How They DId It - Elections in Ancient Rome

Welcome to How They Did It, a show where we take a look at the daily lives of our ancestors. Today we'll be turning our attention to ancient elections and see what it was like for Romans heading to the polls. Elections are the formal and organized process of selecting candidates by vote. Our discussion will be broken down into sections on each of the following, the offices, the voters, and the process. Please note that the nature of each of these topics evolved over the course of Roman history. In this particular video, we'll be looking at the voting process of the mid-Roman Republic. Let's begin by quickly mapping out the main offices which were to be filled each year. As we do so, again, keep in mind that the number, requirements, and authority of each office did change over time. With that said, let's get started. The highest office was that of consul. These controlled the army and managed affairs of government, often at the direction of the senate. Though they had much power in the form of imperium, this was checked by their limited term and the fact that there were two consuls, each with the power to veto the other. Next came the praetor. Their role evolved over time but largely came to deal with law and justice. They were the supreme civil judges who issued edicts, dealt with important cases, and administered Roman law. As the Republic expanded, more offices were created to deal with Rome's growing authority. The second praetor had been added in 241 BC and by the end of the first century BC, their numbers had increased to 16. Aediles held administrative responsibilities in Rome. They supervised public works, archives, and markets. Additionally, they played an important role in organizing public games and festivals. There were two plebeian and two patrician aediles. Praetors were financial and administrative officials who maintained public records and administered the treasury. They might be posted at Rome, sent as second-in-command to a governor in the provinces, or even serve as a paymaster for a legion. As with many other positions, their numbers grew over time and eventually reached 30 by the first century BC. Plebeian tribunes are another important position to mention as they were established to provide protection against the patricians. These individuals had the power to convene the plebeian assembly and propose legislation before it. They also had the important power to veto any laws, decrees, and actions within Rome so long as they were physically present to object. The only one able to supersede their veto would be a dictator. By the first century BC, there were ten of these tribunes. We will skip over some of the other minor offices to touch on a particularly important one, that of censor. This office stands out because it was voted on once every five years rather than annually and was the only office which held power for 18 months. Censors were primarily tasked with controlling the social order of Roman citizens. They ran the census, placed citizens into tribes and voting classes, and regulated membership of the senate. As a result, it was an incredibly powerful and coveted position. Once again however, no one man could be trusted with such an office and there were always two censors. Now that we have detailed what sorts of offices were to be voted on, let's talk about the voters themselves. As we might expect, in the past, this group was a rather thin slice of the overall society. Only male Roman citizens could vote. Beyond that, things got even more restrictive as theirs was not a system based on the idea of one person, one vote. Rather, the Roman system was based on voting units. I'll explain. Basically what happened is that any particular election would have the Romans voting according to one of two organizations, the tribal assembly and the centurion assembly. Both assemblies were conceived of as representing the entire populus Romanus, but in different capacities. The tribal assembly was the Romans in their civil capacity, while the centurion assembly was Romans acting in their military capacity. The tribal assembly, and we'll include the plebeian assembly for now, elected aediles, quaestors, tribunes, and other lower officials, while the centurion assembly elected consuls, praetors, and censors. The tribal assembly was based on, as the name implies, one's tribal association. There had originally been just three tribes, but as Rome grew, more were added, and the total eventually reached 35. As we mentioned, it would be the censors who oversaw the process of associating individuals with each tribe. This was generally done on a geographical basis, with four urban tribes reserved for the inhabitants of Rome, and 31 rural tribes allocated to the surrounding regions. I'll note that things weren't always so clear cut as tribal association was inherited, and things could get muddled with internal migration. But anyways, each tribe, regardless of size, had one vote. This meant that voting power of individuals varied greatly. The densely populated urban areas had their votes diluted, while the rural areas had their votes amplified. This imbalance was made worse by the fact that voting took place in Rome itself. Of those in the rural tribes, it was typically only the rich landowners could afford to make the trip to Rome. Therefore, the tribal assembly had an inbuilt bias favoring the wealthy rural landowners over the urban poor. Cramming individuals into limited tribal groups was an effective means of voter suppression. The numerous freed slaves, for instance, were all crammed into the four large urban tribes, while the Latin allies had to fight against being restricted to just ten tribes during the social war. As we stated, the centurion assembly had a organization that was based on the Romans and their military capacity. As a result, rather than being organized geographically, citizens were now organized by property class. This reflected the fact that back in the day, Roman citizens were expected to bring their own gear to war, and were thus organized accordingly. The richer citizens who could afford a full panoply were placed in a higher class to serve as heavy infantry, while the poorer citizens were served as light infantry. The centurion assembly was meant to reflect the idea that since the rich contributed more to war, they should have the most say in military matters. This is why the centurion assembly was responsible for electing consuls and praetors, because these magistrates held imperium and could therefore command armies. To explain how the wealth classes worked, we will use a description recorded by Livy. He states that the Romans were separated into six classes plus additional special groups based on an individual's wealth assessment. Each of these groups was then further broken down into centuries, each which