Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

This personal head possessed a variety of titles which marked the various aspects of his rule—titles which survived into the Republic, and, on the differentiation of the functions which he united, were applied to various magistrates. As supreme judge he was judex, as leader and commander in war praetor,[160] dictator, and magister populi.[161] The most general title which marked him out as universal head of the state, in religious as in civil matters, was that of rex, the “regulator” of all things human and divine—a title which survived in the rex sacrorum, the heir of the king in sacrifice and in ritual. The powers on which this position was based were summed up in the word imperium.[162]

The severance of the king from the state, over which he ruled, was also expressed in certain outward signs (insignia), which distinguished him from the rest of the burgesses. He was preceded by twelve “summoners” (lictores),[163] each carrying a bundle of rods (fasces), and the axe-head gleamed from these bundles even within the walls, for the king’s military jurisdiction could be exercised within the city. His robe was of “purple,” or rather of scarlet—the colour in which most nations have seen an emblem of sovereignty—but his dress probably varied with the ritual which he was performing, and the three kinds of striped garment (trabea) which survived in the Republic—that of purple for the priestly office, of purple and saffron for augury, of purple striped with white for the rex[164]—were probably all vestments of the king. Tradition also assigns him the eagle-headed sceptre, the golden crown, the throne (solium),[165] and the chariot within the walls, from which the curule chair (sella curulis) was believed to be derived.[166] The statement that the triumphal insignia of the Roman magistrate were but the revival of the ordinary adornments of the king[167] is extremely probable; for the crown, the toga picta (a development of the purple robe),[168] and the chariot reappear in the Roman triumph.

Other royal prerogatives were connected with the primitive conception of a patriarchal monarchy. The king, although he lacks the absolutism of the paterfamilias, occupies much the same position in the state as the father does in the family. In a sense he is owner of the whole community, and as such capable of commanding the munera of the burgesses.[169] But a large portion of the public domain was more peculiarly set apart for his own private use.[170] This crown-land must have been worked mainly by the king’s own clients, who held it precario from him;[171] for there seems no reason to doubt the belief that a large proportion of the half-free Plebeians were in the immediate clientela of the king, connected with the community chiefly through him, its representative. These may have been captives who had submitted to the fides of the state, and whom their conqueror had not attached as dependants to other leading families of the community.

The theory of a kingship is best expressed in the mode in which the monarch ascends the throne. The alternative principles that have usually been recognised are the hereditary, the elective, or that of divine right.

Of the hereditary principle there is no trace at Rome. It is contradicted by the facts of the traditional history, which believed that, when the hereditary principle was first realised in the last king, the monarchy came to an end; and it is expressly denied by later authors who reflected on the character of the early monarchy.[172] There is rather more to be said for the theory of divine right. Romulus is the son of a god and awaits the verdict of heaven before he assumes his rule. Numa, his successor, insists that the same verdict shall be appealed to.[173] But, if the taking of the auspices be the sign of a divine origin, then everything in Rome proceeds almost equally from the gods. Probably in earlier as in later Rome religion played a most important subsidiary part in public life, but we have no warrant for believing that it was ever the sole guiding power. As we shall see, in discussing the question of the inauguration of the king, this theory raises into a primary and material what was merely a secondary and formal element in the transmission of the monarchy, although this formal element was one of the utmost necessity and importance.

The Roman thinkers were thus thrown back on the theory of election. Tradition is unanimous in representing the monarchy as elective—depending, i.e., on free popular election, or on such election guided by the Senate.[174] On the death of a king there is no immediate successor with a title to rule; an interim-king (interrex) is appointed for a few days, and on his proposal a king is elected by the patrician burgesses at the comitia curiata, subject to the sanction of the patrician Senate (auctoritas patrum).[175]

In the expression of these views the Roman thinkers were attempting to reconstruct the monarchy from a knowledge of their own magistracy; for they rightly believed that this magistracy was a very slight modification of the original kingship. The elective principle of the Republic was not regarded as a novelty in the theory of the magistracy, and there were two reasons for this view. The first was that there was a real continuity, for the elective process was always subsidiary to another, that of nomination by the magistrate who guided the elections. The latter became an almost formal process in the Republic, but the question was not asked whether at one time it may not have been the material element. Secondly, there was really an elective element in the monarchy, which survived as a form into the Republic, a form which the hypothesis of monarchical election adopted by Roman antiquarians could not explain. It is strange that, in seeking for their theory of regal appointment, they should not have appealed to the clearest survival of the monarchy, the dictatorship, on which so much of the rest of their reconstruction of the monarchical power was based.

In the two definite survivals of the Roman monarchy election was not recognised; the dictator was nominated by the consul, not by his predecessor, for it was only an occasional office; and the rex sacrorum was nominated by the pontifex maximus,[176] no longer by the preceding rex; for this office simply continued the priestly functions of the king, the religious headship being vested in the pontifex. This oldest principle of appointment survived in Republican Rome as an integral part of the elective process, to reappear again in the Principate, in cases where election had become a mere form, as the living principle.[177] It is, in fact, the one principle that has a continuous history; election is the Republican interlude.

If, therefore, we are led to consider the monarchy as not purely an elective office, and substitute for election the principle of nomination, we must consider that it was the right, and probably the duty, of the king of Rome to nominate his successor. If there had been no due nomination during his lifetime, and consequently no distinctly marked out successor to the monarchy, the duty of providing such a successor lapsed to the Senate, from which body the interrex was appointed. The interregnum is said by tradition to have dated from the first vacancy in the regal office, after the death of Romulus.[178] When such a vacancy had occurred, the auspices, under which the state had been founded, and which were the mark of divine acceptance of the kingly rule, “returned to the patres,”[179] and we are told that this was from the first interpreted to mean, not to the comitia curiata, but to the patrician Senate. The earliest interregnum is represented as an exercise of collective rule by the Senate; but, on the analogy of the sole magistracy, it took the form of a creation of a succession of interreges. The first step was the division of the Senate into decuriae;[180] each decury had fifty days of government allotted to it; within this period each individual member of the decuria exercised rule for five days, and, according to one account, the succession of the decuries was determined by lot (sortitio).[181] The rule is represented as collegiate, the whole decury possessing the imperium, while the individual who ruled for five days had the fasces and the external emblems of the royal power.[182] In later times we shall see that, though the interregnum was retained, the whole procedure was simplified by the abandonment of the collegiate principle. If it ever existed, we must suppose that, as soon as ever the resolution of the Senate was taken, the collective rule could be interrupted by any interrex, except the first, nominating the king.[183] The interregnum, although represented by our authorities as an invariable part of the procedure in the appointment of a king, was probably from the first a makeshift, only resorted to when the ordinary procedure had been interrupted through unforeseen causes, and there was no definitely designated successor.[184]