Abstract
The ancient Roman Republic knew few written laws and its structure was predominantly formed from the Romans’ understanding of ancestral traditions. The Republic had no police force and, because of the sacred boundary around Rome, the pomerium, no army in the city. As such, implicit in the traditions of the Romans was a system of maintaining social order without the need for the use or threat of physical force. This thesis examines what structures comprised the Republic and maintained social order within Rome. Chapter one addresses the importance of the mos maiorum, the adhesive which bound the Romans together, and its contradictory aspects. Chapters two and three discuss the Romans’ understanding of proper and improper action in this system. Chapter four explores how envy potentially served to undermine the Republican society and how the Romans protected themselves from such adverse interactions. Chapter five, the conclusion, depicts the end of the Republic as a matter of a lack of systemic restraint and inversion of the Republican system, which meant the Romans needed a new system to maintain civil order.