Roman Democracy DBQ Essay

Democracy is what we call a formation of government where citizens and group of people can vote on laws. The Roman Republic did not have a well developed formation of their government but it did have the qualifications of democracy. There were pros and cons of voting in the Roman times such as anybody can vote. According to Professor Millar, he says, “Every adult male citizen, unless specifically disqualified, had a vote, and there was no formal exclusion of the poor. Free slaves could also vote.” (Document B) It is good that anybody can vote including the poor but they were limited with rights such as they counted people's votes in two different votings Century assembly and a Tribal assembly. The Century assembly was defined, “by wealth and the equipment they could provide for military duty. Voting started with the wealthier centuries, whose votes outweighed those of the poorer.” (Encyclopedia Britannica). The Century assembly worked with having the wealthier people’s vote coming first and the poorer or lower class voters count as the remaining. The Tribal assembly is “and the Comitia Tributa, like the Athenian Assembly, was open to all citizens” (Encyclopedia Britannica). The cons of this is that Tribal group allows everyone to even

“Every adult male citizens….free slaves could also vote” (Document B). Woman were not allowed to vote which does not define it as a well-developed democracy because the meaning of democracy is where “A GROUP OF PEOPLE can vote on laws.” The point where women cannot vote lacks the meaning of democracy. In today's world we have come to a point where all genders, male and female can vote. Equality is the main difference between what democracy looked like in the Roman Republic times. The idea of everyone voting, allows everyone to submit their opinions. The Roman Republic may have been democratic into some extend but we could say that it was not well