Who organized the roman republic?

Answer 1

The Roman Republic was basically organized by a committee. After the exit of the last king, the city was ruled by the senate, while waiting for the return of the group that was sent to Athens to study the Greek system of government. When the group returned to Rome, they not only brought back the method of the Greek form of democracy, but they had ideas of how those ideals could be adapted for use by the Romans.

The republic was not ruled by the senate. At the beginning (509 BC), it was quite like the monarchy it overthrew. The main change was rule by two consuls. They were originally called praetors and were said to have been like kings. Their power was undefined and therefore pretty much unlimited, like that of a king. The difference was that as there were two of them they could counterbalance each other and that their term of office was only one year. The senate continued to be an advisory body as it had been under the monarchy. The assembly of the soldiers and the assembly of the tribes, which had been created by king Servius Tullius, were retained as the voting bodies. Later, during its first rebellion (494 BC), the plebeian movement created its own assembly (the plebeian council) and its representatives, the plebeian tribunes.

There was never a committee that brought back the idea of democracy or an adaptation of it for Rome. Power by the people, which is what the Greeks meant by democracy, was alien for the Romans. What happened was different.

In 462 BC a plebeian tribune proposed a law (Lex Terentilia) which would define and limit the power of the consuls. The law was opposed by the patricians. The debate for the bill was stalled for 12 years. In 454 BC the tribunes dropped the bill, but argued for a new general legislation to be prepared. According to Livy, it was agreed to send a commission to Athens to copy the law of Solon.

Three things need to be noted. 1) This was 55 years after the beginning of the republic. Rome did not wait for 55 years to decide what institutions it should have. These were set up at the beginning and were already embedded by then. 2) Despite the fact that Athens established a democracy in 508 BC, the Romans were interested in an earlier law that was over 100 years old. They were not interested in democracy. The constitution that Solon created was a timocracy (power by the proprietied), not a democracy. 3) The committee of ten (decenviri) set up three years later (451 BC), which eventually created the code of law called the Twelve Tables, did not deal with constitutional matters. This law covered matters which would later come to be termed as civil law and matters of procedure for trials. There was nothing about the city's institutions.