Theocracy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy

Augustus as Jove, holding scepter and orb (first half of 1st century AD).

Theocracy is a form of government in which a deity of some type is recognized as the supreme ruling authority, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries that manage the day-to-day affairs of the government.

The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified Roman emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority (auctoritas) of the Roman State. The official offer of cultus to a living emperor acknowledged his office and rule as divinely approved and constitutional: his Principate should therefore demonstrate pious respect for traditional Republican deities and mores.

Etymology

The word theocracy originates from the Greek θεοκρατία (theocratia) meaning "the rule of God". This in turn derives from θεός (theos), meaning "god", and κρατέω (krateo), meaning "to rule". Thus the meaning of the word in Greek was "rule by god(s)" or human incarnation(s) of god(s).

The term was initially coined by Flavius Josephus in the first century AD to describe the characteristic government of the Jews. Josephus argued that while mankind had developed many forms of rule, most could be subsumed under the following three types: monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. However, according to Josephus, the government of the Jews was unique. Josephus offered the term "theocracy" to describe this polity, ordained by Moses, in which God is sovereign and his word is law.

Josephus' definition was widely accepted until the Enlightenment era, when the term took on negative connotations and was hardly salvaged by Hegel's abstruse commentary. The first recorded English use was in 1622, with the meaning "sacerdotal government under divine inspiration" (as in Biblical Israel before the rise of kings); the meaning "priestly or religious body wielding political and civil power" is recorded from 1825.

Synopsis

In some religions, the ruler, usually a king, was regarded as the chosen favorite of God (or gods) and could not be questioned, sometimes even being the descendant of or a god in their own right. Today, there is also a form of government where clerics have the power and the supreme leader could not be questioned in action. From the perspective of the theocratic government, "God himself is recognized as the head" of the state, hence the term theocracy, from the Koine Greek θεοκρατία "rule of God", a term used by Josephus for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Taken literally, theocracy means rule by God or gods and refers primarily to an internal "rule of the heart", especially in its biblical application. The common, generic use of the term, as defined above in terms of rule by a church or analogous religious leadership, would be more accurately described as an ecclesiocracy.

In a pure theocracy, the civil leader is believed to have a personal connection with the civilization's religion or belief. For example, Moses led the Israelites, and Muhammad led the early Muslims. There is a fine line between the tendency of appointing religious characters to run the state and having a religious-based government. According to the Holy Books, Prophet Joseph was offered an essential governmental role just because he was trustworthy, wise and knowledgeable (Quran 12: 54–55). As a result of the Prophet Joseph's knowledge and also due to his ethical and genuine efforts during a critical economic situation, the whole nation was rescued from a seven-year drought (Quran 12: 47–48).

When religions have a "holy book", it is used as a direct message from God. Law proclaimed by the ruler is also considered a divine revelation, and hence the law of God. As to the Prophet Muhammad ruling, "The first thirteen of the Prophet's twenty-three year career went on totally apolitical and non-violent. This attitude partly changed only after he had to flee from Mecca to Medina.This hijra, or migration, would be a turning point in the Prophet's mission and would mark the very beginning of the Muslim calendar. Yet the Prophet did not establish a theocracy in Medina. Instead of a polity defined solely by Islam, he founded a territorial polity based on religious pluralism. This is evident in a document called the ’Charter of Medina’, which the Prophet signed with the leaders of the other community in the city."

According to the Quran, Prophets were not after power or material resources. For example, in surah 26 verses (109, 127, 145, 164, 180), the Koran repeatedly quotes from Prophets Noah, Hud, Salih, Lut, and Shu'aib that: "I do not ask from you any payment for it; my payment is only from the Lord of the worlds." Also, in theocracy many aspects of the holy book are overshadowed by material powers. Due to being considered divine, the regime entitles itself to interpret verses to its own benefit and uses them out of context for its political aims. An ecclesiocracy, on the other hand, is a situation where the religious leaders assume a leading role in the state, but do not claim that they are instruments of divine revelation. For example, the prince-bishops of the European Middle Ages, where the bishop was also the temporal ruler. Such a state may use the administrative hierarchy of the religion for its own administration, or it may have two "arms" – administrators and clergy – but with the state administrative hierarchy subordinate to the religious hierarchy. The papacy in the Papal States occupied a middle ground between theocracy and ecclesiocracy, since the pope did not claim he was a prophet who received revelation from God and translated it into civil law.

Religiously endorsed monarchies fall between these two poles, according to the relative strengths of the religious and political organs.

Theocracy is distinguished from other, secular forms of government that have a state religion, or are influenced by theological or moral concepts, and monarchies held "By the Grace of God". In the most common usage of the term, some civil rulers are leaders of the dominant religion (e.g., the Byzantine emperor as patron and defender of the official Church); the government proclaims it rules on behalf of God or a higher power, as specified by the local religion, and with divine approval of government institutions and laws. These characteristics apply also to a caesaropapist regime. The Byzantine Empire however was not theocratic since the patriarch answered to the emperor, not vice versa; similarly in Tudor England the crown forced the church to break away from Rome so the royal (and, especially later, parliamentary) power could assume full control of the now Anglican hierarchy and confiscate most church property and income.

Secular governments can also co-exist with a state religion or delegate some aspects of civil law to religious communities. For example, in Israel marriage is governed by officially recognized religious bodies who each provide marriage services for their respected adherents, yet no form of civil marriage (free of religion, for atheists, for example) exists nor marriage by non-recognized minority religions.

Current theocracies

Christian theocracies

Holy See (Vatican City)

Following the Capture of Rome on 20 September 1870, the Papal States including Rome with the Vatican was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy. In 1929, through the Lateran Treaty signed with the Italian Government, the new state of Vatican City (population 842) – with no connection to the former Papal States – was formally created and recognized as an independent state. The head of state of the Vatican is the pope, elected by the College of Cardinals, an assembly of Senatorial-princes of the Church. They are usually clerics, appointed as Ordinaries, but in the past have also included men who were not bishops nor clerics. A pope is elected for life, and either dies or may resign. The cardinals are appointed by the popes, who thereby choose the electors of their successors.

Voting is limited to cardinals under 80 years of age. A Secretary for Relations with States, directly responsible for international relations, is appointed by the pope. The Vatican legal system is rooted in canon law but ultimately is decided by the pope; the Bishop of Rome as the Supreme Pontiff "has the fullness of legislative, executive and judicial powers." Although the laws of Vatican City come from the secular laws of Italy, under article 3 of the Law of the Sources of the Law, provision is made for the supplementary application of the "laws promulgated by the Kingdom of Italy". The government of the Vatican can also be considered an ecclesiocracy (ruled by the Church).

