The Roman Government Of Today

[Zeke]

Ok I know I have said what if there was a Roman Empire today.....which is almost impossible but what if someone started a political party called....Roman Republicsm Party or something Latin that was catchy.

 

Do you think a system of government run by two Consuls and a Senate of some 900 members from each of the 50 states could work? Also the people elected Senators to vote for two Consuls each year?

Or do you think that a system like this would quickly fall apart? Why or why not?

Explain your answer using examples from history and explaining a little bit more about the Roman Senate... I need a history lesson on it.

 

I personally believe that maybe a system like that of the Roman City-State might work.

Sorry about spelling,

Chery O!

Zeke

[Ursus]

I think the very fact that Republican system crumbled was illustrative of the fact it didn't work when applied to an imperial setting. It may have worked when Rome was a backwater city-state, but not as the center of a vast empire.

 

Having executive power divided between two candidates, who are elected anuually, and who are severely constrained by the "advice" of the Senate makes for very weak executive power. When you're fighting enemies of the empire, you need a strong leader in charge of imperial resources. Once Pompei was finally given full command of the Mediterranean, he defeated the pirate menace quite easily. It's a point in favor of strong executive leadership.

 

People have bemoaned the warlords and the death of the Republic for 2000 years, but I really don't see an alternative. Maybe if the Republic had been open to change, it could have reformed itself under imperial pressures and survived. But Conservative Rome wasn't open to change on that level, and could only be reformed at the hands of an imperial warlord.

 

In contemporary terms, what if people elected two American presidents who shared executive powers. What if Kerry and Bush were both presidents during a war on terror, who had to argue not only with the Senate but with each other? I think it would be a disaster for national security.

[journaldan]

The fact that something failed does not in and of itself mean that it was flawed. There is a life cycle to all things.

 

I think there are elements of shared executive power that can work. There are limits to this, however. As mentioned by Ursus, however, this sharing of power doesn't work well during a "crisis" situation, such as war.

 

The concept of the "senate" electing the "consul" isn't terribly different from the Prime Minister-Parliament model of today, where the people do not directly select the Prime Minister, rather they vote for a member of parliament who then selects the PM. Of course, in these days, members are generally aligned with a particular PM candidate prior to the election.

 

I think that I would find the Parliamantary system limiting. I often find myself voting for federal/state representatives of one party and voting for president/governor of another party. This was particularily true in the past when I lived in regions were one party dominated local politics and presented the only realistically viable candidate(s) for a particular office.

[Ursus]

For the purposes of this discussion, I think it's important to stipulate the Consuls were technically elected by the Comitia Centuriata. If the theme of the thread is how best to model a modern national government on Republican Rome, it would have to take into account such things. The government of Rome would be rather meaningless without taking the social orders into account. Any modern society attempting to reflect Rome would have to be divied up into various social orders relating to economic power.