The res publica is usually something that is held by many people together. For example, a park or garden in the city of Rome could be either “private property” (res privata) or managed by the state, in which case it would be part of the res publica. [2] Although many scholars believe that the term originated the word “republic,” a more common translation of the term itself is “Commonwealth.” The word Commonwealth is essentially a modern version of the word “republic” and refers to a state governed by the people. Scholars tend to prefer this more universal translation, as the phrase “res publica” is found in ancient texts and treatises relating to the period when Rome was ruled both as a republic and under imperial rule. In his book Germania, Tacitus also uses res publica in the context of Germanic “barbarian” society. Here, the word is used to convey the general meaning of “public affairs” or “commonwealth” (as opposed to private or family life) without the Roman connotations of republicanism. This is illustrated in the following text (Latin text and English translation of the Perseus Project): Augustine of Hippo uses the word res publica several times in his work The City of God, in which he comments on several Greek and Roman authors in the early 5th century. Again, the standard translations of the phrase “res publica” throughout the book are multiple. Examples from the Latin text of “The Latin Library”, English translation of the version available under “New Advent” After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, the idea of res publica disappeared because it was foreign to the barbarians of the migration period: whenever Gregory of Tours speaks of res publica, he is talking about the Eastern Empire. [4] Another example of the complexity of the meaning of the word res publica is Tacitus, who described in his annals in the early 2nd century how the first emperors, like Tiberius in the year of Augustus` death (14 AD), tried to keep all the institutions of the res publica completely intact (Latin and translation available in the Perseus project): .
Culture and history – while the Roman or commonwealth res publica is closer to the modern concept of the state. The res publica was a legal system whose jurisdiction extended to all Roman citizens, guaranteeing their rights and determining their responsibilities. With the fragmentation of the Roman system, the question of the. Res publica could also be used in a generic sense referring to “public affairs” and/or the general system of government of a state. In this usage, res publica translated the Greek term politeia (which originally meant the state organization of a city-state). Even for a Roman politician who is involved in the res publica, a translation can often be the even more general translation “to be engaged in politics.” The roots of words and phrases used in modern politics and law often go back to ancient Rome. One such expression is “res publica”. The expression “res publica”, freely translated, means “public matter” or “public matter”. The term is also believed to be the origin of the word “republic,” which refers to a state where supreme power among the people resides in elected representatives, as opposed to a monarchy ruled by a royal family. Cicero`s treatise De re publica is an example of the use of the term in Roman times. The sentence is not only the subject of the treaty, but the sentence is used several times in the body of the text.
The work was written between 54 and 51 BC. AD and is a Socratic dialogue on the state of political affairs in Rome at that time. When Pliny dedicated his Naturalis Historiae to his friend Emperor Vespasian in the first century, he used the word res publica (Latin from the Lacus website Curtius / Philemon Holland translation of 1601 from penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/index.html / John Bostock`s 1855 translation from Perseus` website): When Pliny under an emperor, i.e. Vespasian or his predecessors, did not speak of the Roman Republic, but used “commonwealth” / “republic” in the sense of “state”. The ambiguity that Rome still considered itself a republic formally or only “pro forma” throughout the era of the Principat, when the monarchical regime was already established de facto, adds to the complexity of translating “res publica” in this context. The concept of a res publica Christiana is first attested by Augustine of Hippo, whose early 5th century work City of God positively contrasted the Christian church with the Roman Empire`s claims to constitute a res publica, a republic or a policy. He challenged Rome`s legitimacy as a state founded for the common good, arguing that his empire had been won by force, not justice; On the other hand, the Christian Church is a true res publica, founded for the good of humanity. In another work, De opere monachorum, Augustine explicitly stated that “there is a community of all Christians” (“omnium enim christianorum una respublica est”).
[1] Taken together, what is in the public interest leads to the connotation that “res publica” is generally equal to “the state.” For the Romans, the state was synonymous with the Roman Empire and all its interests, so res publica can also refer to the Roman Empire as a whole, whether it was ruled as a republic or under imperial rule. In this context, scholars suggest Commonwealth as a more accurate and neutral translation of the Latin term, as it implies neither republican governance nor imperial domination, but refers to the state as a whole. However, the translation of res publica as “republic” when clearly referring to the Roman Empire under imperial rule sometimes occurs (see quotes below). while Tacitus lamented in the same pamphlet that at the same time the res publica was finally going astray, because not a single soul seemed to care: From these examples, it also follows that there was probably also a gradual change in the meaning of the concept of res publica in Roman times: The connotation of “(Roman) Republic” of res publica is something that occurs more retrospectively from a closed (i.e. less true) period. in the time of Cicero, who never knew the era of emperors and could only compare it to the era of kings); on the other hand, the translation of the Greek term “politeia” seems to have worn out almost completely in Late Antiquity. In Catholic theology, res publica christiana referred primarily to the Catholic Church itself as a self-sufficient societas perfecta (“perfect society”), but retained some of its political relevance after the 17th century. An example of the later use of the term is Pope Clement XIII`s encyclical, Christianae reipublicae salus [de] (“The Welfare of Christian Politics”), which condemned the “devastation” inflicted on the res publica by the free circulation of antichrist writings and urged Catholic leaders to suppress it. [14] Later, in 1849, the ultramontanes of Europe designated Pope Pius IX as the head of a resurrected res publica Christiana. [15] In his 1890 encyclical Sapientiae Christianae, Pope Leo XIII distinguished the Sapientiae Christianae.
the church as Christiana respublica – rendered in English as “the kingdom of Christ” – of the temporal imperium – “civil government” – and explained that it was not the prerogative of the Church to decide between the different forms and institutions of secular government. [16] Despite Augustine`s distinction, imperial and ecclesiastical res publica mixed in later usage.
