesting. Looking at the history of 'tribus' the number went from 3 (legendary) to 21 to 35, with the last new ones being added in 241, according to Wiki. So... For hundreds of years, the numbers of tribes had expanded as seemed appropriate. The Social Wars are only about a century and a half after the last expansion, so surely it should have been possible to continue the expansion then. And then keep doing it as the Republic expanded.

So. It SHOULD have been entirely possible...

And how exactly are the member of a Gallic tribus going to come to Rome 20 times a year? This reform would improve nothing, just enlarge the power of the inhabitants of Rome and the provincial aristocracy which can move to Rome for every election.
 
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