Ancient Rome

early Rome
institutions of the
monarchy & early Republic
early Rome: a timeline
 geographical situation of Rome

• Frontier town (Tiber river)

• Fording (Tiber island)

• Transhumance routes inland from coast

• Plain to plain

• Upland (foothills of Apennines

• Roads running inland from salt pans on the

coast (later: via Salaria)

• this site is inhabited for centuries before the

development of the city of Rome started
around 750 BCE
comparable
in size to the
San Fernando
Valley
 myth, reality: competing narratives

• Aeneas arrives in Italy

• later Romans placed this around 1100 BCE

• Aeneas marries Lavinia, founds Lavinium

• Ascanius, his son, founds Alba Longa

• (various kings: names are bogus)

• 700s (814; 753; 752; 751; 728): Romulus and Remus found Rome

• seven canonical kings of Rome

• some Etruscan, others Sabine

• create: army, senate, popular assemblies, criminal courts, religious practice, temples,
public spaces, infrastructure, warfare, alliances

• 509-500 BCE (503): last of the mythical seven kings is expelled, Rome
becomes a Republic (res publica: public thing)

Aeneas and companions arrive in Italy. Master

of the Aeneid, ca. 1530, Metropolitan Museum,
NYC
myths aside, we can use archaeology to
track the emergence of an urban core

• elite settlement on Palatine hill

• drainage of valley to create Forum

Romanum

• temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on

the Capitoline hill

• Forum Boarium (and forum holitorium)

by Tiber river
Kurt Raaflaub:

“In the late sixth century, Rome

was by far the largest and most
powerful community
among the Latins, with whom it
was linked in a loose “league,”
perhaps hardly
inferior to some of the Etruscan
city-states to the north. The
sanctuaries it built for
its gods and the mansions of its
elite on the Palatine attest to
prosperity; the temple
of Jupiter on the Capitol,
dedicated soon after the fall of
monarchy, was at the time
perhaps one of the largest in
central Italy."
family structure
“census frieze”
~ 2nd BCE

• Property

• Ancestry

• Morality
From household to gens (clan)

- families of common descent + proximate settlement form

clans (gens)

- Example: gens Fabia vs. Veiientines 479 BCE

- 306 clan members
- Several thousand clients

- Some clans migrate to Rome (“open situation”):

- Ruma: Etruscan family  Rome
 pater familias: head of household • typically, the oldest living male ancestor

• exercises legal and social authority over other members

of the household

• but also, responsible for the behavior of all members of

the familia

• legally independent: he cannot be in anyone else’s

power

• patria potestas (“paternal authority”) regulated by laws

in theory, the head of household had power of life and death over and by social codes
members of the household
• pietas: respect for elders and structure of the family
in reality, he faced social and legal obstacles to exercising this power
• mos maiorum (“way of the ancestors”): a fluid
Potter: “This power may have emerged in a period where the system of expression for traditional Roman social values and
community justice was extremely weak, and the head of a familia might practices
have been expected to police the members of his household in the
absence of any other authority.” • an example of patriarchy: patriarch has (legal, social)
power over women and younger males
agnates vs. cognates: paternal power moves along agnatic lines
agnatic households

• things passed down along agnatic lines:

• property (res familiaris, “the stuff of

the family”)

• family cult (res sacra, “sacred things”)

• paternal aunts & uncles:

• amita (“father’s sister”)

• patruus (“father’s brother”)

• maternal aunts & uncles

• matertera (“mother’s sister”)

• avunculus (“mother’s brother”)
manus marriage vs. free marriage
• manus marriage: wife passes from power of her
pater familias to legal control (literally “hand”) of
husband

• husband has sole power to initiate divorce

• husband incurs infamia (i.e., becomes

infames) for divorce without cause

• wife is “in the place of a daughter” (filiae

loco)

