Overview

Rome did not survive by crushing rebellion. It survived by legalizing it. In The People's Shield, historian James Callahan reveals how one of the most radical political inventions in history-the Tribune of the Plebs-transformed class conflict into stability and turned protest into law. From the debt crises that drove ordinary Romans to secede from their own city, to the creation of a magistrate whose body was sacred and whose veto could halt the machinery of the state, this book traces how Rome built a system that restrained power without destroying authority. Following the evolution of the Tribunate through the crises of the Republic-from the codification of law and the struggle for political equality to its weaponization by the Gracchi and its final absorption by Augustus-The People's Shield explains how a defensive institution became the foundation of imperial rule. Clear, dramatic, and grounded in ancient sources, this is the essential account of how dissent saved the Roman Republic-and how its success ultimately transformed it forever.

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