Rousseau’s Rome: Book IV of the Social Contract and the Specter of Montesquieu
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract is famous for its unprecedented argument that
popular sovereignty is the only legitimate form of the political association. Indeed, Rousseau’s
own attention to political right leads scholars often to interpret him as the kind of philosopher
who is merely concerned with abstract theory instead of practice. Understandably, an emphasis
on the more theoretical concepts within Rousseau lends itself to the dichotomous secondary
literature that we see, where Rousseau is either portrayed as a proto-Kantian idealist (Cassirer
1954) or as a critic, someone who “was the last great political theorist to be utterly uninterested
in history, past or future, the last also to judge and condemn without giving any thought to
programs of action” (Shklar 1969, 1; see also Bloom 1997; Strauss 1950). Overall, this focus on
the principles of political right has come at the cost of serious consideration of the more practical
aspects of Rousseau’s thought, such as his views on bringing the political association into being
and what Rousseau calls maxims of politics.
One of the most extended discussions about political practice in Rousseau occurs in Book
IV of the Social Contract. Book IV constitutes a critical point of the text where Rousseau
explicitly switches his discussion in the Social Contract from abstract principles to a “historical
sketch of Roman administration” that “will explain more concretely all the maxims which I
might establish” (Rousseau Social Contract IV.3, 127, my emphasis)i. Further, this change in
focus from theory to practice occurs in a chapter critiquing Montesquieu’s conception of the
principles of democracy. Rousseau’s argument about the possibilities of politics comes to
fruition in Book IV in the way he sees the germ of political legitimacy in the Roman Republic
despite its imperfect founding and corrupt citizenry. This insight into both understanding and
locating legitimacy allows Rousseau to use political right as a normative standard against which
to measure existing laws and enables him to make constructive proposals for institutional
change.
My central claim is that Book IV merits significant attention since it changes Rousseau’s
project in the Social Contract from one that uses political right merely to condemn or critically
measure institutions to a theory that uses right as a way of identifying latent possibilities for
changing institutions. Further, this practical theory in Rousseau comes to light most clearly
when one understands that he is in conversation with Montesquieu in Book IV on the topic of the
Roman Republicii. While I am not the first to acknowledge that the discussion of the Roman
Republic proves that Rousseau “was no idle dreamer when it came to a consideration of those
particular circumstances which would permit the realization of his principles of political right”
(McKenzie 1982, 213-14), I do present a new account of the Social Contract by both showing
the work’s dependence upon Montesquieu and reconstructing and elaborating on the progressive
political theory that can be gleaned from Book IV.
Despite the fact that Rousseau studies constitute a vast body of academic research across
many disciplines, there is an unfortunate paucity of attention to the Social Contract’s fourth and
final book, especially chapters four through seven about the Roman Republic. Thus, the final
book of the work remains largely untapped and unconnected to the work as a whole. There is a
widespread tendency simply to ignore most of Book IV, as “Chapters 3 to 7… seem of little
enduring interest even to the most committed Rousseau anorak” (Bertram 2004, 2), or even to
dismiss it as “barely relevant to the subject and quite unworthy” (Vaughan 1962, 109, n.1).
Since Rousseau explicitly notes the importance of these chapters as “not unworthy of a judicious
reader” (SC IV.3, 127), it hardly seems sufficient to pronounce them, for which Masters chastises
Derathé, merely a “digression [which has only a distant relationship with the ‘principles of
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political right’] so that he could insert the chapter on Civil Religion” (Masters 1968). When
scholars do turn their critical eye to this final book of the text, their attention is focused on
Rousseau’s conception of citizenship (Shklar 1969; Shklar 1990; Strauss 1950; Engel 2005;
Melzer 1990; Melzer 1983), which understandably leads to analysis of chapter eight’s discussion
of civil religion (Gildin 1983; Masters 1968). While this approach has its merits, as citizenship
is undoubtedly an important part of Rousseau’s political theory, it ignores Rousseau’s discussion
of institutions, which constitutes the bulk of Book IV. The location of scholarly attention is not
surprising if one views Rousseau as primarily a critic of modern societies, yet those who view
Rousseau as simply romanticizing ancient citizenship and the homogeneous state (McKenzie
1982) are missing the work that Rome is doing in the Social Contract. The type of political
association that merely makes good citizens is of a different nature than the one that Rousseau
presents, which, as others have noted, is concerned with right, autonomy, and personal dignity
(Marks 1998). If Rousseau wished merely to replicate or laud the solidly patriotic societies of
the Romans or Spartans, good citizens par excellence, then he would not need the type of
democratic theory that he espouses. Neither is Rousseau’s democratic theory merely a cover for
institutional preferences that “allow, nay encourage, wealthier citizens and magistrates to
dominate the politics of popular governments in semi-surreptitious and unassailable ways”
(McCormick 2007, 4). As I show, viewing Rousseau’s Book IV discussion of Rome in light of
his critique of Montesquieu allows Rousseau’s practical theory to take shape more clearly and
shows us that political right is more than an abstract ideal or a stalking horse for elitist
preferences.
I hope to shed some light on this enigmatic portion of the text by showing that these
chapters deserve careful attention as they constitute the completion of Rousseau’s attempt to
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unite correct notions of political right with maxims of politics directed toward ensuring
legitimacy. I start by showing how Rousseau considers his own relevance as best understood in
light of Montesquieu and by placing Rousseau in a conversation with Montesquieu on the
general principles of the political association. Next, I briefly speak about Rousseau’s method for
combining theory and practice. I then show the manner in which Book IV of the Social Contract
constitutes an application of his method on Roman historical examples in order to illuminate
Rousseau’s problems with political theory that is conducted without a theory of right as a
standard. I do this by a sustained analysis of Book IV, chapter four on the Roman Comitiaiii.
