Greek polis cohesion

1
Greek polis cohesion

• Aristotelian categories
• (1) National family (biological unity)
• (2) Single area, compact and self-contained
• (3) Unified culture, religion
• (4) Citizen body based on leisure to serve the
  common good. Wealthier class. Soldier
  citizen.

2
The Roman Contrast

• Rome has no national family
• Citizenship began with undesirables from other
  areas.
• Citizens added according to need and desirable
  qualities
• -Sabine women
• -Men willing to serve as soldiers or auxiliaries
• -Service industries to army (food suppliers,
  leather workers, slavers, merchants, etc.)
• -Liberated slaves

3
Roman Contrast

• Rome has no recognized borders.
• Constant war means constant expansion.
• All borders are temporary.
• Essential quality of an ambitious politician is
  to be successful in a war (prestige and money).
• Success translates into votes at future
  elections.
• Built-in imperialistic and acquisitive tendency.

4
Roman Contrast

• Roman citizenship is a series of privileges, not
  a single entity. Roman citizenship is not based
  on class, occupation, religion, or ethnic
  similarity.
• Right to hold office (ius honorum)
• Right to vote (ius suffragii)
• Right to marry and make a Roman will (ius
  matrimonii)
• Right to use Roman court system
• Right to do business in Roman markets (ius
  commercii)

5
What holds Rome together?

• (1) Nuclear family, in place of national family.
  The head of a family (pater familias) is supreme.
  He holds virtually dictatorial powers inside the
  family, and technically 'owns' all of the family
  property. Family includes wife, children,
  slaves and ex-slaves (manumitted freedmen).

6
What holds Rome together?

• (2) Military discipline. Each citizen is
  theoretically liable to ten years of military
  service (stipendia). In the Regal Period and the
  Republic, armies were assembled for a campaign,
  usually an annual affair (from March to October).
  One's service did not need to be continuous.
• The number of citizens meant that service was
  almost always voluntary. Rome's liberal policy
  of granting citizenship gave it a very large base
  from which to draw soldiers. From 494 B.C.
  Soldiers were paid, in addition to bonuses from
  booty.

7
What holds Rome together?

• (3) FIDES ('loyalty). Roman society consists
  of a series of mutual relationships between
  individuals and groups. The relationships carry
  with them privileges and obligations. A father
  and son, for example, have fides between them.
  One is the 'patron', the other is the 'client'.
  The father has many privileges, a son few but
  both have obligations. The relationships may be
  hereditary. When a slave is freed, (s)he remains
  a member of the familia, and is expected to
  appear for family events (funerals, weddings) and
  to vote as the head of the family dictates.
  Political associates may become allies (and they
  call themselves amici, 'friends'). Fides extends
  to interstate relationships between the Roman
  People and a foreign state. Once entered into,
  the relationship is difficult to get out of,
  except by formal declaration (which may lead to
  becoming enemies inimicitia)

8
What holds Rome together?

• (4) Roman Law. Rome's earliest 'literature' is
  legal in nature. The fragments of the Twelve
  Tables of the Roman Law show a basically
  agricultural society, which relies on personal
  ties to make the legal system work. One needs
  amici ('friends') to help get an opponent to
  court, to get witnesses to come, and to execute
  judgment. Even getting a court date may require
  a friend (an influential senator) to arrange it
  one thus may become a 'client' to a senatorial
  'patron', with long-lasting consequences. Roman
  law, however, did not permit lawyers to take fees
  for their services, and fraud is severely
  punished.
• As Rome expands, Roman law is extended to all the
  provinces by 'martial law'. This gives locals a
  second court system (often a more objective one)
  in which they can pursue the vindication of their
  rights. The provincial governor oversees this
  local system.