Invicta
Published 14 Oct 2018We step back in time to join the Romans as they head to the polls! In this episode on ancient elections we look at the offices, the voters, and the process of the mid-Republic.
Bibliography:
— Yakobson, Alexander. “Secret Ballot and Its Effects in the Late Roman Republic.” Hermes, Vol. 123, No. 4 (1995) pp. 426-442.
— “Traditional Political Culture and the People’s Role in the Roman Republic.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 59, H. 3 (2010) pp. 282-302.
— Elections and Electioneering in Rome: A Study in the Political System of the Late Republic. Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 1999.
— Lintott, Andrew. The Constitution of the Roman Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
— Phillips, Daryll. “Voter Turnout in Consular Elections”, Ancient History Bulletin 18 (2004), 48–60.
— Morstein-Marx, Robert. Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
— Taylor, Lily Ross. Jerszy Linderski, ed. The Voting Districts of the Roman Republic. University of Michigan Press, 2013.
— Roman voting assemblies from the Hannibalic War to the dictatorship of Caesar. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990.
— “The Centuriate Assembly Before and After the Reform.” The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 78, No. 4 (1957), pp. 337-354.
Hall, Ursula. “Voting Procedure in Roman Assemblies.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 13, H3 (1964), pp. 267-306.
— “‘Species Libertatis‘ Voting Procedure in the Late Roman Republic.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement No. 71 (1998), pp. 15-30.Research: James Conrad
Artwork: Anders Végh Blidlöv (https://www.behance.net/andersvb)Music:
“Strings and Drums Comedy” by 8th Mode Music#RomanHistory
#HowTheyDidIt
November 3, 2020
How They DId It – Elections in Ancient Rome
QotD: Water pricing
Near all freshwater availability problems come from the fact that farmers get it cheap or for free, diverting it from much more valuable uses like keeping people alive if they drink it. This is true in California – we’ve actually cases of farmers using $400 of water to grow $100 of alfalfa – as it is in Pakistan. There are cases of people growing water hungry crops in near drought areas just because they get that water too cheaply.
[…]
Gaining revenue with which to build dams is useful, it most certainly is. But that’s not the only function of pricing. The cash to increase supply, great, but the very fact of charging will reduce demand. And we should be charging what it costs to produce the water too. So charges should cover 100% of the costs of the dams, not just 25%.
It’s entirely possible that charging that full cost will mean that no farmers want the water. OK, then we shouldn’t build the dam, should we? For if the value of the water – measured by what people will pay – is less than the cost of its provision, then that’s value destroying, providing the water. The dam makes us all poorer, therefore we shouldn’t build it.
The point here being – and it’s an important one – that prices affect both supply and demand. They’re what brings them into balance even. So, yes, charge for water, but not just so that we can pay to increase supply, also so that we, merely by charging, reduce demand.
Tim Worstall, “Pakistan’s Chief Justice Almost Right – Charge For Water, Not For Dams, But To Charge For Water”, Continental Telegraph, 2017-07-17.