Last, I conclude by speaking briefly about implications for our understanding of Rousseau.
The Specter of Montesquieu
Rousseau sees his own theory as presenting a unique vantage point that opens up spaces
for human action that have been foreclosed by thinkers he sees as lacking an adequate view of
political right. He attempts to correct the faults that he sees in previous political theories by
showing how a successful political philosopher should combine both an adequate formulation of
political right and a systematic approach to understanding empirical information obtained from
history and current societies. On Rousseau’s view, political theory needs to contain more than
an abstract statement of right; it needs maxims of politics, as one must “try always to combine
what right permits with what interest prescribes, so that justice and utility may not be disjoined”
(SC I, 41). Rousseau underscores the novelty of his Social Contract by outlining problems with
previous political theories and indicates that a correct theory must be based in the basic logic of
the political association, that is, finding “’a form of association that will defend and protect the
person and goods of each associate with the full common force, and by means of which each,
uniting with all, nevertheless obey only himself and remain as free as before’” (SC I.6, 49-50).
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According to Rousseau, this logical basis of political right informs and constrains the nature of
the social contract itself. If this logic is altered in any way, then the consequent theory will be
faulty and deficient. He explicitly states how he thinks preceding thinkers had in fact altered this
logic and thus their theories were confused: Hobbes and Grotius had both established a theory of
right based upon force (SC I.2), although using different methods, whereas Montesquieu had not
even seen the importance of explicitly establishing a theory of right (SC III.4).
Given that Rousseau has mentioned several political theorists who miss the mark in his
eyes, why is it that viewing the Social Contract in light of Montesquieu specifically is a fruitful
endeavor? There are several reasons to believe that Montesquieu was central to Rousseau’s
political thought in general, despite the fact that there is little research on the two authors in
relation to one another (notable exceptions include Williams 2010; Althusser 1972; Durkheim
1953). Rousseau was well acquainted with the work of Montesquieu and spent much time
reading this author’s work during the time in which he was beginning to form his own views on
political theory. This early engagement with Montesquieu developed into Rousseau’s “life-long
struggle with the modern author whom he respected the most and quoted most often” (Shklar
1990, 249). As several biographers of Rousseau have recounted, Rousseau served as a secretary
and research assistant to Claude and Louis-Marie-Madeleine Dupin in the construction of two
different responses to Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws (Cranston 1983; Crocker 1968;
Damrosch 2005) iv. His work on these projects began soon after the release of the Spirit of the
Laws and continued until 1751, the year after the work that propelled him to fame, the Discourse
on the Arts and Sciences, was published. As Crocker notes, “it may well be, then, that in the
Dupin circle Rousseau discovered his basic principles and that he was in particular attracted by
Montesquieu’s chapters on democracy” (Crocker 1968, 196). It is this subject, Montesquieu’s
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conception of democracy, at which Rousseau explicitly takes aim in Book IV (SC IV.3). There
is general agreement that Rousseau’s work on the Dupin project was largely in the capacity of a
research assistant rather than that of a collaborator, so we cannot rely on either of these critiques
of the Spirit of the Laws to portray Rousseau’s own view on Montesquieu. However, since
Montesquieu’s work was central in Rousseau’s mind from an early stage in his career, we can
say that the Spirit of the Laws actively engaged Rousseau’s thoughts during the development of
his own political theory.
An even stronger piece of evidence for the claim that Montesquieu is a proper foil for
Rousseau’s political theory is that Rousseau himself presents Montesquieu’s work as central to
what he is attempting to accomplish with the Social Contract. In Book V of Emile, a work he
wrote during the same time period as he wrote the Social Contract, Rousseau presents a
summary of the Social Contract where he outlines the steps necessary to understand “the science
of political right” (Emile, 458). In this précis of the Social Contract, Rousseau at first seems to
dismiss the science of political right as something “useless,” “yet to be born, and...to be
presumed that it never will be born” (Emile, 458). Yet, he amends this skepticism as he develops
a claim that both an account of political right and positive right are necessary. As in the Social
Contract, Rousseau here too derides the faulty formulations of political right in Grotius and
Hobbes, while praising the potential the Montesquieu had, even if it fell short of what was
necessary:
The only modern in a position to create this great and useless science was the
illustrious Montesquieu. But he was careful not to discuss the principles of
political right. He was content to discuss the positive right of established
governments, and nothing in the world is more different than these two studies.
(Emile, 458)
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Rousseau immediately changes course in a way that elucidates what he is doing as a departure
from Montesquieu, as he states, “nevertheless, whoever wants to make healthy judgments about
existing governments is obliged to unite the two. It is necessary to know what ought to be in
order to judge soundly about what is” (Emile, 458). Since Rousseau subtitles the Social Contract
“Principles of Political Right,” it is clear that he is attempting to articulate this science of
political right, and, as Masters states, “although Rousseau himself did not claim that he had fully
established such a science, he clearly intended to pose its foundations” (Masters 1968, 291).
Rousseau sees himself as in a position to initiate this science, and he builds upon what
Montesquieu has done well by correcting, in his estimation, what his predecessor has done badly.
Further, Rousseau’s science of right is not intended for a mere critique of existing institutions but
is intended for evaluation of institutions for the sake of correction and progress. He is attempting
to create a theory that emphasizes the human capacity to make these “healthy judgments.”
