Pompeii - Politics

Revision as of 14:23, 16 February 2013

In 80BC Pompeii was given a charter from Rome which established many of its political institutions. There were three political institutions at Pompeii

• The Comitium - or peoples assembly. It was made up of adult men and freedmen. Its job was to elect magistrates and vote honours

• The ordo decurionum. The legislative body. They made decisions made up decurions concerned the colony itself. These decisions were implemented by the magistrates. New members were admitted every five years and remained there until death. There were about 100 members although could vary by town

• The magistracy. Two were simultaneously elected by the comitium and were known as Duumvirs. Two juniour magistrates called aediles supervised the building and upkeep of public buildings, cults and games giving. Occasionally a Roman Emperor would be nominated as Duumvir.

What do we know about how politics worked in Pompeii

Unsurprisingly, politics worked in much the same way as it does in the 21st C. Donations of public buildings or rooms, statues within public buildings was a passport to political influence. The six year old child of a wealthy patron who rebuilt the Temple of Isis was rewarded with election to the town council.

However, there were no political parties as such only influential people and families. We can see this through inscriptions on walls or monuments, called Programmata and Momental inscriptions

The programmata seems to be unique to Pompeii insofar as these were red painted entreaties to vole for this person or that. At each elections, old slogans would be over written with new ones. We can learn for the process the following insights

• The advertisements were often requests for people to vote for a particular candidate because their good character from anonymous or known people or families

I beg you to elect Cn Helvius Sabinus aedile and Ceius Secundus duumvir, Recepta and also Thalmus

• Many of the endorsements came from women although they could not vote
• There were no political parties.
• Endorsements could also come from guilds and other trades such as bee-keeping, millers, etc
• Black propaganda - There was no dirty tricks as such comparing one candidates virtues with another's supposed lack of them but you may see that a candidate is endorsed by prostitutes or gamblers
• There is no indication of a manesfesto as part of the endorsement unless obliquely implied in the endorsement itself.

Almost three thousand inscriptions survive - most from the election preceding the eruption and can be seen on the main thoroughfares such as Via dell' Abbondanza.

Monumental inscriptions were made in bronze, stone and marble. Bronze ones tend not to survive because it was reused. They were meant to be more permanent and some Oscan inscriptions can be seen. Where they do survive the inscriptions commend the work of some building work such as

Maras Atinius, son of Maras, quaestor, with the money raised from fines, by degree of the assembly, saw to this being set up'