Roman politics

by Frank Frost Abbott

Two of our most serious social and political questions do not come to the surface in Roman history, at least not in the form in which they present themselves today. I mean the “color question” and the labor question. Lord Cromer in the book to which reference has already been made ventures the opinion that “antipathy based on differences of colour is a plant of comparatively recent growth.” He connects its development with the fact that in modern times the white man has enslaved only the black man. Out of this relation the hostility of the two races has developed, and has extended its scope so as to determine in some measure the attitude of the white man toward the brown and yellow man. The Roman had both white and black slaves. All foreigners were on the same plane below himself. Consequently he did not have that difficulty in dealing with the dark races which some modern nations experience.

In the towns and villages of the Roman Empire we find inscriptions attesting the existence of nearly five hundred different trade-guilds.[30] Industry was carried to a high degree of specialization. We find organizations of carpenters, joiners, gold-smiths, silver-smiths, sandal-makers, bakers, skippers, actors, gladiators, and of men in almost every conceivable occupation. Yet we have no record of an industrial strike in Roman history,[30a] nor of the intrusion of the labor question into politics. The Roman trade-guilds do not seem to have tried to raise wages or to improve working conditions, in spite of their great numbers and their large membership. They were primarily benevolent and social societies. Most of the laborers worked in their own homes or in small shops, and not in large factories where common conditions develop class consciousness and a sense of solidarity. Furthermore, the great majority of the manual laborers were either slaves or freedmen, and joint action to improve their condition would have been well nigh impossible.

2. Voting and Elections

Passing now to a discussion of some of the political and social problems which the Romans and modern peoples do have in common, we may conveniently begin a comparative study of these questions by saying a word about the way in which the Romans tried to suppress the evils connected with canvassing for votes and conducting the elections. The simplicity and strictness of the olden time is well illustrated by the earliest corrupt-practices acts, which forbade candidates for public office to whiten their togas or to go about among the farmers on market days. Next we hear of an edict to prevent two candidates from combining against a rival. Not until the second century B.C., when wealth from the provinces began to pour into Rome, do we find laws against bribery on the statute books. From this time on proof multiplies that fraud and force were used at the elections. Between 67 and 52 B.C. no less than six bills were brought in to suppress political corruption. The two evils which were most prevalent were the formation of corrupt political clubs and the excessive expenditure of money by candidates. Aspirants for office spent enormous sums in giving gladiatorial games and public banquets. We hear a great deal about political clubs in the Candidate’s Handbook which Quintus Cicero addressed to his brother in 64 B.C., when Marcus was a candidate for the consulship. These organizations were formed by ambitious politicians for the purpose of controlling the elections by bribery or the use of force. They broke up the political meetings held by candidates of the opposite party, blocked up the entrances to the polling booths, gave out only ballots of their own party, and openly canvassed for voters who could be bribed. The Romans had even less success in combatting these evils by means of legislation than we have had. Not until the elections had been transferred from the people to the senate did they disappear. The remedies which helped most in holding them in check were the introduction of the secret ballot, the establishment of a special court to hear cases of bribery, with the power to inflict severe penalties, and the suppression of all political clubs. This last measure was very helpful, but it was easier of adoption in Rome, where the right of association was limited, than it would be today. Cicero’s contemporary, Cato, made the interesting proposal that all newly chosen magistrates should be required to appear in court and prove that they had been elected by legitimate means, but this bill failed of passage.

Money was freely used by unscrupulous aspirants for office, but it is not probable that capital played the important part in directing the policy of the state which certain modern writers ascribe to it. The suppression of piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean and the restoration of order in Asia Minor by Pompey were undoubtedly brought about by the influence of the bankers and tax-farmers, but two or three important considerations make it reasonably certain that “big business” did not have the political power in Rome which it has with us today.[31] The amount of money invested in public contracts was comparatively small. Even under the Republic only a small part of the revenue from the provinces was collected by private Roman companies, and under the Empire, as we have already noticed, the collection of taxes was taken over more and more by the state. Finally, there do not seem to have been many large financial corporations, and there is little, if any, evidence to show that they combined to bring pressure to bear on the government. In fact, Roman business and trade were largely individualistic.

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]

4. The Recall

One of the political problems with which we have been much concerned in late years has to do with the possibility of removing an elected official from office. We proceed to the accomplishment of that purpose in two ways, by the traditional method of impeachment or by the new device of the recall. They differ in the fact that the former is a judicial procedure, whereas a recall is brought about by the direct action of the voters. The Romans were a practical people and did not like to interfere with the orderly transaction of public business by removing an executive from office. Consequently we have no record of any attempt being made to remove a civil magistrate from office until we come to the stormy period of the second century before our era. In 169 B.C. one of the censors of that year was impeached and tried before the popular assembly, and in 133 B.C. the tribune Tiberius Gracchus secured the recall of his colleague Octavius by a popular vote. Both cases illustrate the application of the Roman doctrine of popular sovereignty in its extreme form. Neither method of procedure, however, found favor in later years. In fact the Romans did not have so much need of either process as we have today, because the tribune could veto an arbitrary or unscrupulous act of a magistrate.