Why can the Roman Republic be considered a democracy?
The Roman Republic was not a democracy because democracies are different from Republics. According to the writer Polybius (a Greek living in the Roman Empire), the genius of Roman Republic was that it combined the three typical forms of government: democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy, into one government. The Consuls represented executive power like the monarch, the Senate (a body of distinguished men with political influence) was an element of oligarchy. And the right of all citizens to vote, and the power of the legislative assemblies, were elements of democracy. Polybius believed each form of government had its faults. For example, democracies gave the people a lot of power, but people are sometimes fickle or make decisions about things they don’t know enough about. So the Republic balanced the power of the people with the power of the Senate and Consuls, who were expected to be more knowledgeable about government issues (the people in turn, would balance these by keeping them from u
