Talk:Constitution of the Roman Republic/Archive 1

''Archive of discussions for September 2007 through August 2008. Note: discusssions may be refactored.''

Unwritten constitution
The article says the Roman Republic's constitution was among the first constitutions, but it also says it was (largely) unwritten. In what sense, then, can it be said to be among the first? Surely, in this British-style sense of 'constitution', any state at all with a body of constitutional conventions can be said to have a constitution, so the Roman Republic's couldn't be one of the first constitutions... Except perhaps in the virtually trivial sense that the republic was itself one of the first states. Perhaps someone could clarify this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.146.42 (talk) 00:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * It depends on your definition of "constitution." But even if "constitution" just means a set of laws, Rome would still have had one of the first. Rome had one of the first (relatively) centralized governments to rule a large territory. It had an unprecedented amount of control over its territories, which other empires (such as the Persian) did not have. As such, it had to develop a set of laws to rule such a large empire that other ancient civilizations did not. "Law" as we know it did not exist before the Roman Republic. Even after the Roman Republic fell, "law" as we know it did not exist in the western world again for another 1600 years or so.


 * But a constitution isn't just a set of laws. A constitution is a set of restrictions on the power of the government. For example, the body of the American constitution specifies what powers the different branches have, but more importantly, shows what powers they do not have. For example, it makes it so that congress cannot sign its own bills into law. And look at some of the terms in some of the amendments. The 1st amendment begins with "congress shall make no law." Or look at the most important section of the 14th amendment:


 * "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."


 * Democracy isn't liberal on its face. If a democracy doesn't have a constitution placing restrictions on the power of the majority, the majority can do anything. You can literally have a tyranny of the majority. If the majority is unrestrained, then it can violate its own laws or its own constitution. Likewise, a government ruled by a single strongman doesn't have to be illiberal on its face. If that strongman is obeying a set of restrictions placed in the constitution (such as freedom of religion or of the press), then you can have a "liberal" autocracy. The point about the constitution of the Roman Republic was that it was one of the first to actually place substantive limits on the power of the government and governmental officials. This is what was so rare throughout the history of human civilization before the last couple of centuries. And yet constitutions throughout the world today function in a manner similar to the constitution of the Roman Republic.RomanHistorian 04:02, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid above is a misconception. The "constitution" of a country is simply the law which "constitutes" the way a body politic is run. It is all law. It is, I am afraid, a narrow American view that a constitution is a set of restrictions on government. First of all, even the US Constitution isn't just like that, because you're talking about the Amendments under the bill of rights. The constitution itself is a document dealing with the relations between organs of government and the people. Second, though the Bill of Rights is framed negatively (No state shall... etc) most others are not: they talk about the duty of the state to do x,y,z to protect rights etc (the German one is a good example, see Grundgesetz). Third, I think you'd find that the Roman Republic wasn't the first time that government power had been limited. The American conception of rights traces into Enlightenment thinkers, particularly in Britain, which saw natural rights as vested in people, and the main threat to those rights as the power of the state. This view, is of course, about 300 years old now, and out of date. That is why modern constitutions see the rights as something that need to be realised, actively protected. In the US Bill of Rights itself, for instance the 6th amendment (the right to trial) is framed positively.


 * So, to the point of the original suggestion, it is wrong to say that this was the first "unwritten" constitution, precisely for the reason that the person gave. Another thing to keep in mind, is that an "unwritten constitution" is a complete misnomer. What people should really be saying is that a constitution is uncodified. The British constitution is the only important example - our constitution is written down at great length all over the place. The point of distinction to France, Germany, Canada and the rest, is that it isn't consolidated into a single summarised document. Keep these in mind, but you're doing a great job. Just show us more references, as the comment below suggests.  Wik idea  11:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

There are absolutely no citations in this article. The description of the Republic's structure is very in depth, but how can this article be considered valid or accurate if the author did not refer to any sources? I suggest that the author find sources to verify his information; if this does not happen a site administrator should take action. --KadCan 14:55, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I have corrected this issue.RomanHistorian 06:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Editing
Jason, do you think we should get rid of most of the website links under the referrence section? Also, I have tried to integrate history sections into each of the major parts (legislative, executive, senate, dictator). Do you think we should continue to expand these sections, rather than focus the history towards the beginning of the entry? In addition, do you think the section on the decline of the constitution is too long? RomanHistorian (talk) 00:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * hi, yes, I think we should get rid of the links in the reference section and update them with books and journal references. On the history vs. substance, I like both sections. I like having a section that covers the story of the constitution in a broad outline, and then lower focusing on the structure and functionality of the constitution in more detail. No, I don't think the decline is too long, but I'll have another look. JPotter (talk) 16:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Online references
The version of this article with online references was very helpful.

