Citizenship in Rome
Directions: As you read through the following resources, take notes on the following underneath each document or on your note sheet.
What does citizenship mean for this civilization? Who is a citizen in this civilization? What privileges and rights do citizens in this civilization have? What else does this document tell you about citizenship in this civilization? What else do you wish you knew about citizenship here?
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By Donald L. Wasson. Borrowed from: www.ancient.eu/article/859/
Citizenship is and always has been a valued possession of any individual. When one studies the majority of ancient empires one finds that the concept of citizenship, in any form, was non‐existent. The people in these societies did not and could not participate in the affairs of their government. These governments were either theocratic or under the control of a non‐elected sovereign, answerable to no one except himself. There was no representative body or elected officials. The Athenians were among the first societies to have anything remotely close to our present‐day concept of citizenship. Later, the Romans created a system of government that sought the participation of its citizenry. Every citizen, women excluded, shared fully in all governmental activities with all of its rights, privileges, and responsibilities. It should be noted that Roman women were considered citizens; however, they had few, if any, legal rights.
CITIZENSHIP IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC ‐‐ After the collapse of the old monarchy and the foundation of the Republic, the control of Roman government was restricted to a handful of great families ‐ the patricians, a word derived from patres or 'fathers'. The remaining residents/citizens were called plebeians, representing the poor as well as many of the city’s wealthy. Soon, however, these plebeians or plebs began to resent their second‐class status and rose up, demanding to participate in the affairs of state and exercise their rights as full citizens of Rome. After the threat of a work stoppage became a reality, the resulting compromise ‐ the “Conflict of Orders” ‐ brought into creation the Concilium Plebis or Council of the Plebs. This representative body spoke for the plebeians through a number of elected tribunes. It enacted laws that pertained initially to the plebeians but eventually became binding to all citizens, including the patricians.
During the early days of the Republic, the Roman government was established with the primary goal of avoiding the return of a king. Its authority centered on a number of elected magistrates (consuls, praetors, quaestors and aediles), a Senate, and a number of smaller assemblies. This new concept of citizenship, however, did not mean full equality. The differences between patrician and plebian still existed. In 450 BCE the creation of the Twelve Tables, the first Roman law code, established rules that governed, among other things, the relationship between the two classes. The reward of citizenship only meant that an individual lived under the “rule of law” and had a vested interest in his government. One must wonder why there was this desire to vote or, in other words, to be a true Roman (civitas Romanus sum) ‐ that is to say proudly “I am a Roman citizen.”
SPQR ‐‐ The notion of Roman citizenship can best be represented in the logo ‐ seen on documents, monuments and even the standards of the Roman legion ‐ SPQR or Senatus Populus Que Romanus, the Senate and Roman People. The historian Tom Holland, in his book Rubicon, wrote that the right to vote was a sign of a person’s success. To be a Roman citizen an individual was educated to “temper” his “competitive instincts” for the good of the people. For the typical Roman, the concept of “civitas” meant that he had to not only share in the joys of self‐government but also suffer along in its sorrows and fears. Even the poorest of Roman citizens, the proletarii, were still represented (albeit with little effect) in the comitia centuriata.
Aside from the fact that women, although citizens, had no share in the politics of Rome, there was an even larger but significant portion of the population that resided behind the wall of the city and was not granted the rights of citizenship ‐ the slaves. Slavery was not uncommon in the ancient world and existed long before the Republic. It could be found in the empires of Assyria and Babylon as well as in Greece. As with other civilizations, in Rome, many of the slaves came from military conquests. Slavery allowed many of the wealthy citizens to participate in the politics of running the empire. Slaves served a variety of functions. They were farmers, miners, domestic servants, entertainers and even teachers. However, unlike the slaves of Greece, a Roman slave lived in a unique society: he could earn or buy his freedom or liberty and enjoy the benefits of citizenship, gaining wealth and power; his children could even hold public office.
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"The patricians were great landowners, who constituted an aristocratic governing class. Only they could be consuls, magistrates, and senators. The plebeians constituted the considerably larger group of non‐patrician large landowners, less wealthy landholders, artisans, merchants, and small farmers. Although they, too, were citizens, they did not have the same rights as the patricians. Both patricians and plebeians could vote, but only the patricians could be elected to governmental offices. Both had the right to make legal contracts marriages, but intermarriage between patricians and plebeians was forbidden." ‐ Duiker Textbook
Citizenship in Greece
Directions: As you read through the following resources, take notes on the following underneath each document or on your note sheet.
What does citizenship mean for this civilization? Who is a citizen in this civilization? What privileges and rights do citizens in this civilization have? What else does this document tell you about citizenship in this civilization? What else do you wish you knew about citizenship here?
