The Laws of the Roman People: Public Law in the Expansion and Decline of the Roman Republic

For hundreds of years, the Roman people produced laws in popular assemblies attended by tens of thousands of voters to publicly forge resolutions to issues that might otherwise have been unmanageable. Callie Williamson’s book, The Law of the Roman People, finds that the key to Rome’s survival and growth during the most formative period of empire, roughly 350 to 44 B.C.E., lies in its hitherto enigmatic public lawmaking assemblies which helped extend Roman influence and control. Williamson bases her rigorous and innovative work on the entire body of surviving laws preserved in ancient reports of proposed and enacted legislation from these public assemblies.