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How did Romans vote?
How did elections work in the Roman Republic?
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How did the electorate change in Rome?
How did public voting work in Rome?
During the Roman Republic, the citizens would elect almost all officeholders annually. Popular elections for high office were largely undermined and then brought to an end by Augustus, the first Roman emperor (r. 27 BC – AD 14). However, Roman elections did not continue at the local level.
- Posting Issues
- Did Majority Rule?
- Polling Place
- Centuriate Voting Assembly
- Tribal Voting Assembly
- Voting in The Senate
- Roman Government in The Roman Republic
- References
Roman assemblies were called to vote after notice of issues had been publicized. A magistrate published an edict in front of a contio(a public gathering) and then the issue was posted on a tablet in white paint, according to the University of Georgia's Edward E. Best.
Romans voted in a couple of different groupings: by a tribe and by centuria (century). Each group, tribe or centuria had one vote. This vote was decided by majority vote of the constituents of said group (tribe or tribe or centuria), so within the group, each member's vote counted as much as anyone else's, but not all groups were equally important....
Saepta (or ovile) is the word for the voting space. In the late Republic, it was an open wooden pen with probably 35 roped-off sections. It had been on the Campus Martius. The number of divisions is thought to have corresponded with the number of tribes. It was in the general area that both tribal groups and comitia centuriata held elections. At th...
The centuriae may also have been started by the 6th king or he might have inherited and augmented them. The Servian centuriae included about 170 centuriae of foot soldiers (infantry or pedites), 12 or 18 of equestrians, and a couple of others. How much wealth a family had determined which census class and therefore centuriaits men fit in. The wealt...
In tribal elections, the voting order was decided by sortition, but there was an order of the tribes. We don't know exactly how it worked. Only one tribe might have been chosen by lot. There might have been a regular order for the tribes that the winner of the lottery was allowed to jump over. However it worked, the first tribe was known as princip...
In the Senate, voting was visible and peer-pressure-driven: people voted by clustering around the speaker they supported.
The assemblies provided the democratic component of the mixed form of Roman government. There were also monarchic and aristocratic/oligarchic components. During the period of kings and the Imperial period, the monarchic element was dominant and visible in the personage of the king or emperor, but during the Republic, the monarchic element was elect...
"The Centuriate Assembly before and after the Reform," by Lily Ross Taylor; The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 78, No. 4 (1957), pp. 337-354."Literacy and Roman Voting," by Edward E. Best; Historia1974, pp. 428-438."The Origin of Latin suffrāgium," by Jyri Vaahtera; Glotta71. Bd., 1./2. H. (1993), pp. 66-80."Voting Procedure in Roman Assemblies," by Ursula Hall; Historia(Jul. 1964), pp. 267-306Nov 4, 2022 · In Athens and Rome, voting could entail shouting contests, secret stone ballots and an election system with built-in bias for the wealthy.
- Dave Roos
- 2 min
Jul 1, 2024 · The voting process in ancient Rome was a complex system reflecting the socio-political structure of the Roman Republic. Elections were typically held in public assemblies, where citizens gathered to cast their votes on various matters, including the election of magistrates and legislative proposals.
Mar 30, 2023 · The right to vote was a privilege extended to full Roman citizens in the early Republic. This group excluded women, slaves, and those living outside of Rome. As Rome grew, the electorate expanded to include more citizens.
2 days ago · In all the assemblies, votes were counted by units (centuries or tribes) rather than by individuals; thus, insofar as a majority prevailed in voting, it would have been a majority of units, not of citizens. Although they collectively represented all Roman citizens, the assemblies were not sovereign.
At Rome adult male citizens had the right to vote to elect the annual magistrates, to make laws, to declare war and peace, and, until the development of the public courts in the late republic, to try citizens on serious charges.
