2.  For two thousand years, Roman government had more or less the same system. Of course there were some changes over that time too.

3.  In 500 B.C the people in charge were two men called consuls. Women were not allowed to be consuls. They controlled the army, and they decided whether to start a war and how much taxes to collect and what the laws were.

4.  They who were supposed to speak for the poorer people in the Senate. Tribunes were elected by the Assembly, and they could veto anything the Senate voted for that affected the poor. Which ended up being just about everything.

5.  “Finally, there was also an Assembly of all the men (not women) who were grownup and free and had Roman citizenship.” They voted on some big issues, if the consuls asked them to. Things like whether to go to war. And they elected the consuls and prefects and the Senators. But the Assembly was set up so that richer people got more votes than poorer people. Which to me is unfair.

6.  “50 BC, the time of Julius Caesar, generals had begun to take over the government and not pay any attention to the consuls or the Senate anymore, and just do as they pleased.” They could do that, because they had the army with them.

7.  “In 31 BC, was one of these generals. But he realized that people didn’t like this pushing people around, and so he set up a different system.” He made the Senate vote to give him the powers of a tribune for the rest of his life. That way, he could veto anything the senate voted on he didn’t like.

8.  At the creation of the republic, supreme power probably resided with a popular assembly, but early on the Senate became very influential, and the traditional formula, which survived for centuries, was “S.P.Q.R. - Senatus Populusque Romanus - the Roman Senate and People acting together.”

9.  They didn’t want one person to have all the power. they decided to balance the power of the government between three branches, there was first the executive branch, then the legislative branch, and finally the judicial branch.

10.  The Roman government was a strange mix of a democracy and a republic. An interesting fact that the people of Rome took many of their ideas of government from the Ancient Greeks.

11.  http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/roma ns/government/index.htm http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/roma ns/government/index.htm  http://www.unrv.com/government.php http://www.unrv.com/government.php  Pictures are from Google.