Populares

Populares

References to populares in scholarship today "do not imply a co-ordinated 'party' with a distinctive ideological character, a kind of political grouping for which there is no evidence in Rome, but simply allude to a... type of senator" who is "at least at that moment acting as the people's man". This is in contrast to the 19th century view of the populares from Mommsen, in which they are a group of aristocrats which supported democracy and the rights and material interests of the common people. The highly influential view of Christian Meier redefined the popularis as a label for a senator using the popular assemblies' law-making powers to overrule decisions of the senate, primarily as a political tactic to get ahead in Roman politics. In this view, a populares politician is a person who: