The Political Institutions of the Republic I: The Magistrates

Abstract

The following discussion focuses on the classical republican institutions as they operated in the mature republic after the lex Hortensia (287). The transformation they underwent towards the end of the republic, signifying its decay and final absorption by the Principate, will be discussed in a special section.¹ During the period under review, Rome expanded from Latium to all of Italy, defeated her arch-rival Carthage, conquered Greece and Macedonia, Spain and Asia Minor. The civitas grew into the Mediterranean empire. The political institutions — magistrates, assemblies, and Senate — that had governed the city state remained basically unchanged. Only the citizens of metropolitan Rome and those of privileged Italian allies possessed political rights. Within Rome the patrician-plebeian nobility controlled the political machinery. The pattern of government operative within the urbs, of incomparable excellence for the purposes it served, fully conformed to the principles of constitutionalism.