The monarchical element of the Roman constitution was the executive consuls. Thanks to the Roman aversion to kings, the Republic did not have a single executive and instead elected a pair of consuls who would share supreme military, political, and religious authority. To limit the risk of a tyrannical power grab, each executive partner had the ability to veto the decisions of his colleague. But even more importantly, the term of office was just a single year. At the end of their year in office, the consuls would return to the ranks of the citizen body and a new pair of leaders would replace them.24
The practical Romans, however, did create an emergency office called the Dictatorship. In times of crisis, the consuls could pass power to a single man who would hold absolute power in order to deliver Rome from danger. And this did not just mean foreign threats: the first dictator was appointed due to plebeian unrest in Rome rather than threat from a hostile neighbor. But, critically, the Dictatorship expired after six months. As the Romans held an implacable hatred of kings, the Senate authorized any citizen, at any time, to kill another citizen caught seeking regal power. For nearly five hundred years Roman dictators never failed to lay down their power.25
The aristocratic element was, of course, the Senate. Originally one hundred old men organized by Romulus to act as a council of state, the Senate numbered about three hundred old men in Polybius’s age. Drawing its members from the richest and most powerful families in Rome, the Senate had evolved into the central political institution of the Republic. With the Senate composed of former magistrates, it served as the principal adviser for the annually elected leaders. Rarely did consuls pursue a policy without the Senate’s deliberative input.26
Finally, the democratic element was found in the Assemblies, which were open to all Roman citizens. By the time of Polybius there were three principal Assemblies: the Centuriate Assembly, which elected senior magistrates; the Tribal Assembly, which elected junior magistrates, passed laws, and rendered legal judgment; and the Plebeian Assembly, which had many of the same powers as the Tribal Assembly but which elected the tribunes and were open only to men of plebeian birth. The democratic element of the Roman constitution is often underrated, but the Assemblies were incredibly powerful. Only an Assembly could enact a law or pass capital sentence on a citizen. And while a citizen could always appeal a verdict to the Assemblies, there was no appeal from the Assemblies. (Because the Greek and Roman literary sources are not always clear which of the three Assemblies they are talking about, hereafter they are referred to collectively as “the Assembly.”)27
In Polybius’s construction, the three elements of the Roman constitution existed in a balance that prevented any one element from dominating. But though Polybius was a gifted theorist, by the time he was writing his history in the mid-100s the balance he admired had already been disrupted. The Senate had emerged from the Punic Wars stronger than it had been since the First Secession of the Plebs in the 400s. During the Punic Wars the annual changeover of senior military commanders became a hindrance to war planning and the Senate collectively began to take the lead in developing and executing policy. The senators also became adept at ensuring subservient clients were elected tribunes. By the end of the Punic Wars the consuls, the tribunes, and Assemblies no longer acted as a check on the Senate, but as an extension of it. Even as Polybius wrote his paean to Roman constitutional balance, the senatorial aristocracy was sliding into repressive oligarchy.28
ONE OF THE ways the Senate wielded power was by keeping tight control on who would be elected to the highest magistracies. By the mid-200s the Conflict of the Orders had destroyed most distinctions between patrician and pleb. But as one elite aristocracy falls, another is always right there to take its place, and a new distinction emerged: any family—patrician or pleb—that could claim a consular ancestor was now referred to as nobile. Men born without consular ancestors were derisively called novus homo, or New Man. This new patrician/pleb nobility worked hard to ensure that their families continued to monopolize the consulship, and New Men were almost never allowed to attain a consulship. Lucius Mummius was among those who felt the effects of this slide toward oligarchy. He was an ambitious young man. He was also novus homo.29
Almost nothing is known about Mummius’s early life—even his year of birth is a mystery and can only be calculated to have been somewhere between 200 and 190. Assuming he followed a standard trajectory, Mummius would have joined the legions after finishing his education sometime between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. Ten years’ service in the legions was a prerequisite for public office, and Mummius would have served as a cavalry officer at various provincial garrisons. After his ten years’ service, Mummius qualified to begin his ascent up the cursus honorum, the “path of honors” that comprised the hierarchy of elected magistracies.
The first step in the cursus honorum was quaestor. Each year the Assembly elected ten quaestors who were tasked with the Republic’s finances, accounting, and record keeping. Usually acting as an assistant to a senior magistrate, the quaestors spent their year in office learning the ropes of Roman administration. Election to quaestorship also qualified a man to be enrolled in the Senate—though as junior officers in their early thirties they were typically seen and not heard during great senatorial debates. Mummius might have spent his year as quaestor assigned to the state treasury in Rome or placed on a provincial assignment to Sicily, Sardinia, or Spain.30
Above the quaestors were aediles. Each year the Assembly elected four aediles who were tasked with overseeing public works and games. A year as aedile was a great way for a rising politician to cultivate name recognition and popularity by throwing lavish games or overseeing a high-profile project like a new road or aqueduct. Ambitious young men often took on enormous debt to fund these projects—on the understanding that their future political success would afford them opportunities to pay back their creditors.31
When former quaestors and aediles approached their fortieth birthdays they were allowed to run for praetor and cross the threshold from junior to senior magistracies. Since the two annual consuls could not be everywhere, each year the Assembly elected four praetors who held sovereign power when the consuls were not present. Praetors helped shoulder the responsibilities of provincial administration, military operations, and judicial proceedings. Undoubtedly with the help of noble patrons who saw promise in the young officer, Mummius was able to secure election as praetor for 153 BC. Given his novus homo status, however, this was as far as Mummius could reasonably expect to rise. The consulship, after all, was not a place for a New Man.32
But a crisis in Spain helped Mummius break the streak that had seen no novus homo elected consul for a generation. The Senate assigned Mummius the task of restoring order in Further Spain, which was reeling from a revolt by the native Lusitanians. Marching into the interior, Mummius located the main body of Lusitanians and drove them back, but his army lost cohesion while chasing the rebels, allowing the Lusitanians to turn the tables. Mummius was forced to retreat all the way back to the coast. Undaunted, Mummius regrouped and then proceeded to best the Lusitanians repeatedly. By the end of the year, he was sitting on top of a pile of slaves and plunder. For his victories, the Senate and the People of Rome awarded Mummius a triumph—a rare enough honor to begin with, almost never granted to a novus homo.33