Varro, the Name-Givers, and the Lawgivers: The Case of the Consuls

Valentina Arena

doi:10.1163/20512996-12340352

Abstract

Abstract This essay aims at identifying a tradition of lawgivers in the political culture of the late Republic. It focuses on the antiquarian tradition of the second half of the first century BC, which, it argues, should be considered part of the wider quest for legal normativism that takes place towards the end of the Republic. By reconstructing the intellectual debates on the nature of the consulship, which at the time was carried out through the means of etymological research, this essay shows that, when set within its proper philosophical framework, ancient etymological studies acted as a search for philosophical truth and, in the case of Varro, identify the early kings as the first Roman lawgivers. In turn, the language of political institutions and its etymologies, conceived along philosophical lines, could become a weapon in the constitutional battles of the late Republic.

Highlights

As is well known, contrary to the Greek tradition, the Roman Republican system did not recognise a single Lawgiver
By reconstructing the intellectual debates on the nature of the consulship, which at the time was carried out through the means of etymological research, this essay shows that, when set within its proper philosophical framework, ancient etymological studies acted as a search for philosophical truth and, in the case of Varro, identify the early kings as the first Roman lawgivers
The absence in Roman tradition of a unifying single moment in which one individual acted as lawgiver yielded as a result the lack of a written law-code, and the clear perception that the working of the commonwealth was based on rules and regulations, which were subject to constant modification, re-interpretation, and contestation

Summary

Introduction

Contrary to the Greek tradition, the Roman Republican system did not recognise a single Lawgiver. The absence in Roman tradition of a unifying single moment in which one individual acted as lawgiver yielded as a result the lack of a written law-code, and the clear perception that the working of the commonwealth was based on rules and regulations, which were subject to constant modification, re-interpretation, and contestation Within this framework, which was part of Roman political consciousness, in the late Republic it is possible to observe, as Emilio Gabba pointed out some time ago, a tendency towards a unification process of public laws, something akin to a quest for normativism.[3] This process had at least three distinctive and salient moments: first, from the second half of the second century BC, Rome’s writing down the constitutions of its own colonial foundations and modifying the constitutional structures of the communities under its control; second, the constitutional reforms of the dictators Sulla and Caesar. Arena was not uncontested, and by asserting one version of the past over another as the most authoritative, each author established and re-defined possible courses of action in the present

The Consul and His Name

Conclusion