Roman politics

by Frank Frost Abbott

3. The Political Boss

In the last century B.C. political and social conditions were ideal for the development of the political boss, and in many respects they resemble our own. In the first place, Rome, as is the case with many of our large cities today, was filled with foreigners. We shall have occasion later to discuss in greater detail the social and economic effect of the presence in Italy and Rome of this foreign population. For our present purpose it is sufficient to note that Professor Frank in a recent number of the American Historical Review[32] has shown that nearly 90 per cent. of the population permanently resident at Rome in the Empire were of foreign extraction. Most of these foreigners were of course slaves, but many were freedmen who had the right to vote. They were ignorant of Roman political traditions. Many of them made a precarious living, and their votes could probably be had for money or through the influence of their patrons. Of such men the guilds and political clubs of the late Republic were largely made up. To them we must add the freemen who were driven out of the country districts by the decline of agriculture, or who drifted to the city because of the attractions which it could offer. These classes of people naturally fell under the leadership of political bosses. It happened too that several of the political bosses of this period had been or were still in command of large armies. Veterans who had served under these commanders and had settled in Italy naturally accepted the political leadership of their former officers. We are familiar in this country with the great influence exerted at the end of several of our wars by compact organizations of ex-service men. Furthermore, in Rome there were no permanent party organizations. Voters followed a leader, rather than a political principle. All these facts contributed to strengthen the hands of the boss, and the political history of the last half century of the Republic centres about the activity of such men as Marius, Crassus, Caesar, Milo, and Clodius. Indeed the First Triumvirate, which controlled Rome for ten years, had no legal basis. It rested upon a personal agreement between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus for the division of the political spoils. In a certain degree Augustus continued this tradition, for his power rested largely upon the fact that the candidates for office favored by him were certain to be elected and would do his bidding after the election, and thus the measures supported by him were sure to be adopted. The Roman boss differed from most political bosses of today in his willingness to take office and assume the responsibility which the holding of an office entails.

The political boss is of course abhorrent to an oligarchical system. It is a fundamental principle of an aristocracy that no individual should attain undue prominence above others of his class, and perhaps no governing body has devised so many safeguards against Caesarism, and entrenched itself so firmly behind tradition, as the Roman senate did. Every aspirant for an important magistracy must have reached a specified age and must have held all the lower offices. These provisions prevented a successful politician from being carried into the consulship on a sudden wave of popular favor, and a consul’s term of office was so short that he had little opportunity to make his political position secure. Over against him stood the senate with its esprit de corps, and its power to control appointments and to ratify or reject treaties, which, as we noticed in the last chapter, enabled it to determine in large measure his domestic and foreign policy. The Roman Senate protected itself for many decades against the political aspirations of successful generals by granting them or withholding from them a sufficient army, by voting them generous or niggardly appropriations, by requiring them to submit all their acts to it for ratification, and by conceding to them or refusing them a triumph or a “thanksgiving” on their return to Rome. Its power was only broken in the last century of the Republic when certain democratic magistrates made an appeal directly to the popular assembly. To this move on the part of the Executive we have had an analogue on several occasions when the Chief Executive of the United States or of a state has made a popular appeal to the voters in his struggle with a legislative body.[33]