Rousseau’s argument with Montesquieu stems primarily from what he sees as his
predecessor’s failure to unite theory and practice. Despite Rousseau’s admiration of this “noble
genius” (SC III.4, 92), Montesquieu stands as a target: Rousseau views Montesquieu as having
missed the logic of political association by not seeing that there is a core of legitimacy in every
association. For Rousseau, a theory that omits a conception of political right may be positively
pernicious to human beings. If one of Rousseau’s goals in the Social Contract is to show the
necessity of uniting right and utility (SC I. Proemium), then he must show how a theory of right
is necessary for evaluating or understanding states as they are; that is, he must show how even a
project like Montesquieu’s, where one hopes to evaluate existing regimes, is dependent upon
political right. While some have fallen in line with Rousseau in noting the extent to which
Montesquieu’s empiricism precludes him from focusing on theoretical arguments (Carrithers
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1991), other scholars have argued that Montesquieu does in fact have a theory of right and that
he makes normative claims about the desirability of certain political regimes (Rahe 2009; Pangle
1973), and their points are well-taken. However, my purpose here is not to understand the extent
to which Montesquieu does or does not espouse a theory of right, but the manner in which
Rousseau understands and is building upon Montesquieu, or in other words, Rousseau’s
Montesquieu. Rousseau is not dismissing Montesquieu’s theory as simply incorrect but is
instead characterizing it as incomplete. He encourages his reader to see that the inclusion of
political right in a theory has not only philosophical but practical implications, as he tries to
show that much is at stake here even for established societies.
For Montesquieu, the principle of a type of government derives from its nature, and thus
“its nature is that which makes it what it is, and its principle, that which makes it act”
(Montesquieu Spirit of the Lawsv III.1, 21). The principle of government provides a type of
criterion for judging: “unless [the principle] is there, the government is imperfect” (Montesquieu
SL III.11, 30). Evaluation of institutions comes from an observation of civic mores. To the
extent that mores are consistent with regime types, that is, the principles of regimes line up with
their natures, a state is said to be “good” for Montesquieu. Montesquieu’s method of assessing
regimes results in a dire assessment of republics, as it is the most difficult regime type to
perpetuate since its principle is the most unnatural to establish. Since the virtue involved in the
democracy is “a renunciation of oneself” (Montesquieu SL IV.5, 35) in favor of the state, the
legislator’s task must be to inspire a love of equality and frugality. The principle connected with
democracy, virtue, is the one in the typology of regimes most dependent upon correct civic
education since the principles of the other types of government are more closely connected to
human nature. That is, it is not difficult to inspire the principle of despotism, fear, nor is it an
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insurmountable task to make human beings desire to be placed above one another, as is required
in the principle of monarchy, honor. When judged by Montesquieu’s criterion, matching
principles to nature, republics are unlikely to be classified as good regimes since they are the
least likely to meet this standard.
Rousseau claims that Montesquieu is correct up to a point, namely, in his insight into
seeing the need for consistency in matching laws to their objects. Yet, Rousseau thinks he fails
to see the necessity of political right in achieving this consistency, and as a consequence the state
will proceed toward varying ends. Rousseau notes that Montesquieu makes mistakes in his
assessments of republics as a consequence of conflating Sovereign and Government. While this
“famous Author attributed virtue to Republics as their principle,” “this noble genius often lacked
in precision, sometimes in clarity” and what is worse, Rousseau continues, he “failed to see that
since Sovereign authority is everywhere the same, the same principle must obtain in every wellconstituted State, more or less, it is true, according to the form of the Government” (SC III.4, 9192). For Rousseau “every legitimate Government is republican,” a term that he defines as “not
only an Aristocracy or Democracy” as Montesquieu does, “but any government guided by the
general will, which is the law” (SC II.6, 67). That is, every legitimate state draws its core
legislative power from the people regardless of its type of administration.
Popular sovereignty does not imply democratic government: in fact, Rousseau agrees
with Montesquieu that “there is no Government as subject to civil wars and intestine turmoil as
Democratic or popular Government, because there is none which tends so strongly and so
constantly to change its form, nor any which requires greater vigilance and courage to maintain
its form” (SC III.4, 92). Yet, Rousseau is not calling for an unrestrained populace that mixes the
legislative and executive powers into one body, a point that will come out more clearly in his
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analysis of the Roman Republic. Rather, “to be legitimate, the Government must not be
confused with the Sovereign, but be its minister. Then monarchy itself is a republic” (SC II.6,
67). Rousseau points out a lack of precision in differentiating Sovereignty and Government, a
problem that he thinks causes Montesquieu to go awry in his conclusions about what is “good”
or desirable in a regime.
For Rousseau, political right is present in a society, whether or not it is correctly put into
practice adequately, since it is in the core logic of the political association. Legitimacy becomes
realized as popular sovereignty is approximated in the legislative power, despite the form of the
executive power. This insight, for Rousseau, alters the requirements for the actualization of the
good regime since it provides one standard for measurement: it asserts that this spirit is already
present in every association and must be cultivated. What Montesquieu sees as a variable spirit
dependent upon regime type is for Rousseau an unvarying constant. This refusal to attend to the
underlying basis of legitimacy is where Montesquieu goes wrong in Rousseau’s eyes, and
further, Rousseau finds Montesquieu’s political theory to be inadequate in its ability to provide a
measuring stick against which we can compare existing governments. For Rousseau, maxims of
politics will be largely mistaken if not generated by abstract theory, or in other words, a practical
political theory will be misguided without a theory of right as a normative standard.
Rousseau’s Method
Rousseau orients his work in the Social Contract in relation to the problems he sees with
Montesquieu, and in differentiating himself begins to lay the groundwork for his own method.
