Heads of state in ancient Rome

[Diani]

Iam in search of a list of individuals who held the office of head of state during the three periods of Roman history.

Please help me to find out this list.

I also need to know the contribution to the development of Roman law by two individuals of repute from each period.

It will be very greatful if you can support me.

Thank you.

[Nephele]

Iam in search of a list of individuals who held the office of head of state during the three periods of Roman history.

Please help me to find out this list.

 

http://www.unrv.com/government/consul.php

 

http://www.unrv.com/government/emperor.php

 

 

I also need to know the contribution to the development of Roman law by two individuals of repute from each period.

 

http://www.unrv.com/government/index-of-roman-laws.php

[Diani]

Iam in search of a list of individuals who held the office of head of state during the three periods of Roman history.

Please help me to find out this list.

 

http://www.unrv.com/government/consul.php

 

http://www.unrv.com/government/emperor.php

 

 

I also need to know the contribution to the development of Roman law by two individuals of repute from each period.

 

http://www.unrv.com/government/index-of-roman-laws.php

 

 

 

Thank you for the suggestions.

I could find the list of heads of states.

 

But, Im looking for the contribution to the development of roman law by few of those heads of states in more great detail. specially the contribution to roman law by;

 

*Servius Tullius

*Tarquinius Superbus

*Pompey

*Sulla

*Julius Ceaser

*Contantine

*Diocletian

if you can assist me, it would be greatful.

thank you

[Maty]

Um ... can you let us know the purpose of your investigation, as this would probably help with the focus of any replies? Roman heads of state were not particularly enthusiastic legislators as the system did not work that way. For example there were only two or three years where Pompey might be considered (usually joint) ruler of Rome, and his contribution to Roman law in that time was negligible. Julius Caesar did contribute, but mainly to the constitution of Roman colonies.

 

Most Roman law was civil and criminal and this was done by the urban praetor, who every year posted a list of which of the rulings of his predecessors he would follow. Eventually this was collected into a comprehensive list under the emperor Justinian, and this list is still the basis of much of modern European law. Where the big boys were concerned, their relatively few contributions were in the area of constitutional law, and here you should be looking at the following

 

Serviius Tullius

Appius Claudius Decemvir

The Gracchi

Augustus

Constantine

Justinian

[Diani]

Um ... can you let us know the purpose of your investigation, as this would probably help with the focus of any replies? Roman heads of state were not particularly enthusiastic legislators as the system did not work that way. For example there were only two or three years where Pompey might be considered (usually joint) ruler of Rome, and his contribution to Roman law in that time was negligible. Julius Caesar did contribute, but mainly to the constitution of Roman colonies.

 

Most Roman law was civil and criminal and this was done by the urban praetor, who every year posted a list of which of the rulings of his predecessors he would follow. Eventually this was collected into a comprehensive list under the emperor Justinian, and this list is still the basis of much of modern European law. Where the big boys were concerned, their relatively few contributions were in the area of constitutional law, and here you should be looking at the following

 

Serviius Tullius

Appius Claudius Decemvir

The Gracchi

Augustus

Constantine

Justinian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iam sudying the Subject of Roman Law and we are given an assignment to list those heads of state during the main three periods in the Roman history and we also have to discuss the contribution to the development of Roman law by two individuals from each period.

 

Actually it is hard to find facts related to this contribution by those ancient Roman heads of states. if you can please help me. it would be greatful.

 

Thank you

[sylla]

Iam sudying the Subject of Roman Law and we are given an assignment to list those heads of state during the main three periods in the Roman history and we also have to discuss the contribution to the development of Roman law by two individuals from each period.

 

Actually it is hard to find facts related to this contribution by those ancient Roman heads of states. if you can please help me. it would be greatful.

Thank you

It seems you have already gotten a precious help from Nephele and Maty.

I would think most if not all you require on the legal achievements of those seven Roman figures is already there in the links posted above.

