Abstract

The concept of political representation, one of the most significant achievements of the revolutionary decade and a symbol of the political superiority of the moderns, seemed to exclude any institutional recovery from the past. However, the concrete public debates and the specific political arrangements demonstrate that the ancient canon continued to present itself as a constant point of reference. By examining emblematic historical cases, not only in France but also in the universe of the so-called sister republics, it is possible to identify and decode the strategies which, through more or less deliberate distortions, aimed at the appropriation and reuse of a continuously evolving past, reshaped in the light of concrete political reality. The persistence of ancient magistracies and institutions at the origins of modern representative practices will then demonstrate the need to reconsider any dichotomy regarding the ancient political model.