Rousseau connects our expectations about practice to what he views as a more correct
understanding of the political association. At times he speaks in terms of maintenance: he
discusses problems such as “how the sovereign authority is maintained” and “means of
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preventing usurpations by the government” (SC III.12, 110; III.18, 118). Rousseau thinks
maintenance is undoubtedly within our ability to a certain extent: the state is a “work of art”
whose life it is “within [man’s] capacity to prolong … as far as possible by giving it the best
constitution it can have,” and this extended lifetime is progressively realized as one sees that “the
principle of political life resides in the Sovereign authority” (SC III.11, 109). Further, Rousseau
states the possibility of not just maintenance, but of progress, and establishes inferential methods
toward this end, which should make one at the very least skeptical of views in which Rousseau
has no progressive theory.
In Book III, Rousseau uses Rome to show the bases of popular sovereignty and the
possibilities for its further realization in the state. He claims that popular sovereignty is no
chimera, as “the bounds of the possible in moral matters are less narrow than we think” (SC
III.12, 110). Rousseau bases his confidence in political progress upon the example of the
Roman Republic, which, with “four hundred thousand Citizens bearing arms in Rome”
frequently exercised its sovereignty and met in assembly (SC III.12, 110). This fact alone, that
is, that the germ of legitimacy was still present even in a large state, motivates Rousseau to state,
“let us consider what can be done in the light of what has been done” (SC III.12, 110). Rousseau
thinks that Rome provides an example of what can be possible, not because this state was wellconstituted, as he notes that it often let its popular assemblies illegitimately operate as both
Sovereign (legislative power) and Government (executive power), but instead provides an
inferential baseline since “the inference from what is to what is possible seems sound” (SC
III.12, 110). The difficulty, for Rousseau, lies in knowing how to make this inference. If we
look at what has been done in light of a standard of right, then it is possible to make evaluative
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claims about institutions and to build upon them. Again, his standard of right provides this
measuring stick:
Before observing, one must make some rules for one’s observations. One must
construct a standard to which measurements one makes can be related. Our
principles of political right are that standard. Our measurements are the political
laws of each country. (Emile, 458)
For Rousseau, the basic logic of the political association provides the standard against
which to evaluate laws and institutions, thus making progress possible, as “good laws lead to
making better ones, bad laws bring about worse ones” (SC III.15, 113). Rousseau’s criticism of
theories without a standard of right is that they misjudge what is to be inferred from history or
observational data and what is to be done in response. What Rousseau sees as a
misunderstanding of the world leads one to despair or to faulty conclusions, and “what misleads
ratiocinators is that since they only see States which are badly constituted from their origin, they
are struck by the impossibility of maintaining such an administration in them” (SC IV.1, 121).
Rousseau tries to show that when one has the correct point of reference, we diminish our despair
about human possibilities.
While it may be common to come away from the Social Contract with a pessimistic view
of the state motivated by Rousseau’s abstract account of the decline and death of the state, within
his abstract theory he establishes the premises of his progressive maxims of politics that he takes
up in Book IV. Through reading Book IV in light of his principles of political right established
in the earlier books, Rousseau’s theory becomes more applicative and practical. When
Rousseau’s stated inferential method is applied to Book IV, his discussion of Rome displays two
main things: first, the misinterpretation of history, and subsequently the faulty evaluations, that
can occur without a standard of right, and second, the connection of this first activity to maxims
of politics, that is, knowing what practical remedies move a state in a direction more accordance
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with the associational logic inherent in every state. In the section that follows, I will turn to an
analysis of a portion of Book IV in order to show the manner in which Rousseau uses Rome to
display the novelty of his theory and exorcise the looming specter of Montesquieu.
Rousseau’s Application: the Servian Test Case
The work that Book IV is doing for Rousseau’s theory is inextricably connected to the
principles of political right that he outlines in the first three books. Rousseau’s emphasis on
understanding Rome in terms of legitimacy is present from the very beginning of the work, as
the title page displays a passage from Aeneid: “foederis aequas Dicamus leges” (SC, 39), a
citation that appears to promote a popular and equitable foundation. However, this Rome, based
upon force, where laws are not yet sanctioned by a popular legislative power, is not the one upon
which Rousseau is going to focus. Rousseau characterizes the founding of the Roman Republic
as separate from the original founding of Rome. Thus, there are multiple foundings of Rome,
and multiple Romes- the original monarchical Rome is a different state than the Roman
Republic.
Rousseau’s justification of his method allows him to recast the Roman founding in order
to create a new space for his theoretical battle with Montesquieu. Rousseau explicitly connects
the abstract discussion of the decline of states in Book III to the progression of Roman history by
arguing that government naturally contracts from a democracy, to an aristocracy, and finally to a
monarchy, and that this progression was no different for Rome. He notes that this view is not
conventional, though, as he states, “people will not fail to cite in objection to me the Roman
Republic whose progress, they will say, followed a directly opposite course” (SC III.10, 106).
Montesquieu himself characterizes the progression of Roman history in this conventional
understanding. He notes that with the “expulsion of the kings, the government had become
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aristocratic” and subsequently as a result of “imbuing the people with hatred for kings, they gave
them an immoderate desire for liberty” the government inevitably “had to change into a popular
state” (Montesquieu Considerationsvi, 83-84). However, Rousseau claims that asserting history
as following this progression constitutes a misunderstanding of the Republic’s beginnings.
Instead, “the expulsion of the Tarquins was the genuine period of the Republic’s birth” and the
“establishment of the Tribunes” constituted “a true Government and a genuine Democracy” (SC
III.10, 107). From the birth of this new state, “the Government was also seen to follow its
natural inclination and to tend strongly toward Aristocracy” (SC III.10, 107). By viewing history
through the correct lens, Rousseau claims, “Roman history does not belie [my] principle; it
confirms it” (SC III.10, 107). Whereas Montesquieu sees Rome as one continuous state from its
mythical founding to the fall of the Eastern Empire in the 15th Century A.D., Rousseau shows
that there are multiple, discrete Roman states. The result of redefining the birth of the Roman
Republic is that it allows Rousseau to look at a state based in popular sovereignty as a baseline
for what we can accomplish- it gives him a test case upon which he can apply his method.