Deleting those references that has resulted in the current version has deducted from the usefulness of this article.--71.107.202.52 (talk) 23:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, we're in the process of updating the article with more appropriate references. please be patient. thanks JPotter (talk) 11:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

too many links
One thing the authors should be aware of is that linking words, which have already been linked before, puts people off when the read the article. It interrupts the flow. For instance, the word senate in the paragraph onSenate procedure is linked way too much. Every superfluous link should be deleted - ie all of these:  should go.  Wik idea  18:10, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I will add this to my list of corrections. In other words, it may be a while before I can finally get to this correction. I think you are right, by the way. RomanHistorian (talk) 07:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Edits
I've just made some cursory and stylistic changes, and commented in the history what it is each time. It's just by way of example.

More generally, I think those writing should think about transferring some material to the subarticles. When there's a section like "the roman legislature" then the main page should be more detailed, and this page's functions is to concisely summarise. Furthermore there are far too many sub-sub sections. Really I wouldn't go beyond, say 4.1.2. Certainly 4.1.2.3.1 is too much. The contents are a real eyeful. You can have headings within a section in bold:


 * Like this...

by using the semi colon - ;and then the text after goes bold. But I would think about whether a section is necessary at all, if there's no main page for it. Hope this helps. Wik idea  17:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I am going to compile all of the information, from all of the sources, onto this page first. Then I will break it into other pages, and condense what is here down. If I do this on the already established subpages, I will risk people messing with what I enter.RomanHistorian (talk) 04:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Ancient Kings of Rome Surely a superior image depicting an ancient king of Rome can be found then the comic presently used in the article. An image from ancient times depicting one of the legendary kings or perhaps an image of Romulus and Remus, which are numerous, would be appropriate. Also, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, traditionally the seventh and last king of Rome, who is talked about at length in the beginning of this article, is accepted by SOME scholars as a historical figure. It should atleast be mentioned that we cannot be sure his kingship is agreed upon by scholars. Odin1 (talk) 15:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Reorganization and Creation of a Series
I am reorganizing this entire page. I am moving the bulk of this out into other pages in order to create a series (see History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic, Senate of the Roman Republic, Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic and Executive Magistrates of the Roman Republic). Once I get all of these pages finalized, I am going to condense the material on this page, to make it shorter and easier for others to follow.RomanHistorian (talk) 08:24, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that's a wise move. Again, you've got to be careful with all these subtitles and subsubtitles. You should get rid of them and simplify the article. What I think you're doing is basically summarising Prof. Lintott's book. So perhaps you may see it as already quite simple (?) but it isn't. Also, that graph you've done is pretty interesting, but you shouldn't put it at the top of the page (or the others where I see you're replicating it). Nobody's going to sit there and look at it, because it's about the relationships between different govt. organs. You want to put it after the descriptions of the organs - or anywhere, but not at the top of the page. Also, the rest of the pictures (excluding the introductory picture) are best kept at their natural size (i.e. you shouldn't be specifying the 300px or whatever). This is because people can set their preferences on Wikipedia to whatever sizes they want.  Wik idea  09:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This is very much important. The issue has been discussed in User_talk:Otolemur_crassicaudatus., , , .  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 15:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Classification Upgrade
Length issues notwithstanding, I believe this article meets the WP:Law guidelines for an a-class article. The length issues could be fixed by redirection to articles with greater specificty about the coordinate branches of the Roman Republic's central government and removal of redundant information. Nevertheless, I love the wealth of information here. Non Curat Lex (talk) 06:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, quite right. As I said before, it's really a good effort by the author(s). It's almost all style stuff that'll make it a GA (or FA?) soon.  Wik idea  08:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Problems
I moved Roman Senate to Senate of the Roman Republic and Roman assemblies to Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic. I am attempting to create a series of entries on the Constitution of the Roman Republic. This way, I can go into more detail on these subjects than what is on Wikipedia already, and can illustrate the inter-connectiveness of the Roman constitution. InvictusCaesar100 keeps undoing the changes that I made when I redirected the old pages to the new pages. The only substantive differences between the old entries and the new entries is that the new entries have more detail and more citations. The result is that there is now a duplication of entries on the same subject.

