Cobblestones said:
Actually, the word 'republic' has a bit different meaning in the US than anywhere else. 'Republic' generally denotes a form of government without a hereditary ruler, i.e., the opposite of a monarchy, except in the US, where the meaning is much more specific.
The term was invented by the
senatus popolusque romanus (S.P.Q.R.) the "senate and people of Rome" in 509 BCE, who, after bringing down their last Etruscan overlord, King Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin "the Proud"), set up the new constitutional (and thus anti-monarchial) government the
res publica (Republic) of ancient Rome. This was long before there was a vast empire to govern, nor before the "collapse" of the system that led to one man rule in the emperor.
Initially the ancient Roman Republic was in reality no more than a patrician oligarchy, where power was exclusively the domain (and privilege) of the minority wealthy, aristocratic senators and the public officials they elected from among their ranks; however, the rest of the plebeian civilian population in the majority would very soon fight for and obtain access into the government and thus condition the outcome of public affairs in the political debates through their own representational body - whereas everyone was to be held accountable through a common, binding law the
lex romana.
In terms of modern standards of equality and civil rights, the Roman Republic was far from adequate, though in its day it was the most civil and
civilizing formation of the state that the world had ever known, and is indeed still ultimately the model (in terms of governmental institutions and common law) that the Western World, including the United States of America, is based upon.
The whole idea, however, of the Roman Republic, was to prevent the tyranny of any individual ruler (or social class) from dictating the political agenda and making sure that everyone was to abide by the same civil standards of conduct and rules as established by the law. Thus its enduring legacy.
As far as US party politics goes, the republicans act, have similar concerns and an ideological perspective, in ways that are more congenial with the ancient Roman
optimates party, which sided with the wealthy, land owning senators under Sulla during the Social War (over, not surprisingly, land reforms in Italy in the sense of its more equitable distribution among the classes, since land property had been overwhelmingly owned by the patricians they supported); whereas the democrats, in principle at least, act more along the ideological lines of the
populares, the party of the plebeians, which, in the years just prior to the Social War, had as its exponents Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. These brothers tried to push land reforms through the Senate to give the largely disenfranchised plebs some breathing space and thus their fates were sealed in a patrician conspiracy by being both murdered. During the Social War Marius was their man, though he was defeated by Sulla (the
optimates leader) and so the badly needed land reforms would have to wait, in order to be successfully obtained, by a certain Julius Caesar (ironically a
populares leader with a dictators power, obtained through the Senate - and we all know what happened to him: he was killed on the Ides of March in a patrician conspiracy led by the noble Senators Brutus and Crassus to save, they thought, what remained of a failing Republic). But then soon arrived the first emperor, Augustus, and the ideals of the Republic were irrevocably overturned, much to men like Cicero's chagrin. At this point, however, the distinctions between
optimates and
populares had become merely symbolic, as wealth and power had come to color and condition everything, just as it pretty much is the same between the republicans and democrats of today.
Sorry if I was being pedantic, but sometimes a little history is good to know because the more things change, the more they remain the same. And so here we still are 2000 years later. Only we don't have to fear a Caesar so much today, as we do a corporate and financial body of plutocrats.
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