• free marriage: wife is not under the legal control

of husband
marriage in Rome was not a sacrament but a
purely social fact with certain legal consequences • woman remains in control of pater familias

chiefly, the birth of legitimate children • on his death, she becomes sui iuris (“of her
own legal authority”)
 wastrel sons, worried moms

the fear of poverty = a fear of changes to

• familia
• citizenship
• freedom

stereotype: sons don’t understand the dependence

of familia on property and are lured by gleaming
promises of consumption
social structure: the political scene
 Free citizens in Rome: a rigid hierarchy

SOCIAL STATUS: $ + morality + ancestry

(property qualifications)

$$$$ = Senators (called patres or “fathers”) Property and morality and

origin checked on a regular
$$$ = Knights (called equites) basis in the
populus
$ = Freeborn citizens of lower wealth Census
(sometimes called the “plebs”)

(?) = Freed (formerly enslaved) citizens Rome’s financial elite: barred

from holding positions in
government

Could become wealthy

Senatorial order (ordo senatorius)

• around 300 – 600 men (and their

families)
• A position held for life
(potentially: if not kicked out)
• not an elected position
• Met in the curia in the forum
Romanum, usually
The curia: regular meeting
house of senate

(senate could also meet in any

temple)
The roman forum (forum Romanum) in the
imperial period (digital reconstruction)
Power sharing
among senatorial
order:

• Elite
competition for
magistracies

• ruled with
consensus of
the populus
(people)

• SPQR: senatus
populusque
Romanus,
“senate and the
Roman people”
• A young man from
the senatorial order

• Morally upright

• Free by birth

• Competent in giving
public speeches

• With connections

• and, later, cash to

burn (often
dependent on
money lenders)
 Plastico model of
Circus Maximus
could join the cursus
honorum, “racetrack
of unpaid
magistracies”
(pre)
1: Quaestor
2: Aedile
- Public speeches,
- Treasury
especially at - City management
- Public crimes
funerals - Supervise markets
- provincial
- Military service
administration
- Courts
[two-year
interval in
between
4: Consul 3: Praetor magistracies]

- Supreme military power - Courts & law creation

- Military command

cursus honorum (“racetrack of unpaid magistracies”)

 citizen assemblies

(male) citizens could participate in government, but it remains debated whether Rome had any real
democratic element to its constitution
 voting in popular assemblies

• eventually, the populus (citizen body) of Rome was divided into units that
were used in voting (and in military actions)

• these were called “tribes” (tribus) – sometimes we say “voting tribes”

to clarify

• these tribes were then subdivided into smaller units of citizens (e.g.,
curiae)

• eventually, the tribes became 35 in number

• tribes voted as a block (“block voting”): the weight of an individual vote

depended on the number of people in each tribe

• the addition of new citizens to voting tribes remained a contentious issue

through the end of the Republic
reconstruction of Saepta Julia by Italo
Gismondi: site of voting in late Republic period
 500 to 280s BCE: the “struggle of the orders”

• patricians (allegedly descended from first 100 senators) vs. plebeians (other citizens; details are hazy)

• issues

• debt relief

• distribution of land

• reform and legislation

• formal recognition of plebeian institutions

• plebeians force patricians to compromise

• secessio plebis: withdrawal of plebs outside sacred boundary of city, a form of collective
emigration

• military strike: refusal to fight

• 287 BCE: legislative package grants plebs political rights, restricts interest rates, limits
ownership of lands
religion: private, public

Potter: “If the worth of a person was determined not by

any inner accomplishments of the soul, but rather
by accomplishments that were observable and
measurable in the public sphere, then it is perhaps
not surprising to find that the religious life of the
average Roman was also a matter of very public
activity.”
Potter’s points

• many religious activities in Rome develop before close

association between Roman and Greek gods

• apotropaic

• collegiate mentality

• some gods originally worshipped by individual gentes

• “the evolution of the religious system of the Roman

state suggests a movement from a small rural
community, the chief concerns of which were the
survival of its members and their flocks, to a more
complex society with links to other states, and one that
was open to new ideas.” (pictured) the Capitoline triad: Jupiter, Juno, Minerva

compare the Aventine triad: Ceres, Liber, Libera

lararium: household shrine

often in the atrium

who were the lares?

