Template talk:Politics of ancient Rome

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Brad stop talking: One may say that the various assemblies of the Roman people (contio, comitia centuriata etc.) and the senate fit under the heading poltical bodies. But Romnan law certainly cannot be called a political body in the same sense? Any proposals for an amendment of a more logic organization? --Thomas Ruefner 18:37, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How about just politics, not political bodies? Kuralyov 21:40, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I dont see any history on this page in WH1 at saint andrew's school on the page could some one try and fix it!! In answer to Roman Law: Never certainly in the republic was Roman law a political body. Roman Law was all based on precidents dating back to the very foundation. No law book was written unless it was an open disscussion much simular to ciceros "The Laws". not even a constitutional law existed thus the reason the marius could strech such boundaries whith his reforms. No! certainly not Law was not a political body.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.30.24.36 (talk • contribs) July 14, 2005.

{{editsemiprotected}} This box does not work properly when embedded into a pdf: the pdf ends up containing the source code. Suggest using "exclude in print" over the whole template unless a solution is found to make the template actually work in the book tool.

Epistatic (talk) 07:40, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. Robert Skyhawk ^{(T C B)} 23:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Despite valiant efforts of the template's creators, the bottom section ("Precedent and law") is still swampy. I mean it exhibits unsatisfactory alignment. Inept with formatting as I am, all my experiments have failed; it seems to me that both senatus consultum and senatus consultum ultimatum ought to get its own line, with "Roman Law" remaining at the top as it is, and the other elements paired, but damned if I can figure out how to make it work. The verticality of senatus consultum ultimatum is out of keeping with the horizontal arrangement of all other phrases in the table. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:55, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Please add in, somewhere:

| heading7 = Assemblies | content7 = {{colbegin|2}} *[[Century Assembly|Century]] *[[Curiate Assembly|Curiate]] *[[Plebian Council|Plebian]] *[[Tribal Assembly|Tribal]] {{colend}}

"7" may of course be changed to whatever the appropriate number will be for the most context-sane position.

Frederik Sunesen (talk) 22:41, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done Stickee (talk) 23:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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395 AD , NOT BC 151.237.22.7 (talk) 15:46, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 19:02, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to make this template collapsible? It takes a lot of space on a page. T8612 (talk) 14:26, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking of splitting this template into two templates:

• Template:Politics of the Roman Republic
• Template:Politics of the Roman Empire

The names in the latter might be the same in a lot of cases but the political culture of the republic is very different from that of the empire. You have things like the quaestiones perpetuae which are irrelevant in the latter period, consuls who are just honorary titles, etc. After the split, what would be left here would probably be the timeline with the names of the things that survived it all (senate, consul) and the biggest hits (senate, king, consul, dictator, emperor). Also pinging T8612. Ifly6 (talk) 20:17, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why is Consular tribune even put under Extraordinary magistrates? Ifly6 (talk) 02:53, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly why is Rex (Ancient Rome) under Extraordinary magistrates? Ifly6 (talk) 14:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Glad this has been raised already. I support this. How much more consensus is needed to move ahead @Ifly6? Biz (talk) 17:29, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure. What we should really do is just write up two new navigation templates, do something to mark this one as deprecated, and start implementing the split. Not many people seem to care about this template at this stage; the defensibility of this template, even if that changes, is minimal. Ifly6 (talk) 20:51, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. I'll follow your lead on this. Biz (talk) 06:58, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've created this template: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Politics_of_the_Roman_Republic. I think you know much more about the imperial period than I do, so I'd feel more comfortable if you made a stab at that template; I'll happily review your version if you review mine. Ifly6 (talk) 00:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok! I'll start with initial feedback. I appreciate the thought you put into this.

• I like you put a different shade to master categorise
• I like how you created a concept category
• Should there be a section on law that includes the Twelve Tables, the foundation of Roman Law, and the Praetor's Edict, which evolved it each year with what we now call precedent law? With the empire, this will probably list all the condexes. I spent time researching this last year, you can see the fruit of that work here Byzantine_Empire#Law to give you an idea of what the empire template will fill up with
• Is the Senate really in a different category to the assemblies? I mean, in the public imagination yes, but functionally?
• I see you moved constitution, but can we make that a category? This is because the empire template has multiple articles for now (not sure if it's justified)

Biz (talk) 07:27, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think there's a separation between public law and private law that is not only didactic here but also present in the period itself: the praetorian edict and Twelve Tables appear to me more about settling disputes between people than the political aspect of law itself. A similar division appears in CAH² 9 with Cloud's chapter "The constitution and public criminal law" and Crook's "The development of Roman private law".