While my entry on the Roman Senate does not include much on the Senate of the Roman Empire, the old entry on the Roman Senate also contained almost nothing on the Senate of the Roman Empire. The old entry went into detail on the powers and structure of the Senate of the Roman Republic, and then included some history of the senate after the fall of the republic. I moved all of these post-republic sections to my entry on the History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic. I moved the specific paragraph on the senate of the Roman Empire to another entry in my Roman constitution series here. I would like a moderator to help me resolve this issue so that I don't have to keep playing these games with InvictusCaesar100.RomanHistorian (talk) 04:15, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

best way to shorten
The best way to shorten the article would be to remove the 19th century fanciful illustrations. The actual ancient objects illustrated would still be sufficient. DGG (talk) 15:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think pictures are fine. What needs shortening is the text. Now that you're in the process of creating properly detailed sub pages, this main page need not duplicate everything in full. It needs to summarise; as I've said above. I wish I had time to help. After June 23rd I will! But hopefully it'll be done by then.  Wik idea  17:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed, the 19th century pictures illustrate the article nicely. I'll try and help out a bit with the article. Thomaschina03 (talk) 12:16, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Update on the Roman constitution series
I just wanted to mention my plans for my series on the Roman constitution. There was simply too much information to put on my original page, Constitution of the Roman Republic. There is also a significant amount of information available on the constitutions of the Roman kingdom and empire. Therefore, I am going to give this series somewhat of a matrix structure. Roman Constitution will be the main page of the series. Underneath this page will be Constitution of the Roman Kingdom, Constitution of the Roman Republic and Constitution of the Roman Empire. It surprised me, but apparently there actually was a constitution during the time of the kingdom and then again during the time of the empire.

Underneath the constitution pages, I will have pages on the Senate of the Roman Kingdom, Senate of the Roman Republic, Senate of the Roman Empire, Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Kingdom, Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic, Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Empire, Executive Magistrates of the Roman Kingdom, Executive Magistrates of the Roman Republic, and Executive Magistrates of the Roman Empire.

When this is done, I will create a new page called Roman Executive Magistrates, and then populate this page, along with Roman senate and Roman assemblies. All three pages will be condensed versions of their respective sub-pages. Right now, Roman senate and Roman assemblies consist almost exclusively of facts about the republic. Neither page has many citations. They also use a discussion format, and my revisions to these pages will use more of a discussion and analysis format. I am going to be more cautious with my revisions of these pages, because I assume that people will want to restore the original versions for whatever reason.

My hope is to use a discussion and analysis format for the entire series. My overall goal will be to produce a series that doesn't just discuss the facts associated with these offices and institutions. I want the series to tie everything together, and illustrate how everything operated under the overall constitutional system. Right now, the entries on these individual topics (such as roman consul and praetor) simply list facts without providing any deeper analysis or context. It is difficult to truly understand these topics unless you know how they all worked together under the constitutional system.