had one vote. There are a total of 193 centuries and therefore 193 votes in the centurion assembly. As you can see, many of the votes are stacked at the upper classes, while the lowest class shares a single vote. This system was reformed over time and there are many competing theories about how it may have evolved, but regardless of the exact form this system would take, it would always favor the fewer but richer voters. Now that we have discussed both the offices and the voting groups, we can now move on to describing how the elections took place. When voting occurred, Romans would gather on the campus Martius. The presiding magistrate, either a consul, praetor, or tribune, would then announce the candidates. There were typically multiple positions to be filled with several candidates running for each position. As an example, for the two consular positions, there might be seven candidates. Once the candidates were all announced, the voters would enter a temporary structure which had been erected to help organize the process. It basically just included voting platforms at one end and a means to divide the voters leading up to it. Julius Caesar had planned the construction of a permanent structure called the Septa Julia, which was eventually completed by Agrippa under the reign of Augustus. The structure is still around today and has served as the basis for modern reconstructions of the voting process. The tribal assembly would enter the voting structure and be divided into 35 files, one for each of the 35 tribes. All tribes would then begin voting at the same time. This would consist of individuals advancing to the front of their line and announcing their vote orally. This was then recorded by officers called rugatorias, with additional election officials called custodes, overseeing the process to prevent fraud. Later, in the 130s BC, the voice vote would be switched to a ballot for greater privacy. In the reform system, individuals would walk up to a platform and receive a blank slate. They would then mark their ballot with the initials of the preferred candidates and deposit it in a box. In either case, the tally of votes would be collected and counted. This might take a while, as some have estimated that up to 70,000 citizens might be voting in a tribal assembly. Once all the tribes had finished, their votes would be announced in an order chosen by lot. Just as it's bad news in a US presidential election if a candidate doesn't win their home state, it was bad news if a candidate in a Roman election didn't win their own tribe. Either way, as the votes added up, it only took 51% or 18 of the 35 tribal votes to elect a candidate. Once a candidate received 18 votes, they were elected, and the position was considered closed. However, this could lead to some funky situations where someone was declared the winner despite later tribal vote announcements showing someone else had actually gotten more votes overall. This is a little bit confusing to state out loud, so I'll explain with a scenario. Let's say that the 35 tribes have been called to elect 10 tribunes. Each tribe votes for their preferred 10 candidates. For our purposes, let's assume that the first 18 tribes follow a similar voting pattern. By the 18th tribal vote, candidate A has been declared a winner, while candidates B through J are shy of winning by a single vote due to candidate K getting votes here and there. Now, the next tribe finishes up voting. We count up their vote, and we announce that candidates B through J all have gotten the extra vote they need, and so now all the positions that we were looking to fill have gotten their 18 votes, and now voting is closed. The election is over. However, it might actually be the case that later voters preferred candidate K over A, such that K actually got 26 votes compared to A's 18, but due simply to the order of the announcement, the later voters were ignored. Rare as this might be, it apparently seems to have occurred at least in one instance we know of. That's pretty crazy. Now let's move on to the other voting group. The centuried assembly gathered and voted in a slightly different manner. As we mentioned, they were split into centuries, each located within wealth class tiers. Upon entering the voting structure, they would gather within fenced pens allocated for their centuries. Unlike the tribal assembly, the centuried assembly actually voted sequentially rather than all at once. According to Livy, the 18 centuries of the knights were summoned first, followed by the 80 centuries of the first class. Each century would have its constituent members voice their vote, or in later times cast a ballot. These would then be counted and the overall vote for that century announced. Due to the sequential nature of the process and the frequent break to make announcements, the voting of the centuried assembly actually took much much longer than the tribal assembly. It could often stretch for several days, and even provided time for further campaigning by candidates along the way. Another side effect of the sequential voting was that the upper classes always went first. Early on, the first two groups controlled 98 of the 193 possible votes. This meant that if they voted together in lockstep, they already had over 50% of the vote and candidates could be chosen without any of the other classes casting a vote. Later on, the voting structure would be reformed to shift some of the centuries to the lower classes and realign things based on tribal association. If you're interested in learning more about this model, check out this video by Historia Civilis which does a good job of fleshing this later system out. But either way, the process would largely remain dominated by the elites. If all the upper classes voted the same way, then they could automatically determine a winner. However, if things were more contested, as was typically the case, the outcome would require input from the other classes. Yet, only rarely did the vote trickle down to the very last of the lower classes. Though this system may seem archaic and convoluted, we should be careful in casting stones considering the glass houses some of us vote in. In any case, I hope you've enjoyed this introduction to ancient voting in Rome. Stay tuned for more episodes on topics such as Roman political parties and campaigning. Also, be sure to vote in your own elections coming up. I'd like to thank our supporters on Patreon who have made this video possible, James Conrad for his help with research, and our artist Anders Blidloff for his fantastic illustrations. Please consider contributing to fund future content. If you found this topic interesting, check out these related videos about our fascinating past. Be sure to like and subscribe for more history, and check out our description for ways to support the channel. Thanks for watching!