Further, the original, monarchical Roman state shows an example of a state that met its
death prematurely, exemplifying problems that are accelerated due to failures in institutional
change: “Romulus’s initial establishment was a mixed Government which promptly degenerated
into Despotism. Owing to some particular causes, the State perished before its time, just as a
newborn child sometimes dies before reaching manhood” (SC III.10, 107). The original Roman
state proceeded in a manner in which power was gradually concentrated in the hands of the
magistrates as well, accelerated by a failure to temper its mixed government, and thus was
overcome by a revolution and subsequently the founding of a new state, the Roman Republic.
Rome underwent a revolution, where “horror of the past takes the place of forgetting, and when
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the State aflame with civil wars is so to speak reborn from its ashes and recovers the vigor of
youth as it escapes death’s embrace” (SC II.8, 72).
This new state, as we see, is not only a different state in terms of its institutions, but also
in terms of its people. One of Rome’s kings, Servius Tullius, was able to lay the groundwork
for the establishment of popular institutions by refashioning the populace that constituted the
republican state that followed the death of the monarchy. Both Montesquieu and Rousseau
spend a great deal of time speaking about this leader, and it is chiefly in a discussion of Servius’
political changes where Rousseau’s argument against Montesquieu comes to fruition. It is
therefore imperative to establish the nature of their arguments about Servian institutions.
Servius Tullius, the sixth Roman king, is part of the previous, monarchical Roman state
that Rousseau categorizes as a different political association, so it is problematic that Rousseau
casts him as a founder of the Roman Republic. Servius was the first king not to be elected by
the Senate in the interregnum period as he claimed the office of king gradually and secretively.
His origin is shrouded in supernatural mystery. “A slave and the son of a slave,” (Livyvii I.47,
88), Servius was raised in the household of King Lucius Tarquinius Priscus as the presumptive
heir to the throne despite the fact that Priscus already had two sons. Servius became the heir
apparent when, as a boy, he was “lying asleep, [and] his head burst into flames,” which the
Queen witnessed and interpreted as a sign that Servius would one day rule and “prove a light in
our darkness” (Livy I.38, 78). Thus, Servius’ origins have the same mythical aspects of
Rousseau’s discounted founders. Servius was murdered by his own daughter Tullia and son-inlaw Lucius Tarquinius, the famous Tarquin who in turn was murdered by Lucius Junius Brutus
and followed by the institution of the Roman Republic properly speaking. So, to what extent
may we say that Servius was a founder of the Republic? Livy notes that “he intended… to
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abdicate in favour of a republican government, simply because he disapproved in principle of
monarchy; but treachery within his family circle prevented him from carrying his purpose into
effect” (Livy I.48, 90). Servius appears to be the Legislator figure that creates a people and then
hands the power over to them, but, as with the rest of Rome’s founding, an imperfect example
of a Legislator. Yet, when applying Rousseau’s method of assessment, we see that even in an
imperfect founding the germ of legitimacy can be seen and cultivated, a point that will largely
be missed if there is no standard for assessing institutions.
For Rousseau, Servius’ measures led to the creation of institutions that laid the
groundwork for self-legislation. During the monarchy, the cycle from unanimity to inequality to
a new unanimity had been completedviii: all were equal in their servitude and lack of voice.
Rousseau claims that a revolution had to occur, and from this upheaval came the true founding of
the Roman Republic. In this instance, it seems as if the people would not have been able to
instigate the revolution against the tyrannical Tarquin the Proud nor see their role in the political
association if not for the groundwork laid by Servius’ acts as founder of popular institutions.
These acts pushed the state toward popular sovereignty, and thus made Tarquin’s tyranny merely
a vehicle for revolution when in fact the basis for a true political association was already there
thanks to Servius’ institutional changes and reclassification of the populace.
When looking at the historical information, Livy acknowledges Servius’ inclination
toward popular government but his failure to execute it. He describes Servius’ class
redistribution as intended to benefit the poor, as the poor “were thus exempted from
contributions, and all financial burdens were shifted on to the shoulders of the rich” (Livy I.44,
83). Yet, Livy notes that this reclassification essentially disenfranchised the multitude, as
“manhood suffrage with equal rights for all, which had obtained ever since the days of Romulus,
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was abolished, and replaced by a sliding scale. This had the effect of giving every man
nominally a vote, while leaving power actually in the hands of the Knights and the First Classix”
(Livy I.44, 83). Since “it was hardly ever necessary to go further” (Livy I.44, 83) than the
Second Class to obtain the adequate number of votes to pass a measure, it is easy to agree with
Livy, and subsequently Montesquieu, that this class distribution effectively disenfranchised a
great number of people.
Indeed, we see a very different depiction of Servius in Montesquieu, that is, Montesquieu
does not paint him as a founder bent on establishing a republic. Whereas Rousseau focuses on
the potential for Servius’ founding to be legitimate despite its imperfect realization, Montesquieu
focuses solely on the actual inequality present in his measures, offering an assessment of positive
right without a standard against which to measure his observations. Montesquieu acknowledges
that a class division is of the utmost importance in the nature and stability of a regime, as “great
legislators have distinguished themselves by the way they have made this division [into classes],
and upon it the duration and prosperity of democracies have always depended” (Montesquieu SL
II.2, 12). However, he discounts the extent to which the founding of the Roman Republic was
based in popular sovereignty: he focuses merely on the observable implications of the
institutional design. For Montesquieu, Servius is an example of someone who “followed the
spirit of aristocracy in the composition of his classes” (Montesquieu SL II.2, 12) since he placed
the sovereign power in the hands of a certain number of Rome’s principal citizens. He argues
Servius was not concerned with increasing the power of the people due to such a measure’s
inherent legitimacy, but instead “extended the privileges of the people in order to reduce the
Senate” (Montesquieu C, 26). He notes that Servius “had distributed one hundred and ninetythree centuries into six classes, and put the whole of the common people into the last century,
17
which alone formed the sixth class” (Montesquieu C, 86-87). What Montesquieu concludes
from this example is that “one sees that this disposition excluded the common people from the
suffrage, not by right but in fact” (C, 87, my emphasis).
