Daily #27

There are many elements of the Roman Republic that appear present in our modern democracies. First of all, the Roman republic had a very strict constitution that they followed and any violation of it could result in a major punishment. Modern democracies, especially in the United States, have a very similar way of doing this. We have a constitution that we must follow and abide by and when people violate these laws or amendments, they could go to prison or even worse. The Senate in Rome is very similar to Congress in the United States because they enforced laws and managed them in the cities and towns. Checks and balances was also very important in Rome because each branch in the Roman Republic system could oversee each other branch and make sure that nothing bad was going to happen. They also had separation of powers where no branch in the republic could gain enough power over the others. This made the Roman Republic very organized and very efficient for many years. The United States and other countries have governments with the ideas of checks and balances and separation of powers and they probably adopted these ideas form the Roman Republic. Another major event that changed Roman politics forever was the Struggle of the Orders. This event finally gave power to the plebeians, or common people of Rome, and they elected one person to represent them, called the Tribune of the Plebs. This idea is similar in the United States because we the people have the power in society and everybody under law has rights. The Tribune of the Plebs is very similar to the President of the US because that person had the power to veto and could had the final say for the laws that passes through the Senate, just like our President. Rome had a system of capital punishment for people who violated the constitution wrongly and were condemned to die. Modern democracies have this system also and it is used in the United States, but not as much as it used to. In all of these ways, it is clear to see all of the similarities between the Roman Republic and modern democracies.