Pros And Cons Of The Roman Constitution

The roman republic constitution was a set of guidelines and principles passed down through precedent, the roman republic instead of creating a democracy such as that the Athenians created, a monarchy which was previously being used by previous roman rulers and an aristocracy which Sparta used, the Constitution combined elements of all three of these governments to create a combined government known as “Senatus populusque que romanus” (S.P.Q.R) this meant “the senate and the roman people”. The Roman magistrates were elected officials during the period of the Roman kingdom, the ‘king’ (although the Romans preferred not to be called a king and instead a rex) of Rome was the principal executive magistrate, his power was absolute similar to that of a tsar

or dictator of modern society, however when the roman republic was formed in 509 BC the powers in which the king withheld were transferred over to the roman consuls, only two consuls were elected each year making this job a highly desired job. The magistrates were created up of the highest rank; Dictator which was then followed by the censor (made up of people who were previously consuls), then the consul (made up of two people), the praetor (made up of eight people), the curule aedile (four people), the tribune (made up of ten people, the more important tribunes were the plebian tribunes and the tribune of the military) and finally the lowest rank in the political ladder the quaestors which were made up of twenty people. Unlike all the other ranks in the political structure the plebian tribunes were technically not magistrates as they were voted in by the plebeians and as such therefore they were an independent power. There were two legislative assemblies, the first being the concilia, “council” made up of optimo jure and the second being comitia, “committees” was the assembly of all the optimo jure. The senate often meet in a building called the Curia this building is located on the Roman forum.
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The Romans feared that the politicians in control of Rome would become too powerful to ease the peoples tensions they put limitations on people with high jobs to have limited terms, a perfect example of the limited term limitations was that of the consuls, as they were forced to be only able to hold office for 1 year these limitations put limits on leaders and permitted other politicians a chance at being consul and have the chance to hold office as it was a desired job at the time in doing these limitations it gave access to other officials the power to restrict the abilities over other government officials, these limitations were carried out by either stalling of vetoing the actions of another official. The ancient Romans laws were proposed by the senate and were only approved by the magistrates for the greater good or bad, once these laws were approved by the magistrates they in turn had to be approved by the assemblies this provided balance throughout the Ancient Roman empire preventing corruption, there were documents of these times telling us that this type of government was efficient only when all three government branches were in agreeance but when one wasn’t this system wasn’t very reliable.
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The Patron-Client relationship in Ancient Rome was a complex relationship between two Romans or sometimes more than two Romans, out of the two Romans one of them would use power or wealth to help the other Roman out in return for their various services, and these contracts were normally mutually beneficial and if not met they were usually punished severely.

There are two types of patronage: private and public. Private patronage was when the person would give gifts of food, money, livestock such as sheep or cow and some allotted land to help grow crops, they also gave legal aid to the sick and wounded. Public patronage was when the person was a protector of a religious group or guild. In return for the services of public/private help the client of the patron would help with religious services. Provide an escort for the patron to keep them safe and provide political support, these services would often carry on for several generations. The patron-client relationship was hierarchical; the client was usually a peasant or inferior class compared to their patron counterpart who was usually a member of the upper class, and because of this the patron was usually the person to determine the terms and conditions of this

contract.