Rural voters in Roman elections

Abstract

The consensus of modern scholarship is that few Romans voted in elections in the centuriate assembly. Yet this conclusion rests on little evidence. We can gain a clearer picture by looking at the incentives created by the electoral system and Roman social relationships. Focusing on rural citizens of property, this article presents a model of voter behavior and the electoral landscape which reconciles high turnout, the importance of social ties in determining voter choice, and an open, competitive electoral market. Roman elections in the late Republic were perhaps the most complex the world has known.