Political Obligation During the Roman Period

Greek political theory celebrated the polis but did not differentiate society from the State. Polis was all-encompassing and lack of distinction between the State and society meant lack of any distinction between the rights of individuals and authority of the polis. The two were merged and political obligation was as much a matter of civic life as could be for political life. There was no right to resist or deny political obligation to the polis, though form of constitutions and rule of social classes kept changing.

It was the evolution of the Roman legal system that helped differentiate and ‘establish the distinction between “state” and “society”, or between public … and private ….’¹¹ The idea of the state as a distinct legal entity emerged during the Roman period. Polybius and Cicero, the two great political thinkers of Roman period, argued for and favoured the system of checks and balances within the state. Both of them favoured balancing monarchical elements (represented in the Consuls), aristocratic elements (represented in the Senate) and the popular democratic elements (represented in the Tribunes). A harmonious balance between the three elements was considered as the basis of balance not of social classes as Plato and Aristotle thought, but more of political power.¹² Stuart Hall maintains that the concept of Roman citizenship was defined by law rather than by strict territoriality. This enabled inclusion of ruling classes of other cities after conquest as Roman citizens.

Two other important concepts that the Roman political theory and legal system added were lex regia and Imperium. Lex regia was a Roman law doctrine ‘which argued that power was conferred by the people or populus’.¹³ The idea of Imperium implied ‘discretionary power to perform acts in the interest of the whole political organization.’¹⁴ According to Andrew Vincent, Imperium was obtained by consuls (monarchical elements) and later by the emperor from the senate (the aristocratic element), army or people via the doctrine of lex regia. In fact, doctrine of lex regia and Imperium gives a distinct meaning to the theory of sovereignty in the Roman period.

The distinction between the State and society, concept of citizenship based on law, doctrines of balance between political power, lex regia and Imperium point towards two things. One, that power of the ruler was derived and limited and second, that the state and sovereignty were subject to law and lex regia. Roman political theory contributed the idea of law as the basis of state power. As such, political obligation was justified on the basis of legality and popular basis of power. Cicero eloquently declared that ‘We obey laws in order to be free.’¹⁵

Subsequently, however, as Andrew Vincent explain, the doctrine of Imperium was conceived as related to political power independent of its popular source and the doctrine of lex regia was shadowed by the doctrine of legibus solutus (what pleases the prince has the force of law).¹⁶ This doctrine of legibus solutus might have led to the formulation of the doctrine that the emperor possessed fullness of legal power and, in turn, that the centre of both legal and political power was the emperor. This reflects a shift of ground of political obligation from impersonal law to the emperor as repository of political and legal power.