Mount Athos (Athonite State)

Mount Athos is a mountain peninsula in Greece which is an Eastern Orthodox autonomous region consisting of 20 monasteries under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. There have been almost 1,800-years of continuous Christian presence on Mount Athos and it has a long history of monastic traditions, which dates back to at least 800 A.D. The origins of self-rule are originally from an edict by the Byzantine Emperor Ioannis Tzimisces in 972, which was later reaffirmed by the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in 1095. After Greece's independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830, Greece claimed Mount Athos but after a diplomatic dispute with Russia the region was formally recognized as Greek after World War I.

Mount Athos is specifically exempt from the free movement of people and goods required by Greece's membership of the European Union and entrance is only allowed with express permission from the monks. The number of daily visitors to Mount Athos is restricted, with all visitors required to obtain an entrance permit. Only men are permitted to visit and Orthodox Christians take precedence in permit-issuing. Residents of Mount Athos must be men aged 18 and over who are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church and also either monks or workers.

Athos is governed jointly by a 'Holy Community' consisting of representatives from the 20 monasteries and a Civil Governor, appointed by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Holy Community also has a four-member executive committee called the 'Holy Administration' which is led by a Protos.

Islamic theocracies

Iran

Iran has been described as a "theocratic republic" (by the CIA World Factbook), and its constitution has been described as a "hybrid" of "theocratic and democratic elements" by Francis Fukuyama. Like other Islamic states, it maintains religious laws and has religious courts to interpret all aspects of law. According to Iran's constitution, "all civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria."

In addition, Iran has a religious ruler and many religious officials in powerful government posts. The head of state, or "Supreme Leader", is a faqih (scholar of Islamic law) and possesses more power than Iran's president. The Leader appoints the heads of many powerful posts: the commanders of the armed forces, the director of the national radio and television network, the heads of the powerful major religious foundations, the chief justice, the attorney general (indirectly through the chief justice), special tribunals, and members of national security councils dealing with defence and foreign affairs. He also co-appoints the 12 jurists of the Guardian Council.

The Leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts which is made up of mujtahids, who are Islamic scholars competent in interpreting Sharia.

The Guardian Council, has the power to veto bills from majlis (parliament) and to approve or disapprove candidates who wish to run for high office (president, majlis, the Assembly of Experts). The council supervises elections, and can greenlight or ban investigations into the election process. Six of the Guardians (half the council) are faqih empowered to approve or veto all bills from the majlis (parliament) according to whether the faqih believe them to be in accordance with Islamic law and customs (Sharia). The other six members are lawyers appointed by the head of the judiciary (who is also a cleric and also appointed by the Leader).

An Islamic republic is the name given to several states that are officially ruled by Islamic laws, including the Islamic Republics of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Mauritania. Pakistan first adopted the title under the constitution of 1956. Mauritania adopted it on 28 November 1958. Iran adopted it after the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty. Afghanistan adopted it in 2004 after the fall of the Taliban government. Despite having similar names, the countries differ greatly in their governments and laws.

The term "Islamic republic" has come to mean several different things, at times contradictory. To some Muslim religious leaders in the Middle East and Africa who advocate it, an Islamic republic is a state under a particular Islamic form of government. They see it as a compromise between a purely Islamic caliphate and secular nationalism and republicanism. In their conception of the Islamic republic, the penal code of the state is required to be compatible with some or all laws of Sharia, and the state may not be a monarchy, as many Middle Eastern states are presently.

Central Tibetan Administration

The Central Tibetan Administration, colloquially known as the Tibetan government in exile, is a Tibetan exile organisation with a state-like internal structure. According to its charter, the position of head of state of the Central Tibetan Administration belongs ex officio to the current Dalai Lama, a religious hierarch. In this respect, it continues the traditions of the former government of Tibet, which was ruled by the Dalai Lamas and their ministers, with a specific role reserved for a class of monk officials.

On 14 March 2011, at the 14th Dalai Lama's suggestion, the parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration began considering a proposal to remove the Dalai Lama's role as head of state in favor of an elected leader.

The first directly elected Kalön Tripa was Samdhong Rinpoche, who was elected on 20 August 2001.

Before 2011, the Kalön Tripa position was subordinate to the 14th Dalai Lama who presided over the government in exile from its founding. In August of that year, Lobsang Sangay polled 55 percent votes out of 49,189, defeating his nearest rival Tethong Tenzin Namgyal by 8,646 votes, becoming the second popularly elected Kalon Tripa. The Dalai Lama announced that his political authority would be transferred to Sangay.

Change to Sikyong

On 20 September 2012, the 15th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile unanimously voted to change the title of Kalön Tripa to Sikyong in Article 19 of the Charter of the Tibetans in exile and relevant articles. The Dalai Lama had previously referred to the Kalon Tripa as Sikyong, and this usage was cited as the primary justification for the name change. According to Tibetan Review, "Sikyong" translates to "political leader", as distinct from "spiritual leader". Foreign affairs Kalon Dicki Chhoyang stated that the term "Sikyong" has had a precedent dating back to the 7th Dalai Lama, and that the name change "ensures historical continuity and legitimacy of the traditional leadership from the fifth Dalai Lama". The online Dharma Dictionary translates sikyong (srid skyong) as "secular ruler; regime, regent". The title sikyong had previously been used by regents who ruled Tibet during the Dalai Lama's minority.

States with official state religion

Having a state religion is not sufficient enough to be a theocracy in the narrow sense of the term. Many countries have a state religion without the government directly deriving its powers from a divine authority or a religious authority directly exercising governmental powers. Since the narrow sense of the term has few instances in the modern world, the more common usage of it is the wider sense of an enforced state religion.

Historic states with theocratic aspects

Ancient Egypt

The pharaoh was believed to be the offspring of the sungod Ra.

Japan

The emperor was historically venerated as the descendant of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu. Through this line of descent, the emperor was seen as a living god who was the supreme leader of the Japanese people. This status only changed with the Occupation of Japan following the end of the Second World War when Emperor Hirohito was forced to declare that he was not a living god in order for Japan to reorganize into a democratic nation.

Israel

Early Israel was a Kritarchy, ruled by Judges before instituting a monarchy. The Judges were believed to be representatives of YHVH Yahweh (also rendered as Jehovah).

Western Antiquity

The imperial cults in Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire, as well as numerous other monarchies, deified the ruling monarch. The state religion was often dedicated to the worship of the ruler as a deity, or the incarnation thereof.

In ancient and medieval Christianity, Caesaropapism is the doctrine where a head of state is at the same time the head of the church.

Tibet

Unified religious rule in Buddhist Tibet began in 1642, when the Fifth Dalai Lama allied with the military power of the Mongol Gushri Khan to consolidate the political power and center control around his office as head of the Gelug school. This form of government is known as the dual system of government. Prior to 1642, particular monasteries and monks had held considerable power throughout Tibet, but had not achieved anything approaching complete control, though power continued to be held in a diffuse, feudal system after the ascension of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Power in Tibet was held by a number of traditional elites, including members of the nobility, the heads of the major Buddhist sects (including their various tulkus), and various large and influential monastic communities.

The Bogd Khaanate period of Mongolia (1911–19) is also cited as a former Buddhist theocracy.

China

Similar to the Roman Emperor, the Chinese sovereign was historically held to be the Son of Heaven. However, from the first historical Emperor on, this was largely ceremonial and tradition quickly established it as a posthumous dignity, like the Roman institution. The situation before Qin Shi Huang Di is less clear.

The Shang dynasty essentially functioned as a theocracy, declaring the ruling family the sons of heaven and calling the chief sky god Shangdi after a word for their deceased ancestors. After their overthrow by the Zhou, the royal clan of Shang were not eliminated but instead moved to a ceremonial capital where they were charged to continue the performance of their rituals.

The titles combined by Shi Huangdi to form his new title of emperor were originally applied to god-like beings who ordered the heavens and earth and to culture heroes credited with the invention of agriculture, clothing, music, astrology, etc. Even after the fall of Qin, an emperor's words were considered sacred edicts (聖旨) and his written proclamations "directives from above" (上諭).

As a result, some Sinologists translate the title huangdi (usually rendered "emperor") as thearch. The term properly refers to the head of a thearchy (a kingdom of gods), but the more accurate "theocrat" carries associations of a strong priesthood that would be generally inaccurate in describing imperial China. Others reserve the use of "thearch" to describe the legendary figures of Chinese prehistory while continuing to use "emperor" to describe historical rulers.

The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace in 1860s Qing China was a heterodox Christian theocracy led by a person who said that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, Hong Xiuquan. This theocratic state fought one of the most destructive wars in history, the Taiping Rebellion, against the Qing dynasty for fifteen years before being crushed following the fall of the rebel capital Nanjing.

Caliphate

The Sunni branch of Islam stipulates that, as a head of state, a Caliph should be elected by Muslims or their representatives. Followers of Shia Islam, however, believe a Caliph should be an Imam chosen by God from the Ahl al-Bayt (the "Family of the House", Muhammad's direct descendants).

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire (a.d. 324–1453) operated under caesaropapism, meaning that the emperor was both the head of civil society and the ultimate authority over the ecclesiastical authorities, or patriarchates. The emperor was considered to be God's omnipotent representative on earth and he ruled as an absolute autocrat.

Jennifer Fretland VanVoorst argues, “the Byzantine Empire became a theocracy in the sense that Christian values and ideals were the foundation of the empire's political ideals and heavily entwined with its political goals". Steven Runciman says in his book on The Byzantine Theocracy (2004):

The constitution of the Byzantine Empire was based on the conviction that it was the earthly copy of the Kingdom of Heaven. Just as God ruled in Heaven, so the Emperor, made in His image, should rule on earth and carry out his commandments. ...It saw itself as a universal empire. Ideally, it should embrace all the peoples of the Earth who, ideally, should all be members of the one true Christian Church, its own Orthodox Church. Just as man was made in God's image, so man's kingdom on Earth was made in the image of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Münster (16th Century)

Between 1533 and 1535 the Protestant leaders Jan Mattys and John of Leiden erected a short-living theocratic kingdom in the city of Münster. They created an anabaptist regime with chiliastic and milleniaristic expectations. Money was abolished and any violations of the Ten Commandments were punished by death. Despite the pietistic ideology, polygamy was allowed and von Leiden had 17 wives. In 1535, Münster was recaptured by Franz von Waldeck, ending the existence of the kingdom.

Geneva and Zurich (16th century)

Historians debate the extent to which Geneva, Switzerland, in the days of John Calvin (1509–64) was a theocracy. On the one hand, Calvin's theology clearly called for separation between church and state. Other historians have stressed the enormous political power wielded on a daily basis by the clerics.

In nearby Zurich, Switzerland, Protestant reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) built a political system that many scholars have called a theocracy, while others have denied it.

Deseret (LDS Church, USA)

The question of theocracy has been debated extensively by historians regarding the Latter-Day Saint communities in Illinois, and especially in Utah.

Joseph Smith, mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois, and founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, ran as an independent for president in 1844. He proposed the redemption of slaves by selling public lands; reducing the size and salary of Congress; the closure of prisons; the annexation of Texas, Oregon, and parts of Canada; the securing of international rights on high seas; free trade; and the re-establishment of a national bank. His top aide Brigham Young campaigned for Smith saying, "He it is that God of Heaven designs to save this nation from destruction and preserve the Constitution." The campaign ended when Smith was killed by a mob while in the Carthage, Illinois, jail on June 27, 1844.

After severe persecution, the Mormons left the United States and resettled in a remote part of Utah, which was then part of Mexico. However the United States took control in 1848 and would not accept polygamy. The Mormon State of Deseret was short-lived. Its original borders stretched from western Colorado to the southern California coast. When the Mormons arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847, the Great Basin was still a part of Mexico and had no secular government. As a result, Brigham Young administered the region both spiritually and temporally through the highly organized and centralized Melchizedek Priesthood. This original organization was based upon a concept called theodemocracy, a governmental system combining Biblical theocracy with mid-19th-century American political ideals.

In 1849, the Saints organized a secular government in Utah, although many ecclesiastical leaders maintained their positions of secular power. The Mormons also petitioned Congress to have Deseret admitted into the Union as a state. However, under the Compromise of 1850, Utah Territory was created and Brigham Young was appointed governor. In this situation, Young still stood as head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) as well as of Utah's secular government.

After the abortive Utah War of 1857–1858, the replacement of Young by an outside Federal Territorial Governor, intense federal prosecution of LDS Church leaders, the eventual resolution of controversies regarding plural marriage, and accession by Utah to statehood, the apparent temporal aspects of LDS theodemocracy receded markedly.

Persia/Iran

During the Achaemenid Empire, Zoroastrianism was the state religion and included formalized worship. The Persian kings were known to be pious Zoroastrians and they ruled with a Zoroastrian form of law called asha. However, Cyrus the Great, who founded the empire, avoided imposing the Zoroastrian faith on the inhabitants of conquered territory. Cyrus's kindness towards Jews has been cited as sparking Zoroastrian influence on Judaism.

Under the Seleucids, Zoroastrianism became autonomous. During the Sassanid period, the Zoroastrian calendar was reformed, image-use in worship was banned, Fire Temples were increasingly built, and intolerance towards other faiths prevailed.

Florence under Savonarola

The short reign (1494–1498) of Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican priest, over the city of Florence had features of a theocracy. During his rule, "un-Christian" books, statues, poetry, and other items were burned (in the Bonfire of the Vanities), sodomy was made a capital offense, and other Christian practices became law.

 

Constitution of the Roman Republic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Roman_Republic 

 

Ancient Rome
This article is part of a series on the politics and government of ancient Rome
Periods
Roman Kingdom 753–509 BC Roman Republic 509–27 BC Roman Empire 27 BC – AD 395 Principate 27 BC – AD 284 Dominate AD 284–641 Western AD 395–476 Eastern AD 395–1453 Timeline
Roman Constitution
Constitution of the Kingdom Constitution of the Republic Constitution of the Empire Constitution of the Late Empire Senate Legislative assemblies Executive magistrates
Precedent and law
Roman law Ius Imperium Mos maiorum Collegiality Auctoritas Roman citizenship Cursus honorum Senatus consultum Senatus consultum ultimum
Assemblies
Centuriate Curiate Plebeian Tribal
Ordinary magistrates
Consul Praetor Quaestor Promagistrate Aedile Tribune Censor Governor
Extraordinary magistrates
Corrector Dictator Magister equitum Consular tribune Rex Triumviri Decemviri
Titles and honours
Emperor Legatus Dux Officium Praeses Praefectus Vicarius Vigintisexviri Lictor Magister militum Imperator Princeps senatus Pontifex maximus Augustus Caesar Tetrarch

The constitution of the Roman Republic was a set of uncodified norms and customs which, together with various written laws, guided the procedural governance of the Roman Republic. The constitution emerged from that of the Roman kingdom, evolved substantively and significantly—almost to the point of unrecognisability—over the almost five hundred years of the republic. The collapse of republican government and norms from 133 BC would lead to the rise of Augustus and his principate.

The republican constitution can be divided into three main branches:

• the Assemblies, composed of the people, which served as the supreme repository of political power and had the authority to elect magistrates, accept or reject laws, administer justice, and declare war or peace;
• the Senate, which advised the magistrates, acting primarily not on legal authority per se, but rather with its influence, and
• the magistrates, elected by the people to govern the Republic in their name, exercising religious, military, and judicial powers, along with the right to preside over and call upon the assemblies.

A complex set of checks and balances developed between these three branches. For example, the assemblies theoretically held all power, but were called and governed by the magistrates, who, controlling discussion, exercised dominating influence over them. Other magistrates could also veto proceedings before the assemblies, though until the late republic, this was rare. Similarly, to check the power of the magistrates, each magistrate could veto one of their colleagues and the plebeians elected tribunes who could intercede and veto the actions of a magistrate.

The republic's constitution, while malleable and evolving, still had substantive norms that entrenched certain portions of it. The senate, consuls, etc were at various times reformed substantially, but existed continuously through the whole republican period. And the rule that what the legislature (here the assemblies) created was binding law continued, with exception of the dictatorships, through the whole of the republican period. Starting from a period of patrician domination, the Conflict of the Orders eventually granted plebeian citizens equal political rights, while also creating the tribunate to check patrician power and empowering the plebeian assembly, an assembly composed of the plebeians of Rome, with full legislative authority.

The late republic saw an increase in the centralisation of power into the hands of provincial governors, the use of military power to enforce political changes (e.g. the Sullan dictatorship), and the use of violence, combined with exploitation of the suitably bribed or intimidated "sovereign" assemblies, to grant supreme authority to victorious commanders. The increasing legitimisation of violence and centralisation of authority into fewer and fewer men would, with the collapse of trust in the Republic's institutions, put it on a path to civil war and its transformation by Augustus into an autocratic regime cloaked with republican imagery and legitimacy.

Development of the constitution

The "Capitoline Brutus", traditionally identified as a bust of Lucius Junius Brutus (d. 509 BC), who himself was identified traditionally as the founder of the republic.

The early republican constitution was dominated by the patricians, who monopolised all control of the magistracies, the Senate, and the voting blocs of the assemblies. Generally, it slowly developed with a tendency towards greater popular representation at the expense of the patrician class. The main historical sources for the origins of the Roman political system, Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, relied heavily on the Roman annalists, who supplemented what little written history existed with oral history. This lack of evidence poses problems for the reliability of the traditional account of the republic's origins.

According to this traditional account, Rome had been ruled by a succession of kings. The Romans believed that this era, that of the Roman kingdom, began in 753 BC and ended in 510 BC. After the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Republic, the people of Rome began electing two consuls each year. According to the consular fasti, a list of the consuls going back to the foundation of the Republic, the first consuls were chosen in 509 BC.

Some scholars doubt this traditional account, arguing instead that the monarchy evolved into a government led by elected magistrates. Remnants of the monarchy, however, were reflected in republican institutions, such as the religious office of rex sacrorum ("king of the sacred") and the interregnum (a period of time presided over by an interrex when the offices of consul, praetor, and dictator were all vacant). There is, however, evidence that the early Republic was a time of violent change, with the word rex carrying the same connotations as tyrant and laws which declared forfeit the life and property of any man who plotted to install himself as a king or tyrant.

The first assemblies of the Republic emerged during the Kingdom, with their use to ratify regal elections and the repurposing of the comitia centuriata to elect the first consuls. This regime was dominated by the patricians, and the sources on the early Republic overwhelmingly focus on the conflicts between the patricians and the plebs, in what is known as the Conflict of the Orders.

The early years of the Republic were a time of external strife and periodic popular unrest. In 494 BC, under harsh measures from patrician creditors, during a military campaign, the plebeians under arms seceded to the Mons Sacer outside the city and refused to fight in the campaign without political concessions. With the pressure of an external threat, the patricians were forced to recognise the office of Plebeian tribune (Latin: tribuni plebis) who were declared sacrosanct, i.e. that they were declared inviolable and that anyone could be summarily executed for violation of the sanctity of his person. This was the basis of the tribune's ability to veto (literally translated as "I forbid") any political act or to protect any individual from an injustice committed by a magistrate, known as intercessio and auxilium, respectively. The people gave the tribunes, whose number is unclear, two assistants known as plebeian aediles.

Later, again under pressure from the plebs, a political compromise was reached in which the consuls and tribunes would give place to a commission of ten men, the decemviri, who would be empowered to publish a code of laws for all Rome, the Twelve Tables. According to Livy, it codified all public and private law, but its promulgation did not grant further political rights to the plebs, as it enshrined into the tables a law banning intermarriage between plebeians and patricians. With a short attempt to establish a tyranny by the decemviri, they were overthrown by the second secession of the army, restoring the old republic and preventing the creation of a new constitution based on the ten-man commission.

In 446 BC, quaestors, administrators with wide terms of reference, were first elected; and the office of censor was created to administer the census in 443 BC. However, the creation of the censors also was concurrent with the practice of electing military tribunes with consular authority, which, while open to the plebs, stalled efforts to reform the consulate itself.

In 367 BC, plebeians were allowed to stand for the consulship, and this implicitly opened both the censorship as well as the dictatorship to plebeians. Around this time, the practice of electing military tribunes with consular authority was dropped. In 366 BC, in an effort by the patricians to reassert their influence over the magisterial offices, two new offices were created. These two offices, the praetorship and the curule aedileship (so-called because its holder, like consuls and praetors, had the right to sit in a curule seat), were at first open only to patricians, but within a generation they were open to plebeians as well.

Beginning around the year 350 BC, the senators and the plebeian tribunes began to grow closer. The Senate began giving tribunes more power, and the tribunes began to feel indebted to the Senate. As the tribunes and the senators grew closer, plebeian senators began to routinely secure the office of tribune for members of their own families. Also, this period saw the enacting of the plebiscitum Ovinium, which transferred the power to appoint new senators from the consuls to the censors. This law also required the censors to appoint any newly elected magistrate to the Senate, which probably resulted in a significant increase in the number of plebeian senators.

As the privileged status of the old patrician elite eroded over time, a plebeian aristocracy developed whose status was theoretically based on merit and popular election rather than birth. Because patricians were ineligible to run for plebeian offices, the new plebeian aristocracy actually had more opportunities for advancement than their patrician counterparts. Over time distinctions between patricians and plebeian aristocrats became less important, giving rise to a new "patricio-plebeian aristocracy" termed the nobilitas.

In 287 BC, the plebeians again seceded. To end the secession, the lex Hortensia was passed, which required that plebiscites, laws passed by the Plebeian Council, be binding on the whole Roman people. The Hortensian law resolved the last great political question of the earlier era; the electoral and legislative sovereignty of the assemblies was confirmed and would remain part of the constitution until the demise of the Republic. As a whole, the outcome of the political struggles of the early republic was to eliminate the privileged status of patricians in the constitution and grant the plebs recognition of their own officers. The institution of the Senate was also now arguably stronger, as it became a repository of former magistrates rather than a body of hereditary nobles.

Assemblies

Chart showing the checks and balances of the Constitution of the Roman Republic

In Roman constitutional law, the assemblies were a sovereign authority, with the power to enact or reject any law, confer any magistracies, and make any decision. In fact, with a single law, they held the authority to override the norms and precedents of the Republic as well as ancient laws long unchanged. There were two necessary components to any assembly: (1) the convening magistrate and (2) the citizens in the assembly itself. Assemblies did not participate or discuss matters laid before them, they heard the speakers put forth by the presiding officer. And after such discussion, the presiding officer could call for a direct up or down vote. Without a magistrate, there would be nobody to legally call upon the assembly; and without the citizens, there is naught but a magistrate.

Assemblies did not consist of the whole Roman people (Latin: populus Romanus) as only adult male citizens were permitted to participate. Until the Social War around 90 BC, Italian non-Romans were prohibited from voting as well. That civil war, between Rome and her Italian allies, led to various laws granting citizenship and voting rights to their Italian allies.

Procedure

There were three types of gatherings, the comitia, the concilium, and the contio or conventio. The first two were formal gatherings where legal decisions were made. The first, the comitia (or comitiatus), was an assembly of all Roman citizens convened to take a legal action, such as enacting laws, electing magistrates, and trying judicial cases. The second type of legislative meeting was the council (Latin: concilium), which was a gathering of a specific group of citizens. For example, the concilium Plebis, or Plebeian council, was for meetings of plebeians only.

The third type of gathering, the convention (Latin: contio or conventio), was an unofficial forum for communication where citizens gathered to hear public announcements and arguments debated in speeches as well to witness the examination or execution of criminals. In contrast to the formal assembly or council, no legal decisions were made by the convention. Voters met in conventions to deliberate prior to meeting in assemblies or councils to vote.

Assemblies and councils operated according to established procedures overseen by the augurs. They could only be convened by magistrates, and citizens only voted on matters proposed by the presiding magistrate. Over the years, laws were passed which mandated a written ballot, attempted to reduce voter intimidation, and established procedures to watch over voting and prevent voter fraud. For elections, it was not a matter of who received the most votes, but rather who could first be approved by a majority of the voting blocs. All votes had to be completed within a single day and had to be done again if interrupted or abandoned.

Assembly types

Roman citizens were organized into three types of voting units: curiae, centuria, and tribus or tribes. These corresponded to three different kinds of assemblies: the Curiate Assembly, the Centuriate Assembly, and the Tribal Assembly. Each unit (curia, century or tribe) cast one vote before their assembly. The majority of individual votes in any century, tribe, or curia decided how that unit voted.

The Curiate assembly (Latin: comitia curiata) traditionally dates to the early monarchy, from 30 divisions of the city made by Romulus. By the middle Republic, it served only a symbolic purpose. At some point, the 30 curiae ceased to actually meet and were instead represented by 30 lictors. This assembly had authority over some elements of family law and ratified the imperium of elected magistrates and promagistrates through a lex curiata de imperio. In the realm of family law, it was presided over by the pontifex maximus. However, there was considerable debate in the late Republic on whether or not a magistrate's election actually required ratification by the curiae, and by 212 BC, the Senate refrained from enforcing this quirk of precedent.

The Centuriate assembly (Latin: comitia centuriata) was formed under the monarchy, and widely seen by the ancients as a means of allotting voting privileges in proportion to military duties demanded of the citizenry, disproportionately granting voting power to the richest in society, as at the time of its formation, the wealthiest were also expected to contribute the most to the military. By the middle Republic, the connection between voting power and military service had long ceased, turning into a system to suppress the voting power of the poor. Because of its military roots, it could only be called into session by a magistrate holding imperium. Originally divided into 193 voting blocs, these blocs were further subdivided into five classes and a class of equites by wealth, each further subdivided by age into a junior and senior bloc. The first class and the equites held 98 of the 193 voting blocs, an absolute majority. This was later reformed around 241 BC, into an assembly of 373 voting blocs with each class having the same number of votes, though the wealth requirements necessarily meant that the wealthier classes were composed of fewer people. The body was primarily called for the election of consuls, praetors, and censors; while it could hear legislation, trials, and only it could declare an offensive war, these were increasingly rare by the second century BC.

The Tribal assembly (Latin: comitia tributa) dates from time immemorial, as no ancient historian mentions its establishment. In the early Republic, there were four urban tribes and 17 rural tribes. In 241 BC, fourteen rural tribes were added, bringing the total to thirty-five. The "tribes" were not ethnic or kinship groups, but rather a district to which people were assigned. A citizen's tribe was inherited from his father, and only changed upon adoption or reallocation in the census; over time, this meant that tribal affiliation had little relationship to a citizen's home or even place of birth. The vast majority of legislation was enacted in the comitia tributa, which also elected quaestors, curule aediles, and military tribunes.

The Plebeian council (Latin: concilium plebis) was identical to the Tribal assembly with one key exception: only plebeians had the power to vote in it. It elected the plebeian tribunes and aediles, and later, various other minor posts. It also had the ability to enact laws called plebiscites, which in the early Republic, only applied to plebs, but after the passage of lex Hortensia, applied to all Romans. In the early Republic, the council also had some judicial functions, but by the middle Republic, much of these functions were transferred to permanent courts.

Senate

Artist's impression of the Senate in session, Cicero delivering his oration Catiline, from a 19th-century fresco.

The Senate was the predominant political institution in the Roman Republic. The Senate's authority derived primarily from custom and tradition. It was also one of the few places in which free political discussion could take place. The Senate's principal role was as an advisory council to the consuls on matters of foreign and military policy, and it exercised a great deal of influence over consular decision-making. The Senate resolved disputes between magistrates and oversaw the allocation of public resources to magistrates. It also assigned magistrates to provinces. Some of its responsibilities were enshrined in specific legislation, such as the lex Caecilia Didia which gave the Senate power to declare a law invalid.

During the Kingdom, the Senate consisted of persons selected to the position by the King, a power which the consuls inherited after the end of the monarchy. In the very early Republic, senators were primarily chosen due to their birth, but by the late Republic, and especially after Sulla, membership in the Senate became predicated on having previously held a magistracy. In the late 4th century BC, the consul's power to control Senate membership was transferred to the censor, exercised with considerable discretion, until laws passed in the late Republic formalised some kind of hearing before censorial decisions. In line with the censor's duty to protect morals, senators were required to be of good character, not have been found guilty of a criminal offence, and not be a person tainted with ignominy (e.g. bankrupts, former gladiators, prostitutes, or deserters). Before the time of Augustus, there is no evidence of any kind of property qualification. The Senate consisted of around 300 prior to the dictatorship of Sulla, but after his dictatorship, it consisted of somewhere over 500 men.

A decree from the Senate was called senatus consultum (plural senatus consulta). While this was formally "advice" from the Senate to a magistrate stating the Senate's position on some topic, the senatus consulta were usually obeyed by the magistrates. If a senatus consultum conflicted with a law that was passed by a popular assembly, the law overrode the senatus consultum.

Meetings could take place either inside or outside of the formal boundary of the city (the pomerium), though the official meeting place, or curia was at the centre of the Roman forum. The president of the Senate was normally one of the consuls, but it could be called to meet by any of the praetors or tribunes, both of whom had the authority to call the Senate, though praetors rarely did so unless the consuls were away and the tribunes almost never did so. Meetings were suffused in religious ritual. Temples were a preferred meeting site and auspices would be taken before the meeting could commence.

The presiding consul began each meeting with a speech on an issue, and then referred the issue to the senators, who discussed the matter by order of seniority. Unimportant matters could be voted on by a voice vote or by a show of hands, while important votes resulted in a physical division of the house, with senators voting by taking a place on either side of the chamber. Any vote was always between a proposal and its negative.

Since all meetings had to end by nightfall, a senator could talk a proposal to death (a filibuster) if he could keep the debate going until nightfall. Any proposed motion could be vetoed by a tribune, and if it was not vetoed, it was then turned into a final senatus consultum. Each senatus consultum was transcribed into a document by the presiding magistrate, and then deposited into the aerarium (the public treasury).

Executive magistrates

The toga praetexta, the dress of magistrates from the aedile to the consul.

Magistrates were elected officials, serving as representatives of the people for the conduct of public business. There were two broad categories of magistrates, the ordinary magistrates such as the consuls, products of the republican constitution, and the extraordinary magistrates such as the dictators, remnants of the monarchial constitution and reserved primarily for emergencies. Each magistrate held potestas, the authority to exercise the office's powers conferred by custom or statute. The most powerful magistrates, such as the extraordinary magistrates, consuls, and praetors, held a kind of authority known as imperium, the authority to command in a military or judicial sense.

Ordinary magistrates

Of the ordinary magistrates, there were two further divisions: the higher magistrates, composed of consuls, praetors, their prorogued equivalents and the censors; and the lower magistrates, composed of the tribunes, aediles, quaestors and other minor positions. All higher magistrates were elected by the Centuriate Assembly.

The most powerful ordinary magistrate was the consul, of whom there were two, who served for the period of one year. These consuls had the authority to call assemblies of the people. In the early Republic, they held judicial duties until these responsibilities were moved to the praetors and later to permanent courts; similarly, they held financial responsibilities until these duties were transferred to the quaestors. The consuls also held vague religious duties inherited from the kings, along with their more important military functions, serving as the commander-in-chief of Rome's armies.

The next magistrate was the praetor, who increased in number over the course of the Republic and were primarily judges. In the later Republic, praetors were increasingly sent out to the provinces to serve as provincial governors, especially as prorogued magistrates. In Rome, there were primarily two kinds of praetor, the praetor urbanus and the praetor peregrinus, in charge of suits involving citizens and foreigners, respectively. They were also assigned, in the late Republic, to various permanent courts with specific criminal jurisdiction. When the consuls were away, the praetors were empowered to command armies and serve in the place of the consuls, and thus also held authority to call assemblies and introduce legislation.

Over time, as Rome's empire grew, the two annual consuls ceased to be enough to command its many armies in the field or administer its many provinces. To solve this problem, it became normal to prorogue the authority of current consuls and praetors beyond their normal terms so they could continue to command in the field. Over time, however, with increasing need for competent generals and administrators, prorogation of magistrates became the norm; and the device was used, increasingly by the assemblies, to grant imperium to popular politicians.

The censor was appointed specifically to conduct the census. This involved counting the Roman people, assessing their property, and assigning them to their appropriate centuria and tribus. They were elected around every four or five years. After the passage of lex Ovinia, the censors were also transferred the power from the consuls to control membership in the Senate. Along with the main responsibility of dealing with the census, the censors also dealt with property disputes, public contracts, and the management of public lands.

Gaius Gracchus, tribune of the people, presiding over the Plebeian Council, in an artist's impression from 1799.

The lower magistrates included the tribune of the plebs, who was elected by the Plebeian Council, and the aediles and quaestors, elected by the Tribal Assembly. The tribune was sacrosanct, i.e. declared inviolable, with summary execution for violators of his sanctity. It was on this basis that the tribune could veto any political act or to protect any individual from an injustice committed by a magistrate, known as intercessio and auxilium, respectively. This power was used increasingly to block public business in the later republic, and was only limited in that a tribune could not oppose the will of the people as a whole.

The aediles were in charge of various municipal tasks, e.g. the upkeep of temples, streets, and the water-supply. They were also responsible for public games, and some aspects of police work in the city. The quaestors were elected administrators, which could be put in charge of the treasury, the granaries, or various administrative postings in Italy, with the consuls, or in the provinces. In the late Republic, election to the quaestorship became the basis for a life appointment to the Senate.

Extraordinary magistrates

There were two extraordinary magistrates: the dictator and the magister equitum (literally: master of horse). Dictators were selected by the consuls to resolve some crisis threatening the Republic and served for a term of around six months before they were expected to resign and return their powers to the ordinary magistrates. The magister equitum was then appointed by the dictator as his lieutenant. The dictatorship was only used in the early and middle Republic, before falling out of fashion after the end of the Second Punic War only to be revived during the time of Sulla as an extraconstitutional measure, not to defeat some foe or quell unrest, but rather, to bring stability to the political order.

The dictator had maius imperium and total authority to command the state; however, since the dictator generally tried to maintain order, this did not conflict with the responsibilities of the other magistrates, who continued to function during a dictatorship. The magister equitum had similar plenary authority, with parallel and somewhat subordinate authority to the dictator.

In the middle and later Republic, with the office of dictator falling out of fashion, the need for dictatorial authority was not granted to some extraordinary magistrate, but rather, to the consuls, through a senatus consultum ultimum, or final decree. This decree took the form of a recommendation from the Senate to the consuls to take whatever actions were necessary to defend the Republic. Due to its general vagueness, however, its use was hotly contested in the late Republic and is still debated among scholars today, as in a strict legal sense, the final decree did not grant legal authority to the consuls, but rather, served as an urging from the Senate to ignore the laws to protect the state.

Constitutional instability

A bust of Sulla, the first dictator and general to march on Rome of the late Republic, who marched on Rome with his troops in 88 and 82 BC.

After the Second Punic War, there was a great increase in income inequality. While the landed peasantry was drafted to serve in increasingly long campaigns, their farms and homesteads fell into bankruptcy. With Rome's great military victories, vast numbers of slaves were imported into Italy. Significant mineral wealth was distributed unevenly to the population; the city of Rome itself expanded considerably in opulence and size; the freeing of slaves brought to Italy by conquest too would massively expand the number of urban and rural poor. The republic, for reasons unclear to modern historians, in 177 BC also stopped regularly establishing Roman colonies in Italy; one of the major functions of these colonies was to land the urban and rural poor, increasing the draft pool of landed farmers as well as providing economic opportunities to the lower classes.

Political violence

The tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC led to a breakup of the long-standing norms of the republican constitution. Gracchus was successful in passing legislation to pursue land reform, but only over a norms-breaking attempt by Marcus Octavius—a tribune in the same year as Gracchus—to veto proceedings overwhelmingly supported by the people. Gracchus' legislation would challenge the socio-political power of the old aristocracy, along with eroding their economic interests. The initial extra-constitutional actions by Octavius caused Gracchus to take similarly novel norms-breaking actions, that would lead even greater breakdowns in republican norms. The backlash against Tiberius Gracchus' attempt to secure for himself a second term as tribune of the plebs would lead to his assassination by the then-pontifex maximus Scipio Nasica, acting in his role as a private citizen and against the advice of the consul and jurist Publius Mucius Scaevola.

The Senate's violent reaction also served to legitimise the use of violence for political ends. Political violence showed fundamentally that the traditional republican norms that had produced the stability of the middle republic were incapable of resolving conflicts between political actors. As well as inciting revenge killing for previous killings, the repeated episodes also showed the inability of the existing political system to solve pressing matters of the day. The political violence also further divided citizens with different political views and set a precedent that senators—even those without lawful executive authority—could use force to silence citizens merely for holding certain political beliefs.

Tiberius Gracchus' younger brother Gaius Gracchus, who later was to win repeated office to the tribunate so to pass similarly expansive reforms, would be killed by similar violence. Consul Lucius Opimius was empowered by the senate to use military force (including a number of foreign mercenaries from Crete) in a state of emergency declared so to kill Gaius Gracchus, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus and followers. While the citizens killed in the political violence were not declared enemies, it showed clearly that the aristocracy believed violence was a "logical and more effective alternative to political engagement, negotiation, and compromise within the parameters set by existing norms".

Further political violence emerged in the sixth consulship of Gaius Marius, a famous general, known to us as 100 BC. Marius had been consul consecutively for some years by this point, owing to the immediacy of the Cimbrian War. These consecutive consulships violated Roman law, which mandated a decade between consulships, further weakening the primarily norms-based constitution. Returning to 100 BC, large numbers of armed gangs—perhaps better described as militias—engaged in street violence. A candidate for high office, Gaius Memmius, was also assassinated. Marius was called upon as consul to suppress the violence, which he did, with significant effort and military force. His landless legionaries also affected voting directly, as while they could not vote themselves for failing to meet property qualifications, they could intimidate those who could.

Sulla's civil war

Following the Social War—which had the character of a civil war between Rome's Italian allies and loyalists—which was only resolved by Rome granting citizenship to almost all Italian communities, the main question looming before the state was how the Italians could be integrated into the Roman political system. Tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus in 88 BC attempted to pass legislation granting greater political rights to the Italians; one of the additions to this legislative programme included a transfer of command of the coming First Mithridatic War from Sulla to Gaius Marius, who had re-entered politics. Flower writes, "by agreeing to promote the career of Marius, Sulpicius ... decided to throw republican norms aside in his bid to control the political scene in Rome and get his reforms" passed.

The attempts to recall Sulla led to his then-unprecedented and utterly unanticipated marching on Rome with his army encamped at Nola (near Naples). This choice collapsed any republican norms about the use of force. In this first (he would invade again) march on Rome, he declared a number of his political opponents enemies of the state and ordered their murder. Marius would escape to his friendly legionary colonies in Africa. Sulpicius was killed. He also installed two new consuls and forced major reforms of the constitution at sword-point, before leaving on campaign against Mithridates.