What is interesting is that Rousseau takes this same information and uses it as proof that
popular sovereignty was in fact present in the nascent Republic’s founding. The founding starts
out as legitimate, in that it was based on popular sovereignty, but the division into assemblies
was still problematic since they were divisions according to economic status (instituted
inequality). The creation of popular assemblies (Comitia) was constituted by a division into six
classes distinguished by goods; the last class had almost none, so they could not serve in the
army as “one had to have a hearth in order to obtain the right to defend it” (SC IV.4, 131).
Rousseau quarrels with his predecessors about the number of classes in the Comitia: he ignores
claims by Montesquieu and Livy that there were in fact six classes and states that “never more
than five classes are mentioned, although there were really six” (SC IV.4, 131). In so doing, he
asserts the novelty of his inclusion of all of the Roman citizenry in the role of Sovereign and
concludes that Rome was a state where the people were “genuinely Sovereign both by right and
in fact” (SC IV.4, 132, my emphasis). Rousseau uses this distinction as the basis of his quarrel
with Montesquieu- if one assesses historical data without the correct normative standard, one’s
conclusions will be misguided and one’s evaluative capabilities diminished.
Rousseau focuses on Servius’ changes since this reclassification does at least two
necessary things in order for progress to occur: first, it changes the citizenry into one capable of
self-legislation, and second, it tries to realize popular sovereignty more perfectly within the state
itself. First, Rousseau shows a practical benefit of Servius’s reclassification, the destruction of
private identity amongst Romans. This third Roman reclassification mixes the people into new
18
class structures and washes away their identity according to tribes or geographyx: Servius makes
them new citizens of a different Rome. Roman tribal factions exemplify the need to make a
change in order to “have the general will expressed well,” which a state is in danger of not
expressing well when there are “partial societies” (SC II.3, 60). Early in the work, Rousseau
recommends a practical change based on factionalism: “if there are partial societies, their number
must be multiplied, and inequality among them prevented, as was done by Solon, Numa, and
Servius. These are the only precautions that will ensure that the general will is always
enlightened, and that the people make no mistakes” (SC II.3, 60). He explicitly points out this
particular corrective measure as one of his preferred political prescriptions. In Book IV, chapter
two, he claims “when earlier I showed how particular wills were substituted for the general will
in public deliberations, I indicated clearly enough the practicable ways to prevent this abuse; I
shall have more to say on this subject later” (SC IV.2, 124, my emphasis). The Servian example
constitutes this later illustration of a dispersion of factionalism by reapportionment and
multiplication. The Servian division into classes, the third great division of the Romans “which
by its effects became the most important of all” (SC IV.4, 130), was closer to unanimity than the
original classification because he substituted the tribal division based on race (Alban, Sabine,
foreigners) with one based on wealth. He attempted to mitigate the effects of partial societies
based on pre-existing social attachments and transfer them into artificial attachments, the
consequences of which were veiled as Servius “pretended to give it a military cast” (SC IV.4,
130). These artificial attachments decrease the citizenry’s dependence on other forces while at
the same time increasing their dependence on one another, thereby creating a chain of mutual
obligation between the citizens and laying the foundations for self-legislation. This change was
19
not a perfect one, however. Even though this classification resulted in a more cohesive citizenry,
it was ultimately a detrimental division since it was based on goods.
Second, the Servian class redistribution exemplifies Rousseau’s argument about political
right as a necessary evaluative tool for institutional design; the salutary effects of a
reclassification of citizens are not all we are supposed to learn from this example. Despite the
imperfect reclassification, Rousseau sees Servius’ measures as constituting good practical
changes since they advanced the state toward the realization of political right to a greater degree.
Rousseau goes to quite a bit of effort to show that of the three Comitia (by Centuries, by Curiae,
and by Tribes), this one by Centuries, by virtue of containing all of the citizenry, is the only
legitimate assembly since nobody would be “forced to obey laws on which they could not vote”
(SC IV.4, 134). He recasts this reclassification as a new founding of Rome that makes it more in
accord with his theory of right. Even if the assembly by Centuries prioritized the interests of the
elites, as Montesquieu believes, Rousseau still evaluates them as containing a core of legitimacy
and potentially capable of providing the basis for improvements in the direction of greater
possibility for political efficacy among all classes of citizens.
Rousseau’s assertion of the legitimacy inherent in the Roman Republic does not mean
that it was perfectly instituted, nor we should we attempt to recharacterize it as such. He
acknowledges that this class division could be in effect a disenfranchisement of a good portion of
the citizenry, as Montesquieu notes, but Rousseau believes his theory to be better than
Montesquieu’s in its ability to locate the source of the problem. Since the Romans mistakenly
combined the legislative and administrative or executive power in the same body, the roles of
each type of power were confused. Rousseau believes that he sees what other theorists without
an adequate view of right cannot. Montesquieu focuses on the fact that the corporate interest of
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the elite was able to predominate over the will of the citizenry as a whole. Rousseau agrees that
this is potentially the case. Yet, he shows that this problem is unavoidable, since in all but “a
perfect legislation,” “the general will is always the weakest, the corporate will occupies the
second place, and the particular will the first place of all” (SC III.2, 87), and while unavoidable,
the effects can be mitigated by making changes toward a realization of popular sovereignty.