• protecting spirits of a place

• the lares familiares are the protecting

spirits of a household

• other examples: at crossroads

example of a fresco from a lararium

in a shop in Pompeii

Isis- Fortuna (female god, Egyptian in

origin but popular in Rome after
Hellenistic period; popular with
merchants) and Harpocrates

cacator cave malum, “shitter, beware

of evil”
fresco from the lararium of the house of
Julius Polybius in Pompei
priesthoods • Priests = specialists in religious ritual and law

• Just ordinary citizens who were entrusted with special

religious roles

• Priests did not have a monopoly on public religious duties

• the Roman priesthood was complex, hierarchical, and

integrated into the state

• There were several kinds of priests

 • Flamen (sg), flamines (pl)
Flamines
• Individual priests dedicated to a particular deity

• Major flamines: Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus

• Always patricians (from aristocratic clans)

• Minor flamines: twelve other gods, including Ceres, Flora,

Volcanus

• All flamines carried out a ritual program, following a calendar

of sacrifices and ceremonies for their particular gods

• Possibly the oldest “layer” of priesthood in Rome

the Floralia
 Collegia • Besides from the flamines, most priests were organized into “colleges”
(collegia, sg. collegium)

• Roman “colleges” = professional associations, each with authority over

[1] Pontifices (sg. pontifex): authority over the calendar, family particular areas of religion
inheritance, and official records; oversight of the Flamines and
Vestals • Priestly colleges were consulted by the senate (Rome’s main governing body)

[2] Augures (sg. augur): authority over certain kinds of

• Roman officials and magistrates (non-priests) carried out many of the
divination involving birds (“auspices”) and over the important rites
inauguration of new buildings
• Members of a given college (“colleagues”) were functionally interchangeable
[3] Decemviri (“ten men”; = duoviri, quindecimviri): entrusted
with the Sibylline Books, interpreted unsettling natural
• Four colleges
phenomena (prodigia)
• Also—the haruspices (sg. haruspex): a group of experts at interpreting animal
[4] Fetiales (sg. fetialis): diplomacy; declarations of war and entrails and lightning
peace
temple of Vesta
in the Roman
forum
(reconstructed,
partially)
the law
fanciful (i.e., not realistic) image of
introduction of twelve tables, from 1700s CE The 12 Tables in Rome: earliest codification of Roman law

• traditionally dated 451-450 BCE: text we have is a very

plausible reconstruction

• substantive law
• public law: issues in which “the state” takes interest
• private law: issues between individuals – “the state” just
mediates disputes

• procedural law: rules for resolving issues and enforcing

penalties

• example of procedural law (from table I): “If plaintiff

summons defendant to court, he shall go. If he does not go,
plaintiff shall call witness thereto. Then only shall he take
defendant by force. If defendant shirks or takes to his heels,
plaintiff shall lay hands on him. If disease or age is an
impediment, he [who summons defendant to court] shall
grant him a team; he shall not spread with cushions the
covered carriage if he does not so desire.”
 TABLE VIII: delicts (torts: private law)

If any person has sung or composed against another person a song such as was causing slander or insult
to another, he shall be clubbed to death.

If a person has maimed another's limb, let there be retaliation in kind unless he makes agreement for
settlement with him.

If he has broken or bruised a freeman's bone with his hand or a club, he shall undergo penalty of 300 as
pieces; if a slave's, 150.

If he has done simple harm [to another], penalties shall be 25 as pieces. example of
early statue
If a four-footed animal shall be said to have caused loss, legal action . . . shall be either the surrender of law: the 12
the thing which damaged, or else the offer of assessment for the damage.
tables
For pasturing on, or cutting secretly by night, another's crops acquired by tillage, there shall be capital
punishment in the case of an adult malefactor ... he shall be hanged and put to death as a sacrifice to
Ceres.

In the case of a person under the age of puberty, at the discretion of the praetor either he shall be
scourged or settlement shall be made for the harm done by paying double damages.