From ‘provocation’ to ‘discussion’ a Plea for Continuation

THE CURRENT DEBATE on the political culture of the Roman republic began almost twenty years ago and has lost little of its momentum since. For the first time in decades, the focus was not on the countless individual issues but on the really basic questions. The status, identity, functions, and interactions of citizen body and popular assemblies, of Senate and magistrates were problematized and reopened to discussion, thus raising fundamental questions about the very character and structure of the libera res publica. Essential issues in this debate are the relative importance and relations of institutions and procedures of deliberation and decision making, the nature of social hierarchies, rank, and reputation, of influence, authority and, last but not least, power and participation in the political life of this Republic, and indeed its whole political culture. There began a search for adequate terms for the peculiar sociopolitical order of the imperial Republic that attempted to clarify the basic meaning of terms like ‘constitution,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘sovereignty,’ ‘process,’ ‘structure’ and ‘ritual,’ ‘city-state’ and its character as a ‘state’ (in whatever sense of this controversial concept), ‘aristocracy,’ ‘meritocracy’ and ‘oligarchy,’ ‘élite’ and ‘ruling’ or ‘political class.’ This international discussion was triggered by Fergus Millar, who radically questioned a basic consensus, which had—in spite of many differences concerning approaches, perspective, and interpretation—been accepted in the field without serious challenge for almost a century.1 Up to then, it had been agreed that the social and political order of the libera res publica had been aristocratic or even ‘oligarchic,’ meaning that all institutions and positions of power were controlled by a particular kind of ruling class, which recruited not only magistrates, generals, priests, and senators from its ranks, but also the official representatives of the people, the tribuni plebis. Scholars had generally taken for granted that this ruling (or ‘political’) class—often called an “aristocracy of offi ce” or