“To an outside observer, then, the Roman constitution and community appears as a self-regulating device, kept in being by a system of checks and balances that not only prevented disintegration from within but made the community better able to cope with threats from without. To Romans it looked different. First, as members of the community they ascribed value to the system: anything that tended to upset the balance was undesirable and vicious; and as the system was a closed one, concerned with a single body politic, all virtues and vices would be seen in terms of that community. Secondly, they saw the community as a living being, a person. Both factors help to explain why they saw politics and history in moral terms.”
—Barbara Levick, “Morals, Politics, and the Fall of the Roman Republic,” Greece and Rome
According to the author, how did Roman citizens view their government and community? What purpose did the government serve?
