Libera res publica

From the Latin idiom libera res publica meaning "free from things public". In the original Republic of Rome the power of the State was returned to the people individually.

The original Senate was merely a gathering of older men selected through a network of people gathering in small local groups. They did not have a legislative power that was capable of infringing on the natural rights of the people. Rome was a Republic and enjoyed a Republican form of government.

As the people became willing to receive benefits from society and the State at the expense of their neighbor Polybius writes of their degeneration into an unnatural state which brought about a centralization of government power under the Caesars.

“Tacitus repeatedly contrasts the res publica under the emperors with the pre-Augustus libera res publica; and in the Germania 37, encountering the disasters which Germans inflicted upon the res publica Romanorum, he distinguishes between the old res publica, which he calls the populus Romanus, and the new res publica, which he calls “Caesar.” The old res publica hardly had the mixed constitution which dreamers assigned it and which actually never can exist, but it was something greater and majestic which lives on as a glorious memory in a mean age.” The Ruling Power: A Study Of The Roman Empire In The Second Century After Christ Through The Roman Oration Of Aelius Aristides, James H. Oliver, Kessinger Publishing, July 25, 2006. ISBN-13: 978-1428659315. see Republican form