From monarchy to republic: Kingʼs power and public affair in ancient Rome

Abstract

The exile of King Tarquinius Superbus was surprisingly quick and painless. Although the King was the high priest, the other priests did not seek to challenge his exile, only insisting on the need to save his life. Army commanders did not consider it a treason to move to the side of the rebellious City. The senators, whose mission as elders was to uphold the traditions and way of life of the community, not only did not hinder the revolution, but actually led it. All this indicates that although the exile of the king was an unprecedented event in the history of early Rome, it did not destroy the very model of the universe. The Republic in Rome was established relatively easy precisely because the idea of a common cause, which meant a collective interest in the prosperity of this new world, was laid down here from the very beginning. The chosen (of the most worthy) kings were to effectively manage the «Roman business», and as long as they coped with it, as long as they ensured the parity of interests of different groups of society, its stable territorial growth and had the support of the gods, no problems arose. Tarquinius Superbus violated an unspoken «social contract» for which he was removed. But this removal did not lead to the cancellation of the contract itself (concluded between humans and gods), and only to its modification. Getting rid of royal power, which marked a break with the last elements of the traditional world, put on the agenda the question of the need to develop a model that could legitimize the ideal of a common cause. This model is known as «Roman Republic». In its political form, it is opposed to the royal model, but in a worldview, it is a logical development of a Roman idea that has never been associated with either the conception of the divine origin of power or the concept of absolute (and hereditary) monarchy. The continuity between the royal and republican periods of Roman history was expressed in the unity of the original patterns that determine the nature of the Roman idea. Roman society was not formed «for the king» or even «for the gods». The kings and gods served as a means of cementing the community, giving it a sacred nature; the latter, which expressed the concept of the «universal priesthood» as a collective sacred principle, was also the basis of political doctrine. The question of specific forms of government (whether the community will be headed by a lifetime elected king, or magistrates who are elected for a limited time) is secondary. The idea of a collective interest in the success of the common cause was inherent in the Roman project from the very beginning, just a new model allowed it (the project) to be implemented more effectively, facilitating both the coming to power of the most capable members of the community and ensuring the control of the people over the activities of the government.