Talk:Constitution of the Roman Republic

Review

Some remarks after RomanHistorian's kind request in my talk page:

• In general, I liked the lead. It is simple, concise, and flaws fine. Just a question: "Also, there was the frequent usage of several constitutional devices that were out of harmony with the genius of the Roman constitution." What king of constitutional devices? Could you give us one, two examples without expanding too much? And I do not know if it is better to say "Also, there was" or "There was also ..."
• WP:MOS needs " " between any number and unit, symbol or abbreviation that it goes with, such as 753 BC etc.
• Why are you over-bolding? Except for the article's title and "mos maiorum" in the lead, I think that nothing else needs bolding.
• Some prose-massage by an experienced copy-editor could make miracles here! Sentences like this could benefit from such a copy-editing: "This, along with the closeness between the Plebeian Tribunes and the senate, helped to facilitate the creation of a new Plebeian aristocracy.[19] This new Plebeian aristocracy soon merged with the old Patrician aristocracy, creating a combined "Patricio-Plebeian" aristocracy. The old aristocracy existed ... ".
• "Gaius Gracchus was murdered by his supporters", Gaius' article says that "Finally Gaius, like his brother, was killed in conflict with his opponents."
• "In 62 BC Pompey returned to Rome from battle in the east, but found the senate refusing to ratify the arrangements that he had made." Why did the Senate refused, since, if I am not mistaken, Pompey had been victorious in the East.
• "In 54 BC, violence began sweeping the city.". What kind of violence and for what reason?
• "The Roman Senate was a political institution in the Roman Republic." This sentence does not add something new. I already knew that it was a pol institution in the RP from the previous section of yours. Maybe, you could replace it with a sentence, describing its importance in the RP.
• "IMO the Seealso list is too long, and includes articles already linked within the main text.
• Try to always back your primary sources with secondary ones.--Yannismarou (talk) 15:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

demos? not populus?

I was wondering about this sentence from the lead section:

"The ultimate source of sovereignty in this ancient republic, as in modern republics, was the demos (people)."

Why would the Greek word demos be used instead of the Latin populus? Especially since "republic" is etymologically related to populus (and "democracy" to demos). I was thinking about T.P. Wiseman's Remembering the Roman People (2009), preview here, and his emphasis on the role of the people. Cynwolfe (talk) 04:37, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

A sound, and unacted-on, complaint. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:24, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

443 BC?

I see the dates of the Kings are what "the Roman people believed"; good, but incomplete. But immediately thereafter, we have the creation of the Dictatorship in 501 BC, the Mons Sacer, with exact date, and so on. All of these are in fact Livy's dates; the acceptance of an unreliable and primary source. Can we have a little decent skepticism about whether these myths happened, let alone the dates for them? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:24, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree. All wiki articles about Rome seem to suffer of the same problem. The dates from Livy, Varro, et al., in other words dates coming from myth, legend, or "tradition", are used as if they were accepted and confirmed by archaeology or history. This should at least be mentioned. Le Morfal (talk) 19:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Timeline problems

It says that Caesar passed laws in 43 and 42 BC, after he died. I don't believe that the Senate held seances; is this referring to a different Caesar? 64.79.43.109 (talk) 05:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

From the context of the source, Caesar secured this law while he was still alive. In effect, he was choosing his consuls and tribunes early before they actually took office, so that while he was away from Rome they could begin work as soon as their terms began. Ltwin (talk) 00:39, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

CHART

The chart has words missing. Can this be fixed? I am not sure how to edit the image. I also dont know the missing words! Rjljr2 (talk) 01:06, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Current American Political Overtones of Roman History Articles

I feel strongly that the concept of comparing the United States and Rome is being used by certain forces to create momentum for a violent uprising in the United States. I have been watching groups such as Anonymous, as well as certain right-wing groups, Libertarians, and Anarchists, post thousands of videos on YouTube for the past several years. In addition, many people I know personally all over the country are preparing for some kind of civil unrest or martial law by either buying weapons or stockpiling food and water.

