ABSTRACT
The Latin term res publica (from which comes the word ‘republic’) is usually translated as ‘state’ or ‘commonwealth’. At no time was Rome a democracy (that is rule by the people) in the Greek, or true, sense. Its society was rigidly divided by legal status (free or enslaved) and by class. Free men or women were further classified, for example, according to whether they were so by birth or by release from slavery, were Roman citizens or Latins, or were independent or answerable to a guardian or other person in authority. The republic began, and finished, as a state largely dominated by the two upper classes, the senators, who qualified by birth and wealth, and the equestrians or knights (equites); until the second century BC, the latter were, by reason of their property holding, provided at public expense with a horse, with which they were required to report for military duty. The constitutional change from monarchy to republic was gradual. The main functions of the king, including full military command, were undertaken by two consuls with equal powers, elected for one year only. ‘[Lucius Valerius] Publicola [one of the original consuls] instituted the rule that the lictors should march in front of each consul on alternate months, so that the insignia of office should not be more numerous in the republic than under the kings’ (Cicero, On the Republic, II. 31).