[consulscipio236]

But, Im looking for the contribution to the development of roman law by few of those heads of states in more great detail. specially the contribution to roman law by;

 

*Servius Tullius

*Tarquinius Superbus

*Pompey

*Sulla

*Julius Ceaser

*Contantine

*Diocletian

if you can assist me, it would be greatful.

thank you

 

 

1. Servius Tullius was a Roman king. He expanded the boundary of the city (the "pomerium") which was an act of religious as well as legal significance. It was the pomerium, not the physical wall around the city (which he also built) that constituted the city's actual boundary. He also instituted the world's first census, which was used not only to count the number of people but also (mostly) to take an inventory of all property held by Romans. The first king, Romulus, had divided the city into 3 divisions called "Curia" (familial kinships). These were the "patrician" families that would form the aristocracy in Rome. Over time, however, new families entered the city and while they sought patronage with one of the patrician families, thereby linking themselves to one of the Curia divisions, they were not true members of those divisions. These families were called "plebii" (plebeians), a name that derives from their lack of organization. Tullius corrected this problem by dividing the city into 4 geographical divisions called "tribes" (the Suburana, Esquilina, Collina, and Palatina). The Tribes were like American congressional districts, not ethnic divisions as the Curia were. The term "tribe" derives from the "tribute" (taxes) collected by the government from the tribes. Each tribe was led by a "tribune". This made all citizens, patricians and plebeians, "Roman" but in doing so created a distinct aristocratic and commoner class. By giving the plebs political legitimacy but not yet political power, he set the stage for their later accumulation of political power, in a struggle which eventually led to the ruin of the republic.

 

The reforms he may be known best for are his reorganization of the army. He divided the army into different property classes, so that richer soldiers belonged to more aristocratic army divisions ("centuries"). This was one of the reasons he instituted the world's first census. At the time the legislative assembly was the assembly of the curia. When he created the tribes, he allowed them to form an assembly of tribes which would have more importance under the republic. However, in organizing a distinct century-based system in the army, those centuries together constituted an "assembly of centuries" which he made into the principal legislative assembly. This was significant because membership in the old assembly (of curia) was restricted by ethnic background. The new assembly (of centuries) was restricted based on property ownership. This was a major step forward for the plebs, since this meant any pleb could now vote on legislation, so long as he ended up rich enough. Tullius organized the century assembly to be quite aristocratic. The centuries were units of soldiers. Each solider would vote, and the majority would decide how the century voted. The blocks of centuries would each cast a single vote and the majority would rule. But because there were fewer richer soldiers, and they were put into more centuries, the assembly was weighted toward the aristocrats. Later in the republic, the lowest ranking century (the "proletarii"), which would always vote last, held more soldiers than all other centuries combined. This also led to the ruin of the republic. In the early 3rd century I believe, a censor made this assembly more democratic. In 82 BC Lucius Sulla restored this "Servian organization" in his attempts to make the constitution more aristocratic.

 

2. Tarquinius Superbus didn't do a whole lot for Roman law. There are probably two major things he is known for. First, he bought the Sibylline Books. These were the major oracular books that were consulted during times of extreme danger. Roman religion mainly looked to the Gods to let them know if a particular action was good or bad. The Romans didn't have oracles like the Greeks (where they could get explicit instructions from the Gods) so the Sibylline Books were the only oracular sources the Romans had. They told the Romans to, among other things, adopt certain Gods (which they did) and thus played a major role in the creation of Roman religion in the period after about 400 BC. They also helped lead to Julius Caesar's assassination. As he was preparing to invade the Parthian Empire, it was reveled that the Sibylline Books said only a king could defeat the Parthians, and so this was seen as justification for the belief that he would make himself king. The second thing Tarquin is known for he instigating the rebellion which overthrew the monarchy. His son raped a noblewoman, which triggered a conspiracy that expelled him and his supporters from the city. In his place the Romans elected (in the Century Assembly from above) two praetors ("leaders", later called "consuls") and the Roman Republic was born. It was the fear of another tyrant like Tarquin that caused the Romans to be so fearful of monarchy. This fear was so great that even the emperors took steps to make it look like they were not kings. This is why the emperors of the first three centuries of the empire called themselves "princepts" (first citizens) and claimed to share power with the senate.

