What have the Romans ever done for us?

GOVERNMENT

“The British system of government owes a debt to Rome – the idea that not everyone’s vote should count equally”
Shushma Malik

The system of government we call democracy today would have been unrecognisable as such in ancient Athens. Rather, the idea of electing a representative to carry out the will of the people shares more with the Roman ‘mixed constitution’. Athenians chose their representatives by lot. The Romans, like us, favoured elections that could showcase the wealth and talents of the individuals standing. The Romans also established the idea of an appointed upper house – their senate, similar to the British House of Lords.

In Rome, by the third century BC, citizens had established a system in which three modes of rule – monarchy, aristocracy, democracy – combined to govern the state. As described by the second-century BC historian Polybius, the monarchical element comprised two consuls: magistrates elected annually who led the Romans out to war and who occupied the leading position in the senate. The aristocracy was the senate itself, of which elected or former magistrates (c44 men) were just a small part of the unelected whole (c300–600 men). Senators proposed and debated laws, which could not be passed without the support of the people – the democratic element of the ‘mixed constitution’.

Perhaps the greatest debt the British system of government owes to Rome, however, is the idea that not everyone’s vote should count equally. Roman male citizens (women could not vote) were divided into groups called ‘centuries’ to vote, with the wealthiest minority in society