What British voters could learn from the Romans

When the forthcoming election result is announced, the triumphant party will presumably proclaim: ‘The British people have spoken!’ That will come as quite a surprise to the British people, because all they will have done is crossed a box approving a farrago of implausible policies or reforms in matters over which they have had no say whatsoever. The Roman plebeians were more hands-on.

Early Roman history is a complete mish-mash, much clearly invented well after the event. But it might have gone something like this: kings ruled Rome from 753 bc to 509 bc; they were advised by a senate of select tribal members called ‘patricians’; an assembly was set up to vote on laws and going to war, organised in such a way that the wealthy few could always outvote the rest. When the kings were thrown out, a fully fledged republic (res publica, ‘the people’s property/business’) emerged, at the head of which were two annually appointed consuls and other magistrates (office-holders), all senators.

Nonetheless, their exercise of power turned out to be just as self-interested as that of the kings, and in 494 bc the plebs responded by abandoning the city and leaving Rome to the mercy of the local tribes with whom the Romans were already in conflict (power in those times lying in the possession of territory, its resources and people).

This forced the hand of the senators, who agreed to a settlement consisting of the establishment of a Plebeian Assembly, which legislated in the interest of the plebs. Moreover, its leaders, called tribuni, were judged inviolate and could sit in on, and veto, all senatorial business. Arbitrary elite control over the plebs was at an end.

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This push continued and, over time, the plebs won degrees of relief from poverty and famine, the right to hold magistracies, including the consulship, and finally in 287 bc an agreement that the decisions of the Plebeian Assembly would apply to all Romans: ‘the people’s business’ at last.