The Roman Republic was never intended to be a democracy. Instead, as acknowledged by Polybius, it was an experiment that sought to fuse democracy, aristocracy and monarchy into the perfect socio-political system. On a superficial level it appears to be quite a success in this endeavor when one considers the half millennium that, according to the Roman constitution, democratic and aristocratic institutions were able to jointly govern the largest and most powerful state in the Mediterranean world. However, when put in practice, its attempts to incorporate a powerful democratic element can only be seen as a clear failure. Once put into practice, the Roman Republic’s institutions were simply too reliant on the aristocracy for structure, cohesion, and order for democracy to persevere.
