Having dealt with the scale of Roman politics and its implications for the individual institutions in Rome, in this final chapter we will focus on the connection between politics and society in general. The aim is to take a broader look at issues raised in the previous chapters and place them in their proper socio-economic context. The hope is to shed further light on the relationship between elite and masses, and the extent to which politics represented an integrative factor connecting the two.

A central theme in this study of Roman politics has been the scale of participation. It was argued that it remained very limited, not least when compared to the size of the city of Rome and with the Roman citizenbody as whole. Probably no more than a few per cent could attend the meetings and assemblies, and often the level of attendance would have been much lower. The implication is therefore that the large majority of the population never took part in the political process. The Roman system was, in other words, based on the few rather than the many.

This conclusion is in itself neither new nor surprising. A number of factors can be adduced, which would have contributed to keeping attendance down. There were practical difficulties posed by the amount of time taken up by meetings and the lack of remuneration for the lower classes.