Band-Aids and Big Ideas: Reform in the Roman Republic

The Roman republic has often been seen as resistant to innovation or even incapable of reform. According to the influential view of Christian Meier (1980), the Roman republic faced a ‘crisis without alternative’ and ultimately fell because of its inability to conceive of appropriate reforms, while ‘Band-Aid’ measures only made matters worse. More recently, Vervaet, Dart, and Rafferty (2025) have emphasised the ‘reform unwillingness’ of the late republican elite, which, they argue, paved the way to tyrannical rule. This paper will offer an alternative perspective by identifying some examples of significant, structural reform proposed or enacted during the late republic, including major changes to criminal courts and provincial commands. It will argue that reform proposals were not restricted to populist tribunes or autocratic actors and that, where reform efforts failed, the reasons can often be traced to the perennial problem of upsetting vested interests or the actions of individuals rather than incapacity or unwillingness.

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