Rousseau’s Rome: Book IV of the Social Contract and the Specter of Montesquieu

It is traditionally thought that Rousseau and Montesquieu use the example of the Roman Republic in their works to explore the desirable yet irretrievable aspects of ancient republics, yet the real work that Rome has been doing in Rousseau’s Social Contract has been largely neglected by scholars. Rousseau’s discussion of the Roman Republic constitutes a direct theoretical engagement with Montesquieu’s empiricism and shows this thinker’s political theory to be faulty. Rousseau’s analysis, rather than displaying a romanticism with the ancients, instead shows the manner in which one is to understand and interpret political phenomena and, further, to make predictions about political improvement. I argue that the Roman example serves as a battleground for the competing theories of these two powerhouse political philosophers. Rousseau’s Rome provides a model for what history can teach us and emphasizes the role of political right in practical politics.