Seeds of Discord: Extraordinary Commands and Constitutional Thought in the Roman Republic

Abstract

Extraordinary commands remain a controversial subject in the history of the Roman Republic, especially regarding whether (or how) such commands contributed to the ultimate collapse of Rome’s republican government. Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the definition of extraordinary commands or the criteria for identifying them in modern scholarship, without which historians are unable to discern the true significance of these commands in Roman history. This dissertation argues that extraordinary commands are best understood as deviations from the Roman constitution, wherein the socio-political norms and laws intended to regulate Rome’s magistracies were subordinated, through either senatorial decree or popular vote, in order to accommodate the creation of an otherwise illegal military command. Starting with a historiographical survey of the modern discussion surrounding extraordinary commands, the early chapters of the dissertation also focus on analyzing the socio-political norms and rules that formed the basis of Rome’s republican constitution, as well as a detailed examination of Rome’s political institutions, especially the development of its executive magistracies. Next, a philological analysis of the terms extra ordinem, extraordinarium, and their Greek equivalents examines how Romans and Greeks themselves perceived extraordinary commands. The final chapters of this dissertation argue that the identification of extraordinary commands ultimately comes down to three analytical perspectives: the potential legal criteria of irregular magistracies, the magnitude of their occurrence, and whether they represented a deviation from Roman constitutional law. Finally, the dissertation concludes with an overview of all exceptional and extraordinary commands occurring over the course of the Roman Republic (509-31 BCE), along with a statistical analysis of the changing trends and evolution of extraordinary commands over time. In the end, a proper method of defining and identifying extraordinary commands helps modern historians truly understand the significance of such commands in Roman history. A well-known facet of Rome’s constitution was its flexibility, which allowed the Romans to find innovative solutions to crises facing the state over time, but extraordinary commands represented the breaking point of this flexibility.