Not only do American soldiers frequently compare the United States to Rome and Sparta, but that comparison remains a continual theme in the American consciousness in the culture at large. Thus, articles dealing with the fall of the Roman Republic are a central meeting place for certain political ideologies to draw from history in order to create new political narratives and worldviews with which to shape the future.

In light of the growing unease and continual arming of American civilians and veterans, as well as the continual militarization of the Department of Homeland Security, I feel that a commitment to accuracy on these historical matters is a must for Wikipedia articles regarding the ascension of Julius Caesar to dictatorship, his assassination, and concepts of Roman government and democracy. Many of the groups which are advocating for/against such an uprising are Populist/Anti-Hierarchist/Anarco-syndicalist groups which found themselves upon Open Source and Wiki-style "everyone contributes" mentalities. In light of this, Wikipedia will be foundational in whatever happens next.

In light of the mounting peril to life and limb of millions of Americans, both those in office, those in the armed forces, and civilians, I would like to propose that the following articles, many of which have had multiple notices for up to 4 years decrying their lack of verifiable research and citations, be either deleted or completely rewritten by a neutral party (hopefully a qualified, Latin-speaking Roman historian, who has no interest in American politics).

Assassination_of_Julius_Caesar

Constitution_of_the_Roman_Republic

Crisis_of_the_Third_Century

Dominate

Principate

If I could call these articles anything, they would be wolves in sheep's clothing.

Whatever happens politically in the United States, the information used to make those decisions must be factual-- not baseless, unscholarly gibberish written by distorters of the truth with a political agenda and a lot of time on their hands.

Firstly, this "Constitution of the Roman Republic" article is extremely confusing. It does not clearly define the word "constitution," and continually uses the ambiguity to criticize the current American president, President Barack Obama, without ever mentioning his name. Whether or not the current American presidential administration's policies are Constitutional (according to the American Constitution), this article needs to clearly and accurately reflect the true nature of the subject at hand, rather than use factless editorializing to talk about something else.

For example, this article is used to provide a foundational basis for the following statement in another article (Dominate):

• "During the Principate, the constitution of the Roman Republic was never formally abolished. It was amended in such a way as to maintain a façade of Republican government."

The obvious implications of this statement for current American politics cannot be denied, while the relevance (or even factualness?) of this statement as it relates to Roman History must stand trial (hence this Talk Page section).

For starters, if the Roman constitution was not "written down," as stated in the beginning of the article, then the word "amended" used in the article Dominate seems meaningless to a normal human reader in the 21st century. However, not only was this unwritten "Roman Constitution" "amended,", but it was done so "in such as way as to maintain a façade of Republican government." To my usage in English, and from the comments above, this word "Constitution" is being used in this article to describe the composition of the government, or the structure. However, in the sentence cited above, the clear implication to the layman is that there was an actual Roman "Constitution" Document which was falsely "amended" by a particular "Dictator" so as to deceptively "mollify" a powerful democratic populace. So "amending" the "structure" of the government seems like political language, since most of the time you reform a structure but amend a document. Unless of course there really was a document which was "amended" "in such as way as to be just like those damned Liberals did in 2012", in which case that needs to be clarified at the beginning.

Now, while I hesitate to here declare which "side" of any such conflict I would be on, should a civil war break out in the United States, I do want to emphasize that in order for truth to prevail, the people must have access to it. Even though I am a polyglot, I cannot decipher the meaning of the sentence cited above. After reading this article on the Roman Constitution, I am even more confused. The only conclusions I could draw from this article were that "The Obama Administration is infringing on my Constitutional Rights," which I assume to be the point of these articles. However, I did not come to these articles to read about the Obama Administration, but about Roman "history," if such a thing even exists anymore. Bjoleniacz (talk) 10:05, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Gaius Gracchus murdered by his own?

"After passing a series of laws which were intended to weaken the senate, Gaius Gracchus was murdered by his supporters."

