Die Neue Zeit
6th November 2011, 03:23
Continuing from the discussion Managed democracy in ancient Rome? (Gramsci and more on the Tribal Assembly) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/managed-democracy-ancient-t158688/index.html):
http://books.google.ca/books?id=T9s6uhwprcgC&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=%22equal+suffrage%22+%22tribal+assembly%22&source=bl&ots=8woS6GSYqb&sig=o9FvvKM6a3758xZ8sJwAkFxP3Bs&hl=en&ei=EPi1TpLoIMqSiQKJnaVu&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22equal%20suffrage%22%20%22tribal%20assembly%22&f=false
In De republica, Cicero uses the concept of the mixed constitution, which he deems the ideal, to limit the power of the populus vis-a-vis the "better" sort. The mixed constitution is an evenly balanced mix between the three good constitutional forms: kingship, aristocracy, and democracy. This even balance, which Cicero identified with the Roman Republic, manifests itself in the greater weight the state accords the "good" or "respectable" people (boni), who are few in number, over the "many" (multi). With the common people excluded from public speech, Cicero presumably believes that the orator will come from among the boni. At times, Cicero even exhibits an attitude toward the "mob" that resembles Callicles'. Contemptuous of the masses, yet aware of needing their good will, Cicero writes in a latter that he has kept the favor of "the filth and dregs of the city." A selective reading of Cicero that focuses solely on his conservative ideology would confirm the critique of rhetoric's elitism advanced in the Gorgias and expanded by some modern democrats.
But the orator's domination over a passive populus is only part of the truth. The orator (and the "better" people from which he most likely emerged) did not monopolize political power in the Roman Republic. Instead, power was shared in complex ways. Although average citizens could not speak in contiones, they had the right to vote in the popular assemblies. (The common people were excluded from the Senate, but formally this body was consultative, not legislative.) And in the comitia tributa (tribal assembly), which was the most important of the Roman political assemblies in the later Republic, each citizen had an individual, direct, and equal suffrage, without the vote being weighted in favor of wealth - as it was in the comitia centuriata (centuriate assembly).
That is, until certain citizenship-granting sprees, Sulla's senatorial coup, and the subsequent interruption of Julius Caesar's implementation of what Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci called "the passage from one type of State to another type – a passage in which the innovations were so numerous, and of such a nature, that they represented a complete revolution." Nonetheless, equal suffrage had ancient beginnings.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=T9s6uhwprcgC&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=%22equal+suffrage%22+%22tribal+assembly%22&source=bl&ots=8woS6GSYqb&sig=o9FvvKM6a3758xZ8sJwAkFxP3Bs&hl=en&ei=EPi1TpLoIMqSiQKJnaVu&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22equal%20suffrage%22%20%22tribal%20assembly%22&f=false
In De republica, Cicero uses the concept of the mixed constitution, which he deems the ideal, to limit the power of the populus vis-a-vis the "better" sort. The mixed constitution is an evenly balanced mix between the three good constitutional forms: kingship, aristocracy, and democracy. This even balance, which Cicero identified with the Roman Republic, manifests itself in the greater weight the state accords the "good" or "respectable" people (boni), who are few in number, over the "many" (multi). With the common people excluded from public speech, Cicero presumably believes that the orator will come from among the boni. At times, Cicero even exhibits an attitude toward the "mob" that resembles Callicles'. Contemptuous of the masses, yet aware of needing their good will, Cicero writes in a latter that he has kept the favor of "the filth and dregs of the city." A selective reading of Cicero that focuses solely on his conservative ideology would confirm the critique of rhetoric's elitism advanced in the Gorgias and expanded by some modern democrats.
But the orator's domination over a passive populus is only part of the truth. The orator (and the "better" people from which he most likely emerged) did not monopolize political power in the Roman Republic. Instead, power was shared in complex ways. Although average citizens could not speak in contiones, they had the right to vote in the popular assemblies. (The common people were excluded from the Senate, but formally this body was consultative, not legislative.) And in the comitia tributa (tribal assembly), which was the most important of the Roman political assemblies in the later Republic, each citizen had an individual, direct, and equal suffrage, without the vote being weighted in favor of wealth - as it was in the comitia centuriata (centuriate assembly).
That is, until certain citizenship-granting sprees, Sulla's senatorial coup, and the subsequent interruption of Julius Caesar's implementation of what Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci called "the passage from one type of State to another type – a passage in which the innovations were so numerous, and of such a nature, that they represented a complete revolution." Nonetheless, equal suffrage had ancient beginnings.