The Athenian Democracy vs The Roman Republic

The political system of the Roman Republic surpassed the Athenian democracy. Although the Athenian idea of power to the people seems attractive at first, there are downsides. The Romans took this original idea and improved upon it to form their government.

There is some confusion over who founded the Athenian democracy. According to Kurt Raaflaub, Josiah Ober, and Robert Wallace,

The man whose leadership Athenian memory credited with the realization of these reforms was Cleisthenes, a member of the prominent Alcmaeonid family.

. . By the late fifth and fourth centuries the Athenians sought the origins of their democracy even earlier, with Solon or even Theseus. Few scholars today are ready to take the latter seriously. But together with Solon and Ephialtes (an Athenian leader in the 460s), Cleisthenes. . . remains a prime candidate for the title “founder of Athenian democracy.”

Evidence does point to Solon as leading most of the reforms. Raaflaub, Ober, and Wallace wrote,

Both  had long been overshadowed by Solon, who had written a large set of laws and composed a substantial body of poetry.

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The former, displayed publicly on the Acropolis and later in the Prytaneion, were still available at the time of Aristotle.

Although these things that Solon did are noteworthy, Hansen tells us what Solon’s most important contribution to the Athenian democracy is,

However, of Solon’s constitutional reforms the most important, according to the tradition, was his creation of a Council of Four Hundred, 100 from each of the four tribes. As to its functions nothing whatever is heard until Plutarch, who says that the Council had the task of preparing all matters to be decided by the Assembly.

This Assembly was made up of the male citizens in Athens. They normally met one to three times a month. They emphasized the freedom of speech above anything else in those meetings. Any citizen there could speak his mind freely. The majority had the final say in any decision. They voted on decrees, made laws, voted on military tactics, decided when to ostracize someone from Athens, etc.

The biggest problem with this system is that only adult male citizens could vote. The real issue here is that the Greek people did not give women or slaves citizenship. The Greek people thought that women and slaves were inferior to them.[footnoteRef:6] Another distinction that should be made is that only 1/6 on average of the male citizens were part of the Assembly. This political system that is advertised as giving the power to the people actually stole power from 2/3 of the population, the women and the slaves, and only about 10% of the population at any time had “power.”

Rome started out as a monarchy. Romulus was Rome’s first king, and he chose “a hundred clan heads of his tribe to help him establish Rome and be his council or senate.”[footnoteRef:9] The descendants of these clan heads became known as patricians, and their subordinates were called plebeians, or plebs for short.[footnoteRef:10] During the time that Rome was ruled by kings, the councils did not have much say or authority. The Roman monarchy lasted until 510 BC[footnoteRef:11] when Tarquin the Proud’s son raped a noblewoman and was overthrown.

The age of the Roman Kingdom was over, and the Roman Republic was just beginning. After Tarquin the Proud was cast out, the Senate decided to appoint two consuls to rule Rome. Michael Crawford writes:

Two consuls instead of a king now stood each year at the head of the community; the assembly of adult males which elected them remained the same as did the body of elders who advised them; this was the senate, composed in practice of former magistrates.

These consuls had a few religious duties, such as performing sacrifices on their first day. In addition to this, they made laws,[footnoteRef:15] distributed land, appointed dictators when they needed a general for war, and other diplomatic things. The consuls were advised by a Senate and the people voted on who the members of the Senate were. The Senate could make decrees, not necessarily laws, but the decrees were normally followed. It used to be limited to Patricians, but the Plebeians went on strike and gained many more rights than they had during the Roman Kingdom.

While the consuls, as the legislative branch, made the laws, there was a group called the councilors who passed these laws and arranged the tax plans for the Republic. There was also a group of judges who met in basilicas to deal with legal cases.

Rome, like Greece, had corrupt citizenship laws. Only males could hold political positions and be part of the Senate, or be consuls. Rome found the right balance of how much power to give to the people.