the official representatives of the people, the tribuni plebis.” (Hölkeskamp 2010, p. 86.) This picture emerged largely from prosopographical research. Since Gelzer’s classic study, the existence of a “…complex system of patron-client relations” underpinning the political structure of the Republic had “…been generally accepted without further discussion.” (Ibid.)
This consensus was broken by Fergus Millar, who, following Peter Brunt, not only poured scorn on the whole idea of the significance of patronage (clientela) but even “flatly denies the existence of the nobility or of any homogeneous patrician-plebeian political elite in general; for him, to put it in a nutshell, neither an aristocracy nor an oligarchy ever existed in Republican Rome.” (Hölkeskamp, 2010, p. 108.) Instead, unduly impressed by the fact that elections and legislation were decided by popular assemblies, Millar even went so far as to refer to the “direct democracy” of the Republic:
In the light of recent work, it is time to abandon the once established presuppositions of a hereditary ‘nobility’, of aristocratic factions, and of an all-embracing network of dependence and clientship. We might then be able to see the public life of the classical Republic in a rather different light: as an arena in which those who sought and held office competed before the crowd…. It was this crowd which, however imperfectly, symbolized and represented the sovereignty of the Roman people. (Millar 2002, p. 141 f.)
And again: “Using ‘democracy’ in a strictly neutral sense, it is undeniable that the constitution of the Roman Republic was that of a direct democracy” (p. 165). This appears to relate to the period around 150 BCE. That Millar was not referring only to the legal or constitutional position but also to political realities on the ground is clear from the longer passage quoted above, and in addition from the writings of Millar’s staunch defender, T.P. Wiseman: “Fergus Millar forcefully insisted on the centrality of the People’s role in the political life of the republic.” (Wiseman, loc 76. referring to Millar 2002a, pp. 109–42.)
The first question to ask is what Polybius actually said. Then, whether he should be believed. And, if not, what was the true position? The response to these questions is as follows:
Polybius did not say that the Roman Republic was a democracy;
His reference to democracy in this connection has been misconstrued;
What Polybius actually said was that the Roman Republic had a “mixed” form of government, combining monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy;
In reaching this conclusion, Polybius was unduly influenced by the tradition of constitutional classification by a long line of Greek writers culminating in Aristotle; and
The true position is that the Roman Republic was an oligarchy, meaning rule by an elite minority or an aristocracy, namely a hereditary oligarchy, which, however, was not closed to novi homines.
What Polybius Actually Said
Millar, claiming to be following the ancient historian Polybius (c. 200–c.118 BCE), maintained that a good deal of sovereignty was exercised by the Roman people. Here is what Polybius actually said: ὥστε πάλιν ἐκ τούτων εἰκότως ἄν τιν᾽ εἰπεῖν ὅτι μεγίστην ὁ δῆμος ἔχει μερίδα καὶ δημοκρατικόν ἐστι τὸ πολίτευμα. (“And so one might plausibly say that the people’s share in the government is the greatest, and that the constitution is a democratic one.”) (Polyb. 6.14.)
The key word here is εἰκότως (eikotos), meaning “in all likelihood, reasonably,” which comes from the verb eoike (it seems). The point Polybius is making is not that the constitution was democratic but that, if one looked at the people’s share in isolation, it might seem that their share was the greatest. Moreover, this passage is sandwiched between two other passages indicating that the Roman constitution was not a democracy but a mixed constitution.
It has to be remembered that Polybius was a Greek who had come to Rome as a hostage but stayed on and hobnobbed with some leading senators. His analysis of the Roman Republican constitution belongs to a well-known Greek genre going back to Plato and Aristotle and earlier writers. He classified the Roman constitution as mixed: a combination of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. The two consuls he identified as the monarchical element, which of course is arrant nonsense as the whole idea of the consulate was to prevent power from being concentrated in the hands of a single person. Polybius identified the Senate as the aristocratic element, which was fair enough, considering not only its elite composition but also the fact that it controlled all the finances, had jurisdiction over all serious crimes, and was in control of foreign affairs. “After this,” writes Polybius, “we are naturally inclined to ask what part in the constitution is left for the people.” As the people, through the popular assemblies, elected all office-holders, voted on laws, and decided questions of war and peace, he concludes with the sentence as quoted in Greek above. But he adds that, while the Senate must respect the people’s wishes, “…the people must be submissive to the senate and respect its members both in public and in private.” (Polybius 6.17.) So, it would be quite wrong to read Polybius as saying that Rome was a democracy. It is quite clear that he classified it as having a mixed constitution or government.
As a Greek writing in Greek for a Greek readership, Polybius’s interest in Roman government is heavily influenced by the long Greek tradition of classifying constitutions in a formalistic or schematic way. That is why it is hardly coincidental that, as an adulator of Rome, Polybius should have chosen to classify its constitution as mixed, the form that Aristotle, among others, considered to be the best and stablest form of government. Polybius’s interest in the actual operation of the Roman constitution in practice was minimal.
Millar, as paraphrased by Rogers, opines that, “At the center of the practice of Roman politics was not the Roman patron (patronus) imposing his will upon a client, but rather the orator, addressing the crowd in the Roman forum.” See above for a discussion on patronage. But what about the idea that politics in the republic was all about orators persuading voters in debate?
Formal Rights vs. Practical Realization
“The orator addressing the crowd”: Millar’s idea that the popular assemblies were deliberative assemblies open to persuasion by rhetoric is illusory. Even the citizens of “democratic” Athens, who might have been expected to turn out enthusiastically in great numbers in anticipation of participating in their far more powerful assembly, were lackadaisical and had to be corralled by the police into attending. (See Chapter 6.)
Henrik Mouritsen provides a welcome dose of realism as a corrective to Millar’s starry-eyed view: “The fact that political proceedings are public does not in itself make them ‘democratic.’” (Mouritsen, loc 586.) And again:
“The Roman ‘democracy’ is…founded on two—themselves indisputable—historical facts: the existence of a politically significant ‘public’ and the open access of all citizens to participate in this ‘public’. These two facts do not, however, add up to a Roman ‘democracy’. One crucial factor has been left out of the equation, which is the distinction between formal rights and their practical realisation.” Mouritsen concludes that Millar’s ‘democratic’ model “sits uneasily between, on the one hand, a very practical hands-on approach to politics and, on the other, an idealistic, almost naïve view of the relationship between constitutional principle and reality.” (Mouritsen, 2008, loc 1841.)
Egon Flaig has pointed out