Servius not only gave the population sovereignty in fact by including them in the assembly, he
also pushed the legislative power toward the general will in comparison to the previous
institutional design, which catered to the corporate interest of the elites even more, since “the
more numerous the body of the magistrates, the more closely does the corporate will approach
the general will” (SC III.2, 89). The problem for Rousseau is not that the elites displayed their
interest, as that is natural and inevitable, but that the sovereign, legislative power and the
administrative, executive power are illegitimately and imprudently combined in the same body.
Such a failure to see the division of sovereign and government, or legislative and executive
powers, is indicative of the “necessary distinctions” (SC III.4, 91) that Rousseau criticizes
Montesquieu for failing to make in order to evaluate institutions well.
To pursue this connection between Rousseau’s assessment of Servian institutions and his
argument about political right to its conclusion, the Servian example constitutes the completion
of Rousseau’s response to Montesquieu about the nature of democracy and with which he began
his explicit analysis of Roman institutions. Recall that Rousseau states in Book IV, chapter three
that Montesquieu claims that “voting by lot…is in the nature of Democracy,” but the reasons he
gives for this, namely, that “it is a way of electing that afflicts no one…[and] it leaves every
Citizen a reasonable hope of serving the fatherland,” “are not reasons” (SC IV.3, 125). The
voting blocs engendered by Servius’ six-class division did allow the first class alone to have the
21
majority in the assembly, and Rousseau notes the selling of votes that occurred as a result.
However, Rousseau himself points out that the pernicious effects of this faulty
institutionalization of popular sovereignty were mitigated by two changes in administration: first,
many members of the popular party were contained in the rich first classxi, and, more
importantly, “the second way was this, that instead of having the Centuries start voting in order,
which would have led to always beginning with the first, a Century was chosen by lot, and that
one alone proceeded to hold an election….In this way the authority of example was withdrawn
from rank and given to lot in conformity with the principle of democracy” (SC IV.4, 133-134).
The reason that voting by lot is in the nature of democracy is not that it gives every man the hope
of serving the fatherland: Montesquieu’s formulation focuses solely on the psychological effects
of the individual rather than the truth of institutions, as Rousseau sees them. What voting by lot
does is, first, to ensure that the classes had the opportunity to self-legislate, but also to shame the
Comitia into voting in line with the good of the state instead of in their private interest, since
every class would follow suit from the initial voting bloc in a cascading manner
(praerogativa)xii. Thus, voting by lot, which is in the nature of democracy, is a further
institutional change that attempts to tamp down the ill effects of the original class distribution
and mitigate the effects of partial societies- it is in line with the democratic principle, that is,
equality. Rousseau identifies both the nature and principle of democracy, things with which
Montesquieu himself is explicitly concerned, by using his method of assessment, and further,
takes note of a salutary corrective measure that is in line with a theory of right. Rousseau thus
attempts to outdo Montesquieu on his own terms, namely, attending to institutional consistency.
Lastly, this Servian example shows the dynamic nature of Rousseau’s institutional
prescriptions. He does not advise the same measures for all states at all times, and instilling
22
consistency between laws and civic education is not enough, as Rousseau’s Montesquieu would
have it. Mores still play a role in Rousseau’s maxims, but they are not as important one might
think. The praerogativa measure was successful since the Roman people could still be shamed
into voting more in line with the common interest rather than their particular interests, but such a
measure might not work in every time or place. The method for assessing what changes are
needed must be present, and this method can make up for much of what might be lacking in the
mores of a people. Thus, the example Rousseau gives of the secret ballot shows the manner in
which a state in decline should be corrected. Montesquieu claims that this type of change is
always bad, for “in the Roman Republic all was destroyed by making the votes secret”
(Montesquieu SL II.2, 14). Although the Republic’s eventual change to a secret ballot can be
seen as a step toward allowing particular interests to take precedence, Rousseau claims that he
cannot agree with Cicero—or, as we can infer—Montesquieu, in condemning such a change,
since, “on the contrary, … the loss of the State was hastened because not enough such changes
were made. Just as the regimen of a healthy people is not suited to the sick, one must not try to
govern a corrupt people by the same laws as those that suit a good people” (SC IV.4, 135).
Corrections should be made to place the state more in accordance with right, but these measures
can vary as the state itself varies. If one does not have a standard against which to evaluate
institutional changes, then it is impossible in Rousseau’s estimation to know which changes are
required at any given time.
With Book IV, chapter four’s example of the Roman Comitia, we have seen the
following: there was legitimacy at the core of the founding of the Roman Republic, yet this
founding was not ideal or even desirable in and of itself. Changes should be instituted in
Rousseau’s estimation; the key is to use the correct approach in knowing what changes to make.
23
The reason that Rousseau believes he can rely on the conclusions he formulates from the same
information that informed Montesquieu’s faulty conclusions is due to Rousseau’s conception of
the novelty of his political theory. Namely, he takes a fact that has existed (an assertion of six
Roman classes instead of five, for instance), and he claims to be the first to bring this enduring
truth to light. In much the same way, he attempts to show here that every state has popular
sovereignty and the logic of the political association at its core, despite the extent to which it was
successfully instituted and the misinterpretations of philosophers. This legitimacy ingrained at
the core of all states is often denied because one does not know where to look. Rousseau, in
showing the reader what has always existed, allows him to display both his novelty and the
enduring nature of the truth he discusses.