Huh? He committed the standard Roman suicide-by-slave when he was about to be captured and probably executed by the aristocratic forces. That's the standard account as found in Plutarch, and that's what the wiki article about him says. Calling his ordering a slave to kill him "being murdeded by his supporters", as if the main cause of his death were his supporters and not the Senate party, is either incredibly obtuse or just plain lying. If the source cited for this statement really says that, then it's a rubbish source. --91.148.130.233 (talk) 02:12, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

The source said he was murdered by "agents of the aristocratic party." This has been corrected. Ltwin (talk) 00:41, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Rome had no written or unwritten constitution

According tho 99% of legal historians Rome had no written or unwritten constitution at all. Even the legal norms had not fixed hierarchy in Rome. The lack of constitution (law which can overwrite all other laws) also contributed to the anarchy and decline of the Empire.

The real experts professional legal historian scholars (who teach Roman law or constitutional law) in universities refuse such laughable nonsense. I don't care about the opinion of non-expert historians (like political or art or economy historians) in this debate. For example Andrew Lintott can not fit to the strict criteria of expert of this field (just read his article), it doesn't matter that he teaches in Oxford. Only a legal historian scholar from Oxford can be competent expert.

I suggest to delete this article, which mislead readers and creates fake history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Draguler (talk • contribs) 09:47, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

I've removed the (incomplete) deletion template from the article. If there are references, as you suggest, that indicate that the subject of the article doesn't actually exist, then please post them here so that a discussion can be had. An AFD with the above rationale, and no supporting references, would not go very far. Note also that even if there was no official constitution, the development of such a document - even if unsuccessful - might still be notable enough for an article, if there are references to support such a topic. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:31, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with UltraExactZZ. Even if one could back up the claim that the Roman Republic had no unwritten constitution, it still had a government, which this article is about. Rather than deleting the article, it would be far more useful to rename it to something more appropriate (such as "Government of the Roman Republic"). However, I think the current name is fine (absent reliable sources to the contrary). Ltwin (talk) 20:06, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

It seems to me that an article on the manner or procedures in which Rome was governed would be a constitution. Under the OP's definition, we ought to deny the existence of a constitution in the UK. But a constitution we have, for otherwise, by what manner are laws passed or created, decision made, etc. A constitution is not simply some document which is written down someplace that supersedes all other law; it is the means by which political decisions are made. Insofar as Rome had such a system, which it is undeniable that it did, there was a constitution. The malleability of accepted constitutional conventions does not follow to their not being a constitution. By analogy, the UK had a constitution entering the 20th century. Yet in 1911, a Parliament Act made half of the entire Parliament irrelevant. It would not be accurate to say that the UK's constitution has fallen apart or ceased to exist.

And if one wants to discuss use of Linott, it is trivial to discover the wealth of praise for his book Constitution of the Roman Republic. I would only be convinced that the subject or topic doesn't exist by academic consensus thereto, rather than the sophistic wrangling of definitions. Ifly6 (talk) 14:40, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Rome had a government like all states in Human history, so What? It is still not a constitution. UK has "unwritten" historical constitution, laws which overwrite any other legal norms. Despite the name of "unwritten" UK constitution based on earlier series written laws which function as a constitutional frame. Rome had no such laws. Even the law of the Twelve tables can npt be considered constitutional law. See the lead of the Constitutional law article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_law

The lack of constitutional law (a law above all other laws) caused (among others) the political instability of the Empire.

I suggest to rename the article.--Noconteos (talk) 14:50, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

But even in the UK's case, the "constitutional frame" could simply be changed by Parliamentary legislation. The British constitution is simply a collection of legislation and customs that could be changed at any moment. There is no reason to change the name of the article. Ltwin (talk) 19:46, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Wrong, all Emperor could create laws singlehandedly, which could overwrite any formerly existing legal norms.--Longsars (talk) 20:24, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Rome don't have parliament.--Longsars (talk) 06:35, 21 August 2022 (UTC) Consuls have also right to create laws and overwrite previous laws (based on the "Quī prior est tempore, potior est iūre. " phrase) in republican era. I wouldn't call that a constitution, where every laws can by erased/modified singlehandedly..... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Longsars (talk • contribs) 16:20, 27 August 2022 (UTC)