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Oct. 31 - Nov. 7, 2004 |
15 - Rome’s gift of laws and public works
Empire established judicial rights for conquered territories and lower classes
By Antonio Maglio
Originally Published: 2004-09-19
Globalization wasn’t born a decade ago, when the whole world opened itself to the free market following the collapse of market-denying Communism. Its birth goes back some 18 centuries, to 212 C.E., when Rome granted its citizenship to every free resident of the Empire.
That was no small event. Provincial boundaries were abolished (the Empire stretched from the tip of Spain to the Urals, from Britain to North Africa and the Middle East), and with them custom duties and excises. This created a great state where all free citizens (regardless of race, place of birth or mother tongue) had the same rights and obligations. Rome was not the ruthless capital ruling the Empire, but the patria communis, everybody’s homeland.
The idea of globalization, free market, cosmopolitan society, shared culture — even though often mistaken for recent discoveries — are part of the inheritance that Rome left to Europe, and therefore the world.
It has been written that Rome took that initiative in order to rein in the restlessness and independent temptations of the peoples it had submitted. That is true, but Rome did so with laws, as it was keenly aware of the fact that weapons could not achieve the same effects in the long run. In order to prevent the possibility of losing the conquered territories, Rome offered to share a common project with their inhabitants. In short, it established a policy. Here is another aspect of our Roman heritage: making policies, i.e. passing laws that establish reasonable juridical rules.
The Romans were pragmatists. Unlike the Greeks, who liked to theorize on everything, they never lost sight of the reality surrounding them. They improved that reality by modifying it according to their needs. From this standpoint, laws are nothing but tools that the Romans used to improve their quality of social life.
The need for such adjustments was felt right from the start: during the first three centuries of Rome, the laws under which an individual was to be judged were secret. They were jealously guarded by the priests (who were also the judges), by virtue of their self-proclaimed direct relationship with the gods. People believed that only the gods could administer justice, speaking through their priests.
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