That was a controversial question in Roman political culture for the next 800 years, through the Republic and into the one-man rule of the Roman Empire, when political debate often turned on how far libertas could ever be compatible with autocracy. Whose liberty was at stake? How was it most effectively defended? How could conflicting versions of the freedom of the Roman citizen be resolved? All, or most, Romans would have counted themselves as upholders of libertas, just as today most of us uphold ‘democracy’.
