SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

by Mary Beard

Yet by pushing all this back into the formative period of their city, Roman writers were underlining the importance of some key institutions and key connections in Roman political culture, as they saw it. In the census, they were highlighting the power of the state over the individual citizen, as well as that characteristic commitment of Roman officialdom to documenting, counting and classifying. They were also pointing to a traditional connection between the political and military roles of the citizen, to the fact that for many centuries Roman citizens were also, by definition, Roman soldiers, and to one of the treasured assumptions of many of the Roman elite: namely, that wealth brought both political responsibility and political privilege.