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Title: The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome by P.S. Falla, Claude Nicolet ISBN: 0-520-06342-2 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: January, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: We are all Roman citizens......
Comment: For the serious student of Rome, "The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome" belongs in a position of pride and prominence on the bookshelf. Eric Gruen has written of 'The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome: "it is far and away the best examination of the fabric of social and political life in the Roman Republic".

Need to know more? Maybe not, if you are like me, what Gruen thinks is close to gospel. But if you do? Okay. Here we go.

So much of what we read of Rome is a history of the rich, the famous, the powerful. Yet Nicolet notes that this "political class" never numbered above FIFTEEN HUNDRED individuals at any given time. It was Nicolet's objective, however, to "analyse Roman political life at the level of...civic grass-roots". And Nicolet's understanding of this sphere is encyclopaedic. The only time I have encountered erudition on this scale was in Gruen's "Last Generation of the Roman Republic" and in Ronald Syme's "The Roman Revolution". In fact, this book should be read alongside, but after I think, both of these books

The book is, however, long. And it is NOT exactly a stroll in the park. It can be difficult but highly rewarding reading. However, it is not only for the academic reader either. It is filled with fascinating and at times surprising revelations. For example, I never, EVER, thought I would willingly, and not under duress, read a chapter on anything to do with taxation. Here I learned that Roman citizens were, for long periods of their history, free from direct taxation. They considered it a badge of servitude. What taxes they paid were intermittent and for the most part both proportionate AND progressive. Roman taxation was "civic", to use Nicolet's term, and not permanent. It was not until the burdens of the civil wars and the apparatus of Augustus' military state created such extraordinary demands on the public purse that Roman finances evolved from a civic to a monarchic system. Until then, they were a painful, intermittent necessity, regarded as a counterpart to the citizen's privileges.

The Romans also developed a hitherto unheard of and entirely original conception of citizenship. It was not a dual citizenship per se, but rather a "citizenship on two levels...that bore within it the notion of cosmopolis'. It was a potent rival of Augustine's Civitas Dei, and the ecumenism at its core was co-opted by the catholic tradition". Nicolet explains how it gave to Rome the moral structure and the political robustness to survive for centuries in a roiling and troubled world. Conquered peoples prized Roman citizenship above almost anything else; and the Romans shared citizenship in their nation freely, often enfranchising entire races or nations in one feel swoop. This was a stunning feature of the culture and in this, they were unique in history.

Then there is the census. Again, who would have thought THIS could be interesting. But it is. I had literally no idea that the census was, with little exaggeration, the backbone of Roman society -- its ideological underpinnings skilfully balancing timocratic and aristocratic interests. It was called "proportional", meaning that "each individual's rights and duties conformed, so to speak to a constant ratio'.Rights and duties were relegated to the classification of citizens according to their wealth and acknowledged valour and practically nothing else."

In fact, however, there WAS something else -- morality. The censors operated on the principal that a bad man can not be a good citizen. Thus, "the census was also a moral and political operation, the fountain of honour". This proportional equality, created by the institution of the census, was regarded as a "factor of social cohesion", helping to bring about consensus within the polity.

As much as anything else, this book will teach you what we OWE to the Romans. In this regard, the conclusion is worth reading by itself.

It is important for us to recall that the Roman juridical regime guaranteed ALL citizens equality before the law. Nicolet writes, "the other great collective interest [of Roman society] was freedom'[and] equality before the law. Provided this was assured, social and political inequalities were held of no account. The status of a citizen continued to be the indispensable and sufficient guarantee of this form of freedom. This was symbolised and guaranteed by the appeal to Caesar, which descended directly from the appeal to the people, and above all by the codification of laws. Until the middle of the second century AD, Roman citizens, who were steadily increasing in numbers, felt equal before the law even if they shared a condition of political servitude, which on the whole they did not much mind. This essential acquisition was eclipsed during the long centuries of the Germanic Middle Ages; but it was never lost, and has re-emerged triumphantly in the modern world. We are all Roman citizens".

The one regret? That this appears to be the only one of Nciolet's many books to have been translated into English.