They are not comparable. They are centuries apart and the societies are totally different. Rome was ruled by two annually elected consuls who at the beginning of the republic were quite like kings and whose power was undefined and therefore unlimited. The consuls acted as executives, legislators, judges and military commanders. The senate was not an elected body. The assembly of the people and the assembly of the soldiers did not elect representatives. Citizens voted on legislation themselves in these assemblies. The assemblies also elected the consuls and acted as courts of appeal during most of the republican period. At the beginning the patrician aristocracy had virtual monopoly over politics and the offices of state. Over time, the leaders of the plebeian movement were given access to