Also, I am not surprised that there hasn't been more work done on Wikipedia on this topic. It seems as though there are very few books on this subject, and many of those books are quite old. This is unfortunate because this subject is actually quite relevant to modern politics. Many modern governments are designed around a similar constitutional superstructure as was the Roman government. RomanHistorian (talk) 07:22, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Review
Per RomanHistorian's kind request in my talk page, I provide the following suggestion about the article's improvement:
 * The lead per WP:LEAD has a certain structure and purpose: it works as a summary of the whole article. So, I have some doubts about this lead; this repeated "According to Polybius", most of what know comes from Polybius etc. look to me about a structure/analysis more appropriate for the main analysis and not for the lead. Read carefully WP:LEAD and try to make the lead a nice summary of the whole article. Read also here, and try not to overcite the lead for things you have already cited in the main article.
 * "However, since the senate controlled money[2], administration,[2] and the details of foreign policy,[2]" Three times the same citation in the same sentence! Exageration! And try not to split the sentences with many citations; prefer to place them at the end of the sentence, unless you have to cite something special within the sentence; this over-splitting with citations works bad for the reader.
 * Citations are placed after the punctuation mark. You are not consistent.
 * You don't introduce nicely the reader to the main article. You start with "The Senate", without offering any background: the history of the text (if there was any? Or was it just an oral tradition? Or a combination of both?)? How did this consitutional order took the final form you then analyse? And other issues concerning the history, the persons, and the factors that influenced the shaping of the constitution you analyze.
 * "The senator and one-time consul Cicero also believed the senate to be superior.." "Also" is connected with what? If you contuinue the analysis of the lead it is wrong; the lead is autonomous as you will found in WP:LEAD, and the article starts its main analysis from the fisrt section after the lead. So what about this "also"?
 * Before you start analyzing one by one the bodies (e.g. Senate), don't you have to give us an overview?
 * "The senate's auctoritas ("authority") derived from this self-sustaining trait. All of the senate's powers derived from its auctoritas.[10] The senate's auctoritas derived from the esteem and prestige of the senate." Clumsy prose; repetitive, with no variety.
 * Why is the picture so big in the "Senatorial powers"?!
 * Since per WP:SS your senate section is a summary of the main article, I am not usre if you have to go into so many details concerning procedures.
 * How were the senators chosen or elected?
 * Try to avoid the stubby, one-sentence paragraphs.
 * "Legislative Assemblies" is as long as its main article. Per WP:SS I suggest you summarize your section a bit.
 * I get the impression (maybe because of my legal backgground) that the prose gets sometimes simplistic and choppy. For instance here: "The baskets (cistae) that held the votes were watched by officers known as custodes. The custodes would count (diribitio) the ballots, and report the results to the presiding magistrate. The majority of votes in any century, tribe or curiae would decide how that century, tribe, or curiae voted. Each century, tribe and curiae received exactly one vote" or here "Under the old system, there were a total of 193 centuries. Under the new system, there were a total of 373 centuries" or "Only the Comitia Centuriata could declare offensive war. Technically, no other assembly, and not even the senate, could declare offensive war.[39] The Comitia Centuriata could also pass a law" or "After the dictator was the censor, and then the consul, and then the praetor, and then the curule aedile, and then the quaestor". I would suggest a copy-editing by an experienced English-speaking user. The League of Copyeditors is a forum that could maybe offer some assistance.
 * "The Comitia Centuriata had originally been designed by the legendary king Servius Tullius." Is he legendary or a historical figure? Because, if he is legendary, it had not been actually designed by him. This is the "mythological approach".
 * "In 241 BC, the assembly was reorganized", vote by order of seniority etc. You don't have to link to the section with the same title of the article you have already linked at the top of the article! I think this is redundant, and a bit tiring.
 * "During the years of the Roman Republic, citizens were organized on the basis of centuries (for military purposes) and tribes (for civil purposes)." I think I read the exact phrasing once more before.
 * With all these "conciliums" once after the other I got a bit confused. Maybe this is inevitable, but maybe you could organize better and further clarify your analysis. For instance, I see a "Comitia Tributa (Patricio-Plebeian Tribal Assembly)"; but about its organization I already had an analysis in "Assembly of the Tribes". For instanve, that "a curule magistrate, usually a consul[1] or praetor, would preside over this assembly" is already told above; why the tiny "Comitia Tributa (Patricio-Plebeian Tribal Assembly)" section is then necessary and why the reader should be confused.
 * Since the curiae where before the centuries as you say, why do you analyze with the reverse order: first organs of the centuries and thenof the curiae?
 * Continuing my previous comment: it is you who say that "As such, the Plebeian Curiate Assembly became the Plebeian Tribal Assembly (what we more commonly know as the Concilium Plebis)". Then wy do you start with "Concilium Plebis" and not the opposite way? And is such a long section necessary for the "Plebeian Curiate Assembly"? Couldn't it just be incorporated in "Concilium Plebis"? And again it may confusing for the reader having twice a heading "Concilium Plebis", although you clarify in the parenthesis.
 * A similar problematic here: "Shortly after the founding of the republic, the powers of the Patricio-Plebeian Curiate Assembly were transferred to the Comitia Centuriata and the Comitia Tributa (specifically, the Century Assembly and the Patricio-Plebeian Tribal Assembly)."
 * "The curiae were organized on the basis of clan" Hmmm ... I also read that again?! Many repetitions of the same phrases! Why?
 * The proper application of WP:SS is also related with the section "Executive Magistrates".
 * You don't have no closing, and you leave many questions to the reader: How long did this constitutional order last? How did it evolve and end? How did we pass from Rebublic to Empire? Any assessments concerning the effectiveness and durability of this constitutional order? See your topic from a broader prespecive.
 * Your see also list is huge. Trim it! I don't see the reason to link there articles already linked within the main text.
 * I think that in "References" and "Further Reading" you should make use of the following templates where appropriate: Template:cite book, Template:cite journal, Template:cite encyclopedia, Template:cite web or Template:cite news.
 * What are these primary and secondary sources doing in "further reading"? Are they actually external links?

A well-cited and well-researched article, but IMO it needs work in terms of prose and structure.--Yannismarou (talk) 10:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Polybius? His account is rather short, and open to question on the grounds that he was translating into Greek, and may have misunderstood things; our principal sources of information are the primary Latin sources from a century or so later.
 * I presume "clans" means gentes. An interesting idea, but original, and likely to be misleading; say gentes and link.
 * There are several clumsy passages: An additional check over a magistrate's power was that of provincia is clumsy; put provincia, which is the subject, first. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)