No, it means Senatus Populusque Romanus, one of the mottos of the Roman Republic. So today we're going to do some old-school great man history and focus on Julius Caesar while trying to answer a question, when, if ever, is it okay to stab someone 23 times? INTRO Shakespeare answers that question by saying that Roman senators killed Caesar because he was going to destroy the Roman Republic, but even if that's true, we still have to answer whether A, the Roman Republic was worth preserving, and B, whether Caesar actually destroyed it. One of the things that made the Roman Republic endure, both in reality and in the imagination, was its balance. According to the Greek historian Polybius, the three kinds of government, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, were all found united in Rome. And it was no easy thing to determine with assurance whether the entire state was an aristocracy, a democracy, or a monarchy. At the heart of this blended system was the Senate, a body of legislators chosen from a group of elite families.