roman republic Options

[Nugget]

Well, my American Gov't teacher assigned the class a group project due tomorrow and said it would be fun. It's about how you landed on a planet with 250 people and no contact to Earth. Make up a government and functions of your government to help your people survive or how they would live. We chose to do the Roman Republic. She was wrong. It's stressing people in my team and me. We each have a part to take. Mine is:

What are the purposes of government of the Roman Republic?

This is a HUGE favor and I hope some of you guys can help!

[*mipadi*]

Strictly speaking, early governments were formed around the concept of natural rights; that is, they were formed to protect the natural rights of the people. This can probably be attributed to the Roman Empire, at least in some respects. Thomas Hobbes (who, admittedly, came much later than the Roman Empire) wrote that man was in misery without government; the world, and life, was "nasty, brutish, and short" (in Leviathan). Therefore, governments are created to help people rise above the savagery of the natural world.

The main reason for any government to rise--and this certainly applies to the Roman Empire--is due to a concept known as the "social contract", in which a group of people come together for the collective good of the whole. For example, neither you nor I can grow crops, sell goods, and defend ourselves against others; but you and I together, along with a bunch of other people, can do all those things and more, because each of us can specialize. I can be a farmer and grow crops; you can be a merchant and sell goods; some other guy can be a soldier and protect us; another person can be a hunter and get us meat. Therefore, government is a synergy--the whole, government, is greater than the sum of the parts.

This is speaking of government in a general sense, but the philosophy clearly applies to any government, from the Greek city-states, to the Roman empire, to American government. In sum, the Roman Empire arose in order to a) protect the populace from both outsiders and each other; and b) to allow people to work together to achieve something greater than they could individually.