Abstract

Through a direct study of ancient sources, and particularly Cicero, the author traces the origin and development of the concept of res publica in Rome. More particularly, this notion finds a place in the central values of the late republican age: "civitas, res publica, populus". "Res publica" does not identify a single constitutional form nor less the republican form: "res publica" is the political synthesis of Rome. Though we may find a republican ideology in the Ist century a.d., the Augustian principate and the following imperial age witness the decline of the Roman notion of "res publica", which is definetely stated in Augustine's "De civitate Dei".