07e: Conclusions

1. Dad's The Boss
Roman society is the Roman family writ large. Paterfamilias, patria potestas, patricians, patres, Juppiter - the base patr (meaning "father") is present in the name or title of each of Rome's most important authority figures. Even though the Romans were proudly democratic after 509 BC (or whenever the last king really was kicked out), their society was based on a nuclear family in which the father exercised absolute power, including that of life or death. The Republic's annual elections and collegial magistracies were designed to make one-man rule impossible. The tensions here were too strong to go away.

2. One People, One Religion
For all of its silliness and lack of what we would call spiritial content, the Roman state religion still did a lot to bring the Roman people together. In the first place, worship of the old-timey agricultural and household gods such as Sterculinus or the Lares and Penates never ceased. Assimilation of Roman deities as Juppiter, Juno, and Mars with Greek deities such as Zeus, Hera, and Juppiter actually added to the "awe and respect" factor of the Roman state religion; the Romans could also believe that their religion gained vitality by absorbing the gods, goddesses, and religious cults of the cities it conquered over the years. Yet this Roman state religion was already lacking in spiritual content. National pride was all well and good, but it did not explain human existence, give hope of an afterlife, or compel good behavior.

3. Democracy or oligarchy?
The mechanics of Roman elections were complicated indeed, and favored the more affluent voters. For example, magistrates with imperium (consuls and praetors) were elected by the Centuriate Assembly which was openly stacked in favor of the wealthy. Consequently, in order to become politically prominent, a family either had to be very rich or it had to become very rich. Although it was not the most democratic way to proceed, at least the process of becoming wealthy became a test for Roman families trying to win political influence. New blood did enter the Roman ruling classes, but the interests of the new political elite - the "noble" class, as it would be called - were rather more business oriented than that of the old patricians.

4. The Civilized Wars and the Uncivilized Wars
The Romans' concept of ius fetialis remains hugely influential to this day. The Romans believed that their deities would not support Roman military efforts unless the Romans were demonstrably in the right; the record would indicate that their belief was accurate. More importantly, the process of determining whether an impending war was just or unjust meant that wars could not be undertaken rashly. However, the Romans eventually figured out workarounds for compelling their enemies to attack or otherwise convincing their deities that they really were in the right no matter what the facts might state.