Talk:History of the Roman Constitution

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) 07:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

GA Nomination
Has anyone been able to review this page yet? RomanHistorian (talk) 10:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

History of the Constitution of the Roman Empire
Are these two articles related? They seem to be on the same subject. &mdash; Mattisse (Talk) 21:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * They are related. This article has one section that summarizes History of the Constitution of the Roman Empire. But it also summarizes History of the Constitution of the Roman Kingdom, History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic and History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire. RomanHistorian (talk) 05:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If this is the case, could you find the duplicated sections, summarise them at the top of the appropriate pages, and then transclude them as necessary onto other pages? Right now, if any change is made to a page, that text is basically duplicated in many other places, which then requires someone to track down all the duplicates and edit them again. Transclusion solves this issue and provides a centralised place from which edits can be easily effected. — Ifly6 (talk) 04:01, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

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Too many pages
I can't help but think that there are too many Roman constitution pages. I'm certainly happy that Wikipedia has so many pages, but there is a significant issue in that half of them constantly duplicate the same wording, content, and language. I've made a list of various pages which practically duplicate each other:


 * History of the Roman Constitution
 * History of the Constitution of the Roman Kingdom
 * Servian constitution
 * History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic
 * Constitutional reforms of Julius Caesar
 * Constitutional reforms of Lucius Cornelius Sulla
 * History of the Constitution of the Roman Empire
 * Principate
 * Constitutional reforms of Augustus
 * History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire
 * Dominate
 * Tetrarchy, though to a lesser extent, as the majority of the page is basically a king-list

I realise that many of these different articles could be intelligent and thoughtful explorations of those topics, but the issue is that there is an incredible amount of content, which cannot be maintained (much like aqueducts in the 7th century), along with significant variations in the quality of that content. It would be much simpler if the entire group of different articles were simply merged into the history sections of:


 * Constitution of the Roman Kingdom
 * Servian constitution


 * Constitution of the Roman Republic
 * Sullan constitution


 * Constitution of the Roman Empire
 * Principate


 * Constitution of the Late Roman Empire

With more detailed explorations of the constitutions at specific points in time, rather than trying to chart those changes over the period of centuries, as shown in the subpoints under each article. This would allow for a significantly smaller amount of maintenance and keeps open in-depth explorations as well. — Ifly6 (talk) 03:58, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Massive overreliance on Abbott
Also, there is a massive overreliance on a very few number of sources on the majority of the constitution pages, basically citing various sections of Abbott (1909) over and over and over and over again. Some effort probably ought be made to include sources published sometime within the last century. — Ifly6 (talk) 04:05, 19 April 2017 (UTC)