Rather than lamenting the loss of ancient virtue, Rousseau’s analysis of the Roman
Republic displays a practical theory based upon the correct use of political right and empirical
data. He illustrates dynamic institutions where one can assess the balance of power and then
conclude what remedies are needed. If one attempts to determine these relationships within the
state, then it is possible to apply the correct measures, as Rousseau states, “from these various
considerations arise the maxims that should regulate the manner in which votes are counted and
opinions compared, taking account of whether the general will is more or less easy to know, and
the State more or less in decline” (SC IV.2, 123). Maxims, as Rousseau attempts to show,
should be derived from observation of data in light of a standard of right, not from observation
alone.
Conclusion
- I am strengthened in my maxims when I find the Romans on my side
(Montesquieu SL VI.15, 88)
24
Although on the surface Rome seems to be Rousseau’s best historical example of a state
with good morals and institutions, it is not necessarily one to which it is desirable to return.
Given Rousseau’s acknowledgement of the trafficking of votes, rampant income inequality, and
the acquisitive nature of the Romans in the time of the Republic, it is doubtful whether Rousseau
himself believes the Romans were ever in fact the “Romans” that he idealizes. Rousseau’s Rome
is not a mere romanticism for ancient republics. What Rousseau’s analysis shows are the areas
in which Rome was out of sync with the requirements of a well-constituted state, but more
importantly, how these faulty institutions, which overly relied on the morals of its citizens (an
unreliable stopgap against decline), can be amended or altered for the better. Rome is again an
example of how even a state that was closely connected to a fierce liberty and engaged in selflegislation needed corrective measures, and Rousseau tries to show that these corrective
measures must be ones that change the institutions more than the people: these are the
corrections upon which we can rely.
Montesquieu laments the natural progression of states and their relations: “since all
human things have an end, the state of which we are speaking will lose its liberty; it will perish.
Rome, Lacedaemonia, and Carthage have surely perished. This state will perish…”
(Montesquieu SL XI.6, 166). Thus, Montesquieu’s advice is to avoid exacerbating this decline,
as “a wise republic should hazard nothing that exposes it to either good or bad fortune. The only
good to which it should aspire is the perpetuation of its condition” (Montesquieu C, 92).
Rousseau agrees that a state will inevitably fail, but he attempts to reverse or slow this
progression for a time. He echoes Montesquieu’s lamentation but amends it: for “if Sparta and
Rome perished, what State can hope to last forever? If we want to form a lasting establishment,
25
let us therefore not dream of making it eternal” (SC III.11, 109, my emphasis). What becomes
quite clear is that Rousseau views progress as possible.
Rousseau fully intends for this analysis to have actual implications in the world, as he
claims, “let us consider what can be done in the light of what has been done” (SC III.12, 110, my
emphasis). The problem, as he sees it, is that we are misguided in our inquiry. We don’t use the
correct tools. We don’t have the correct goals. We either aim to make things perfect by
achieving a perpetual peace or we despair that no change can be effected. The first case is
inadequate as it is futile to try to pursue a perpetual peace, for “to succeed one must not attempt
the impossible, nor flatter oneself that the work of men can be endowed with a solidity human
things do not allow for” (SC III.11, 109). The latter case, despair, is equally problematic since it
incapacitates us as human beings. This progressive theory makes Rousseau into a different kind
of thinker than what we are used to seeing, and future work should analyze this fruitful avenue of
research, that is, the positive or practical aspect of Rousseau’s theory, starting with the remaining
chapters of Book IV. The discussion of the Roman Republic in Book IV of the Social Contract
has been neglected for far too long. Indeed, the Social Contract is Rousseau’s most explicitly
political work, and the entire concluding book of this work should not merely be dismissed as
irrelevant or out of place in the work as a whole.
i
Hereafter, this work will be notated as Rousseau SC.
Aside from writing an entire work on Roman institutions and history in Considerations on the Greatness of the
Romans and their Decline, Montesquieu spends a significant amount of time discussing Rome in his greatest
political work, the Spirit of the Laws.
iii
Due to constraints of space, I am unable to include an analysis of chapters four through seven, although the test
case that I present here hopefully points readers toward seeing the value of engaging in such an analysis of these
important and connected chapters.
iv
These works were the Réflexions sur quelques parties d’un livre intitulé ‘De L’Espirit des Lois’ and Observations
sur un livre intitutlé De L’Espirit des Lois (Cranston 1983).
v
Hereafter cited as Montesquieu SL.
vi
Hereafter cited as Montesquieu C.
vii
Both Montesquieu and Rousseau heavily rely on Livy as one of their main ancient sources of history.
ii
26
viii
This idea of unanimity debates/disturbances unanimity lines up with his idea of the progression of states
from democracy to aristocracy to monarchy in Book III.
ix
As a necessary part of the new class division, Servius instituted a census, thus becoming Rome’s first Censor.
The census is so fundamentally tied to the foundation of the new Roman constitution that “to expedite the
completion of the census, a law was passed punishing with imprisonment or death all who failed to register” (Livy
I.44, 83).
x
The first two reclassifications of Rome were done on these dimensions, that is, tribe and geography.
xi
“Tribunes ordinarily, and a large number of the Plebeians always, were in the class of the rich and thus balanced
the influence of the Patricians in this first class” (Rousseau SC IV.4, 133).
xii
Thanks to my anonymous reviewer who pointed out that this was not in fact how the centuria praerogativa
operated historically. Whereas Rousseau assumes that the praerogativa “potentially gave any century that ability”
to cast the first vote after being selected by lot, my reviewer pointed out that “the praerogativa only applied to the
first voting unit.” I cannot make any claims about whether Rousseau made this change deliberately or whether he
was informed incorrectly, but needless to say, his mistake is in line with the manner in which he is trying to recast
Roman history generally.
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