The senate in the republic is not the assembly. The division is also one accepted by most sources on the topic such as Lintott Constitution (1999). Millar Crowd in Rome (1998) is especially clear with his Roman democracy thesis, which would put the assembly as a completely separate political focus point. Morstein-Marx in Mass oratory (2004), for examples, identifies a huge difference in contional and senatorial speaking. Even the more oligarchic interpretations such as Mouritsen (Plebs 2001; Politics 2017) still emphasise the assemblies' role in legitimising aristocratic and senatorial domination.

What do you suggest with Constitution? If we make it a category, what would we put under it? Ifly6 (talk) 14:18, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Created a new heading Constitution and development. Ifly6 (talk) 14:49, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is all reasonable. What about the concept of Roman citizenship?

I see you made a change on constitution, that works well. I also like that you added provincial administration. Looking at it as someone wanting to learn, I can say the template looks very approachable. But I can't speak to what's missing as this is not an area I know well (other than general reading of the Republic). Biz (talk) 20:14, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think provocatio is a better summary of the legal rights that citizens had during the republic; other than that right (and the theoretical one of voting which few Romans would have simply due to the logistics of it), citizenship is mostly duties. That said, it's currently just a redirect to Valerian and Porcian laws; some work there would be necessary to spin off an article on the concept. Ifly6 (talk) 00:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting perspective. What about a section on individuals rights? That’s politics, and if you excuse my western bias, important.

The reason I’m thinking about this is classicist Mary Beard in her history makes the thesis that citizenship underlies Ancient Rome and Caracella’s 212 edict ended Ancient Rome for this reason. Or as the post-classical historian Anthony Kaldellis says, Rome went from an empire to a world. It’s what underlies the Roman identity. Biz (talk) 01:35, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The main rights are suffragium and provocatio (and the related auxilium and intercessio); these are themselves the main components of libertas. There are also other rights like marriage, commercial, etc but they're not really public in so much as private rights. There's no republican-era rights of assembly, speech, press (not invented yet), religion, etc. Such rights are essentially all early modern era inventions. Ifly6 (talk) 03:50, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those concepts of public individual rights are interesting, and I notice the Wikipedia pages are lacking. Whether we add a public rights section, I'll defer to your judgement. I see value in seeing if they continued through the empire era and/or when they discontinued.

This might be a big ask but I wonder if putting dates makes sense to understand the time-span of an item listed (ie, the Consulship would later get abolished during the empire, the Quaestio perpetua was introduced 149 BC and the assemblies had different time spans, etc) Biz (talk) 18:20, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The template I'm making is about the republic. None of the elements in the list were abolished (the archaic ones aside) during the republican era. Year ranges would be unnecessary. The consuls continue through the western empire; the quaestiones survive at least through Augustus; the assemblies still met into the third century. Ifly6 (talk) 19:06, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But I've just added, using |above=, a time range 509 – 27 BC, which might be clarifying. Ifly6 (talk) 19:08, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok thanks. I'm out of ideas to stress test this, I good to go on this. We can work on Roman Empire once this is final from your end. Biz (talk) 22:09, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• If possible, I would prefer to place the templates at the bottom of articles, as it is very long and messes with the layout of pictures (and looks horrible on mobile). You can also fit more things in a horizontal template. T8612 (talk) 13:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think the sidebars appear at all on mobile, so that's not really a consideration. Separately, I think we should probably have both: the one on the bottom would have a ton of links while the one at the side would be simplified. If we do that, we can also omit things like the consular tribunes and XXVIviri on the sidebar version and focus just on the biggest hits. Ifly6 (talk) 14:49, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a list of usages.

We will need to classify each one as republican, imperial, or irrelevant. I intend to mark republican ones with *. Perhaps mark imperial ones with †? I'm going to mark ones I think that are irrelevant with a question mark. Ifly6 (talk) 03:03, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A material number of the ones marked with ? are Roman private law concepts. That needs its own sidebar or bottom-bar. Feel free to edit my classifications. I intend to move forward with the ones marked with * imminently, however. Ifly6 (talk) 03:08, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Change Tribal to Tribal 2600:4040:45AC:9300:B8D4:768:1757:1F96 (talk) 17:39, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Done PianoDan (talk) 22:21, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]