 

3. Pompey didn't do a whole lot for Roman law either, although as Julius Caesar's enemy in the civil war, he played a major role in the fall of the republic. Probably his most important legal contribution was the repeal of most of Sulla's constitutional reforms. He, for example, restored the powers of the Plebeian Tribune. This earned him a great deal of popular support. He also was the first Roman to hold dictatorial powers but not the formal dictatorship itself. He actually held this power for 5 years after pirates bombed the port at Ostia. He used this power to defeat the pirates and then consolidate the eastern half of Rome's fledging empire. Another contribution to law was his part in the triumvirate, which was a de facto dictatorship shared between Pompey, Caesar and Marcus Crassus. With this power he and Caesar did what the Gracchi had been unable to do 60 years earlier (even if on a fairly limited scale): redistribute large amounts of land to the common Romans (specifically Pompey's agitating veterans). He was ultimately unable to stop Caesar from make himself de facto king and wrecking the republic.

 

4. Sulla made major (if largely temporary) changes to Roman law. He codified the crusus honorum ("course of honors") which specified the political roles one must hold before achieving the most significant role (the consulship). This was meant to prevent some populist agitator from seizing high power despite out of whim. It required certain achievements before holding a post, such as requiring consuls to be of a certain age (I believe 42) and have served on a certain number (I believe 10) of military campaigns. He also codified the requirement that after a consul (the "president" of the Roman Republic) leaves office, he must wait 10 years before seeking reelection. In addition, he set requirements for consuls and praetors (politicians ranking second to consuls) when they left office and went to govern a province. He also increased the number of praetors so that there would be enough governors despite this term limitation. He increased the number of lower magistrates as well, partly to weaken the magistrates (by diluting the power of each) and thus strengthening the senate. In this he was required to increase the membership of the senate from 300 (as it had been since the time of the kings) to 600. Julius Caesar would raise the number to 900, but Augustus would reduce it back to its permanent number under the empire of 600.

 

Overall, Sulla wanted to strengthen the aristocracy and weaken the plebs, as he believed the plebs had caused much of the political trouble (going back at least as far as the Gracchi) and were the ones most likely to back a populist demagogue who would ruin the republic. This meant strengthening the senate and weakening the magistrates (who were elected by the citizens) and the popular assemblies. Most important in this was that he weaken the Plebeian Tribune. He took away most of the tribune's power, except the power to rescue a citizen from arbitrary punishment by magistrates (ensuring people still had due process). He also made it so that after someone served as tribune, they could never again run for office. This was meant to keep ambitious people away from this office, which from the earliest days of the republic had been the main outlet for plebeian rage. He also transferred most legislative powers from the popular assemblies to the senate. As mentioned above, he also restored the old aristocratic Servian organization of the Century Assembly. In addition, he took most of the Censor's powers away (in particular his right to move people into and out of the senate). This office was always held under suspicion since it technically outranked the consulship, had more coercive power than any office (since, in conducting the census, the censors decided the rank and power of each citizen by surveying their property), and each censor served a 5 year term (although usually they abdicated after 18 months). All other magistrates served annual terms. Sulla also instituted less important reforms. For example, he replaced the knights with senators on the jury courts. This repealed a reform enacted by Gaius Gracchus decades earlier, which succeeded in its attempts to turn the most powerful group of non-senators against the senate, since senators were frequently prosecuted for extortion (usually associated with their terms as governors over provinces). In seizing the dictatorship without a time limit, he established the precedent of ambitious generals seizing absolute power. The ultimate irony of his career was that his main goal was to prevent someone from doing what he himself did: seizing absolute power. Ultimately he did little more than further destabilize an already unstable political situation, especially with his neutering of the tribunes.

