InstitutionClaim Cited
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic distributed authority among magistrates, senate, assemblies, tribunes, law, religion, and custom; the same order that coordinated a citizen-and-allied war state left remote command, conquest, slavery, status inequality, and exceptional power only partly answerable, until civil wars converted rival claims to public legitimacy into armed rule.
How did an unwritten, status-ordered republic coordinate public action across rival offices and an expanding empire, and why could its checks not contain recurring civil war and exceptional command?