DOCUMENT A
DOCUMENT B
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DOCUMENT E
By Mark Cartwright. Borrowed from: www.ancient.eu/Athenian_Democracy
The word democracy derives from dēmos, which refers to the entire citizen body, and kratos, meaning rule. Any male citizen could, then, participate in the main democratic body of Athens, the assembly. In the 4th and 5th centuries BCE the male citizen population of Athens ranged from 30,000 to 60,000 depending on the period. The assembly met at least once a month, more likely two or three times, on the Pnyx hill in a dedicated space which could accommodate around 6000 citizens. Any citizen could speak to the assembly and vote on decisions by simply holding up their hands. The majority won the day and the decision was final. Nine presidents, elected by lot and holding the office one time only, organized the proceedings and assessed the voting.
Specific issues discussed in the assembly included deciding military and financial magistracies, organizing and maintaining food supplies, initiating legislation and political trials, deciding to send envoys, deciding whether or not to sign treaties, voting to raise or spend funds, and debating military matters. The assembly could also vote to ostracize from Athens any citizen who had become too powerful and dangerous for the polis. In this case there was a secret ballot where voters wrote a name on a piece of broken pottery. An important element in the debates was freedom of speech which became, perhaps, the citizen's most valued privilege. After suitable discussion, temporary or specific decrees were adopted and laws defined. The assembly also ensured decisions were enforced and officials were carrying out their duties correctly.
There was in Athens a smaller body, the boulē, which decided or prioritized the topics which were discussed in the assembly. In addition, in times of crisis and war, this body could also take decisions without the assembly meeting. The boulē or council was composed of 500 citizens who were chosen by lot and who served for one year with the limitation that they could serve no more than two non‐ consecutive years. The boulē represented the 139 districts of Attica and acted as a kind of executive committee of the assembly. It was this body which supervised any administrative committees and officials on behalf of the assembly.
Then there was also an executive committee of the boulē which consisted of one tribe of the ten which participated in the boulē (i.e., 50 citizens, known as prytaneis) elected on a rotation basis, so each tribe composed the executive once each year. This executive of the executive had a chairman (epistates) who was chosen by lot each day. The 50‐man prytany met in the building known as the Bouleuterion in the Athenian agora and safe‐guarded the sacred treasuries. In tandem with all these political institutions were the law courts (dikasteria) which were composed of 6,000 jurors and a body of chief magistrates (archai) chosen annually by lot. Indeed, there was a specially designed machine of coloured tokens (kleroterion) to ensure those selected were chosen randomly, a process magistrates had to go through twice. It was here in the courts that laws made by the assembly could be challenged and decisions were made regarding ostracism, naturalization, and remission of debt.
This complex system was, no doubt, to ensure a suitable degree of checks and balances to any potential abuse of power, and to ensure each traditional region was equally represented and given equal powers. With people chosen at random to hold important positions and with terms of office strictly limited, it was difficult for any individual or small group to dominate or unduly influence the decision‐making process either directly themselves or, because one never knew exactly who would be selected, indirectly by bribing those in power at any one time.
As we have seen, only male citizens who were 18 years or over could speak (at least in theory) and vote in the assembly, whilst the positions such as magistrates and jurors were limited to those over 30 years of age. Therefore, women, slaves, and resident foreigners were excluded from the political process.
The mass involvement of all male citizens and the expectation that they should participate actively in the running of the polis is clear in this quote from Thucydides: "We alone consider a citizen who does not partake in politics not only one who minds his own business but useless". Illustrating the esteem in which democratic government was held, there was even a divine personification of the ideal of democracy, the goddess Demokratia. Direct involvement in the politics of the polis also meant that the Athenians developed a unique collective identity and probably too, a certain pride in their system, as shown in Pericles' famous Funeral Oration for the Athenian dead in 431 BCE, the first year of the Peloponnesian War:
Athens' constitution is called a democracy because it respects the interests not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. (Thuc. 2.37)
Although active participation was encouraged, attendance in the assembly was paid for in certain periods, which was a measure to encourage citizens who lived far away and could not afford the time off to attend. This money was only to cover expenses though, as any attempt to profit from public positions was severely punished. Citizens probably accounted for 10‐20% of the polis population, and of these it has been estimated that only 3,000 or so people actively participated in politics. Of this group, perhaps as few as 100 citizens ‐ the wealthiest, most influential, and the best speakers ‐ dominated the political arena both in front of the assembly and behind the scenes in private conspiratorial political meetings and groups. These groups had to meet secretly because although there was freedom of speech, persistent criticism of individuals and institutions could lead to accusations of conspiring tyranny and so lead to ostracism.
Critics of democracy, such as Thucydides and Aristophanes, pointed out that not only were proceedings dominated by an elite, but that the demos could be too often swayed by a good orator or popular leaders, get carried away with their emotions, or lack the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions.
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"In Greece, a polis consisted of citizens with political rights (adult males), citizens with no political rights (women and children), and noncitizens (slaves and resident aliens. All citizens of a polis possessed fundamental rights, but these rights were coupled with responsibilities. The Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that the citizen did not just belong to himself: 'We must rather regard every citizen as belonging to the state.' The loyalty that citizens had to their city‐states also had a negative side, however. City‐states distrusted one another, and the division of Greece into fiercely patriotic independent units helped bring about its ruin." ‐ Duiker Textbook