 

5. Besides seizing a perpetual dictatorship and wrecking the republic, Julius Caesar made some significant reforms of the constitution as well. He settled Gaul and reformed the tax system in the eastern provinces. He went almost as far as the Gracchi in a land distribution law (15 years after his law that only distributed land to Pompey's veterans). He made himself perpetual censor (called the "prefect of the morals") which give him censorial powers (including the power to move people into and out of the senate) without subjecting the office to any checks (in particular vetoes by colleagues or tribunes). He did something similar in giving himself perpetual tribunician powers. This did several things that election to the tribunate could not. It gave him access to the powers which, as a patrician, he should not have had. It also allowed him to avoid standing for election every year or being term limited. It also prevented anyone from vetoing him, while giving him all tribunician powers (in particular the sacrosanctity of his person and the power to veto any magistrate or the senate). He did pass legitimate laws, however. He attempted to reduce the level of indebtedness by allowing all debtors to deduct from the principal of their debts the interest paid or pledged. This reduced indebtedness by about 25%. He instituted another census, and reduced the grain dole from the levels instituted by the populist agitator Clodius 15 years earlier. He passed a law that offered rewards for families that bore large numbers of children, in an effort to address the massive loss of manpower from the recent wars. He passed a sumptuary law, which taxed and regulated certain luxuries. He outlawed all guilds, accept those of ancient origin, which from the time of Clodius had been front groups for subversive gangs. He also limited former consuls to 2 years as governor and former praetors to 1 year. This was so that the troops wouldn't get too attached to their commander, as they had to Caesar during his 8 year term as governor.

 

His most permanent change (which lasts to this day) was his reformation of the calendar. The old calendar was one of 10 months and 2 monthless periods (our November and December) that was based on the orbit of the moon. This required constant corrections, often with the insertion of an "intercalary" (extra) month between February and March. Since the official who did this, the pontifex maximus (an office that survives to this day as the Pope) was a political official, the regulation of the calendar was often exploited to serve political interests. Caesar set the new calendar to follow the sun, and set the mean year to 365.25 days, where every three years would have 365 days, and every fourth year (the leap year) would have 366 days. The extra day would be inserted at the end of February, where the old intercalary month had been inserted. To bring the calendar into alignment with the equinox, he inserted two months of 34 and 35 days between November in December, in addition to the intercalary month of 23 days that year (46 BC). He set the number of days in each month. He remained the month of Quintius 'July' (after himself). His successor, Augustus, made a few minor modifications to this. To gratify his vanity, he renamed the month of Sextilus 'August' (after himself), and so it would have as many days as July, he took one day from February and gave it to August. Before this, February had 29 days every 3 years and 30 days every 4th year. He also made a minor correction in the leap years (Caesar had counted each 4th year inclusively, resulting in a distortion). This "Julian Calendar" was only changed once, in the 16th century by Pope Gregory. This "Gregorian Calendar" differed from the Julian Calendar only in that it skips 3 leap years every 200 years (this last happened in 2000). This is because the year is about eight minutes less than 365.25 days.

 

As for the other two Romans, I don't know as much about their reforms. I will say that Diocletian reformed the empire (the first to do since Augustus) by dividing it into an western and eastern half, and putting an emperor and junior emperor in control of each half. He also reformed the administration (both civil and military) in a system copied by the catholic church (including, for example, civil divisions called Dioceses after himself). These were mostly intended to minimize the risk of a general attempting to seize power again. Constantine maintained many of these reforms, with the exceptions of ruling the empire by himself for a brief time, and further subjugating the importance of the city of Rome. He in effect downgraded the Roman Senate to a municipal body, and founded a new eastern capital and named it after himself (Constantinople).

Edited November 25, 2009 by consulscipio236