While Sulla was fighting Mithridates, Lucius Cornelius Cinna dominated domestic Roman politics, controlling elections and other parts of civil life. Cinna and his partisans were no friends of Sulla: they razed Sulla's house in Rome, revoked his command in name, and forced his family to flee the city. Cinna himself would win election to the consulship three times consecutively; he also conducted a purge of his political opponents, displaying their heads on the rostra in the forum. During the war, Rome fielded two armies against Mithridates: one under Sulla and another, fighting both Sulla and Mithridates. Sulla returned in 82 BC at the head of his army, after concluding a generous peace with Mithridates, to retake the city from the domination of the Cinnan faction. After winning a second civil war and purging the Republic of thousands of political opponents and "enemies" (many of whom were targeted for their wealth), he forced the Assemblies to make him dictator for the settling of the constitution, with an indefinite term. Sulla also created legal barriers, which would only be lifted during the dictatorship of Julius Caesar some forty years later, against political participation by the relatives of those whom he ordered murdered. And with this use of unprecedented violence at a new level, Sulla was able not only to take control of the state, but also retain control of it, unlike Scipio Nasica or Gaius Marius, both of whom had lost control of the city after deploying force.

The middle republic's consensus-based senate-led culture of decision-making was killed by Sulla's dictatorship: both the people endowed with that culture had been purged and the very rationale for that culture as well. At a broad level, Sulla's dictatorial reforms attempted to concentrate political power into the Senate and the aristocratic assemblies, whilst trying to reduce the obstructive and legislative powers of the tribune and Plebeian council. To this end, he required that all bills presented to the Assemblies first be approved by the Senate, restricted the tribunician veto to only matters of individual requests for clemency, and required that men elected tribune would be barred from all other magistracies. Beyond stripping the tribunate of its powers, the last provision was intended to prevent ambitious youth from seeking the office by making it a dead end.

Sulla also permanently enlarged the senate by promoting a large number of equestrians from the Italian countryside as well as automatically inducting the now-20 quaestors elected each year into the senate. The senatorial class was so enlarged to staff newly-created permanent courts. The purpose of these reforms was in an attempt to formalise and strengthen the legal system so prevent political players from emerging with too much power as well as make them accountable to the enlarged senatorial class.

He also rigidly formalised the cursus honorum by clearly stating the progression of office and associated age requirements. Next, to aid administration, he doubled the number of quaestors to 20 and added two more praetors; the greater number of magistrates also meant he could shorten the length of provincial assignments (and lessen the chances of building provincial power bases) by increasing the rate of turnover. Moreover, magistrates were barred from seeking reelection to any post for ten years and barred for two years from holding any other post after their term ended.

After securing election as consul in 80 BC, Sulla resigned the dictatorship and attempted to solidify his republican constitutional reforms. Sulla's reforms proved unworkable. The first years of Sulla's new republic were faced not only the continuation of the civil war against Quintus Sertorius in Spain, but also a revolt in 78 BC by the then-consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. With significant popular unrest, the tribunate's powers were quickly restored by 70 BC by Sulla's own lieutenants': Pompey and Crassus. Sulla passed legislation to make it illegal to march on Rome as he had, but having just shown that doing so would bring no personal harm so long as one was victorious, this obviously had little effect. Sulla's actions and civil war fundamentally weakened the authority of the constitution and created a clear precedent that an ambitious general could make an end-run around the entire republican constitution simply by force of arms. The stronger law courts created by Sulla, along with reforms to provincial administration that forced consuls to stay in the city for the duration of their terms (rather than running to their provincial commands upon election), also weakened the republic: the stringent punishments of the courts helped to destabilise, as commanders would rather start civil wars than subject themselves to them, and the presence of both consuls in the city increased chances of deadlock. Many Romans also followed Sulla's example and turned down provincial commands, concentrating military experience and glory into an even smaller circle of leading generals.

Collapse of the Republic

A depiction of the death of Caesar, from The Death of Caesar, Jean-Léon Gérôme, painted in 1867.

Over the course of the late Republic, formerly authoritative institutions lost their credibility and authority. For example, the Sullan reforms to the Senate strongly split the aristocratic class between those who stayed in the city and those who rose to high office abroad, further increasing class divides between Romans, even at the highest levels. Furthermore, the dominance of the military in the late Republic, along with stronger ties between a general and his troops, caused by their longer terms of service together and the troops' reliance on that general to provide for their retirements, along with an obstructionist central government, made a huge number of malcontent soldiers willing to take up arms against the state. Adding in the institutionalisation of violence as a means to obstruct or force political change (eg the deaths of the Gracchi and Sulla's dictatorship, respectively), the Republic was caught in an ever more violent and anarchic struggle between the Senate, assemblies at Rome, and the promagistrates.

Even by the early-60s BC, political violence began to reassert itself, with unrest at the consular elections noted at every year between 66 and 63. The revolt of Catiline—which we hear much about from the consul for that year, Cicero—was put down by violating the due process rights of citizens and introducing the death penalty to the Roman government's relationship with its citizens. The anarchy of republican politics since the Sullan reforms had done nothing to address agrarian reform, the civic disabilities of proscribed families, or intense factionalism between Marian and Sullan supporters. Through this whole period, Pompey's extraordinary multi-year commands in the east made him wealthy and powerful; his return in 62 BC could not be handled within the context of a republican system: his achievements were not recognised but nor could he be dispatched away from the city to win more victories. His extraordinary position created a "volatile situation that the senate and the magistrates at home could not control". Both Cicero's actions during his consulship and Pompey's great military successes challenged the republic's legal codes that were meant to restrain ambition and defer punishments to the courts.

The domination of the state by the three-man group of the First Triumvirate—Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey—from 59 BC did little to restore order or peace in Rome. The first "triumvirate" dominated republican politics by controlling elections, continually holding office, and violating the law through their long periods of ex officio political immunity. This political authority so dominated other magistrates that they were unwilling to oppose their policies or voice opposition. Political violence both became more acute and chaotic: the total anarchy that emerged in the mid-50s by duelling street gangs under the control of Publius Clodius Pulcher and Titus Annius Milo prevented orderly consular elections repeatedly in the 50s. The destruction of the senate house and escalation of violence continued until Pompey was simply appointed by the senate, without consultation of the assemblies, as sole consul in 52 BC. The domination of the city by Pompey and repeated political irregularities led to Caesar being unwilling to subject himself to what he considered to be biased courts and unfairly administered laws, starting Caesar's civil war.

Whether the period starting with Caesar's civil war should really be called a portion of the republic is a matter of scholarly debate. After Caesar's victory, he ruled a dictatorial regime until his assassination in 44 BC at the hands of the Liberatores. The Caesarian faction quickly gained control of the state, inaugurated the second triumvirate, purged their political enemies, and successfully defeated the assassins in the Liberators' civil war at the Battle of Philippi. The second triumvirate failed to reach any mutually agreeable resolution; leading to the final civil war of the republic, a war which the promagistrate governors and their troops would win, and in doing so, permanently collapse the republic.