The Incongruence of Power: The Roman Constitution in Theory and Practice

Abstract

This chapter attempts to gauge the implications of the evolving nature of the Roman Republic. The surviving evidence makes it hard to compare Roman institutions at different stages of their development. There is no obvious way of overcoming this and other fundamental problems, which largely prevents us from going much beyond the merest–essentially hypothetical–outline of early Roman institutions. Still an attempt is made, not least because many of the distinctive features of the Republic can be traced back to its earliest beginnings and perhaps even to the monarchy that preceded it. The period between the end of the “Struggle of the Orders” and the re-emergence of political violence in 133 has long been seen as the “classic” Roman Republic. The events after 133 exposed the weak points in the republican constitution, which was characterized by a peculiar incongruence between real and formal powers.

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