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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
The efforts of scholars have failed to find a generally accepted single reason for the institution of what it will be convenient to call Consular Tribunes, i.e. Tribuni Militum consulari potestate or consulari imperio or pro consulibus. The irregular oscillation between pairs of Consuls and three, and later four, Consular Tribunes which is attested for the first forty years of the institution (444–406 B.C.) appeared to Beloch, not without reason, to contain an element of irrationality and to be without parallel in ancient constitutional practice. But even those scholars who are least inclined to trust the consular Fasti would admit that, though they may contain interpolations or omissions or the misreading of names, the fact of this oscillation cannot be denied, and, moreover, that the names of magistrates of this period are, in the main, to be trusted.
This note attempts to make some suggestions about the Consular Tribunes and their immediate successors based, in the main, on the Consular Fasti beginning with the year 444 B.C.
2 This variation of nomenclature suggests, if it does not prove, that no ancient document, e.g. a law, was preserved which contained an official title of these magistrates. It may be assumed, however, that the term ‘consul’ had become the usual name of the chief magistrate relatively early, see Jones, H. Stuart, Camb. Anc. Hist. VII, 438Google Scholar.
3 Römische Geschichte 254.
4 See e.g. the judicious discussion in F. Cornelius, Untersuchungen zur frühen römischen Geschichte 50 ff.
5 Livy IV, 1–6 passim; Dion. Hal. XI, 53–61, Zonaras VII, 19; Digest. 1, 2, 2, 25 (Pomponius).
6 The validity of this fact is not impaired by the uncertainty by what body and by what procedure Consular Tribunes were elected and invested with their special powers. For the view that they were elected by the Comitia Tributa see Staveley, E. S., ‘The Significance of the Consular Tribunate,’ JRS XLIII, 1953, 30 ffGoogle Scholar.
7 Livy IV, 7, 2. See especially Cornelius, o.c. 59 ff, with the criticisms of Hofmann, W., Gnomon XIX, 1943, 80 f.Google Scholar, and of Staveley, o.c. 31 ff.
8 Fraccaro, P., ‘La storia romana arcaica,’ Rend. dell' Istituto Lombardo LXXXV, 1952, 108Google Scholar (Opuscula 1, 17). ‘Gli antichi non sapevano più il perchè di questa riforma.’
9 ibid. p. 117. (Opuscula 1, 22) ‘romanzata ben più che ricostruita’.
10 See e.g. CAH VII, 582 f.
11 G. De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani 11, 193 f.; ‘Le origini dell' ordinamento centuriato.’ Riv. Fil. LXI, 1931, 289 ffGoogle Scholar. But see Fraccaro, , ‘La storia dell' antichissimo exercito romano, e l'età dell' ordinamento centuriato,’ Atti de 2° congresso naz. di Studi Romani III, 1931, 91 ff.Google Scholar: ‘Ancora sull'età dell' ordinamento centuriato,’ Athenaeum n.s. XII, 1934, 57 ff.
12 See von Fritz, K., ‘The Reorganisation of the Roman Government in 366 B.C.,’ Historia 1, 1950, 39 ff.Google Scholar; U. von Lübtow, Das römische Volk: sein Staat und sein Recht 217 ff.
13 This is not beyond dispute. See Mommsen, Staatsrecht II3, 335, nn. 1 and 3.
14 Meyer, Eduard, Kleine Schriften II, 281Google Scholar, n. I, 303, and von Lübtow, o.c., 220.
15 e.g. Consuls 443–439 B.C.; 431–427; 413–409; Consular Tribunes 420–414. An institution that proceeds by fits and starts does at least provoke repeated consideration or reconsideration of its raison d'être.
16 ‘Ein reines Phantasiegemälde’ (Ed. Meyer, o.c. 281, n. 1) may overshoot the mark, but we are not entitled to silence criticism by an appeal to the general tendency of the annalistic narrative as though that must be based on authentic evidence. Thus, the later annalists who describe bitter struggles by plebeian tribunes to impose on the Senate the election of Consular Tribunes rather than Consuls only to find that, when they succeeded, patricians alone were elected are not made credible by their readiness to repeat these paradoxical situations or by the honest, if uncritical, readiness of Livy to record, without questioning, what he found in his sources.
17 Von Lübtow, o.c. 218. When Dionysius of Halicarnassus (XI, 60, 5; 62, 2) makes the decision the occasion for a vote ‘of the Senate and People‘ repeated every year, he is doubtless misapplying his knowledge of Greek institutions.
18 e.g. by Staveley, o.c. 32.
19 Hugh Last, CAH VII, chap. XV.
20 H. Stuart Jones, CAH VII, 524 ff.
21 Since the Lex Canuleia of 445 B.C.
22 There is a slight margin of error in the statistics of this and later paragraphs due to a few uncertainties in the Fasti, but the general conclusions remain valid.
23 In the years from 406 to 367 B.C. six names appear in the consular Fasti four or five times, and four names appear six or seven times.
24 Valerius Potitus appears in the Fasti as Consular Tribune in 414, 406, 403, 401, and 398 B.C.
25 See for the reading, Broughton, T. R. S., The Magistrates of the Roman Republic 1, 91Google Scholar. It is proper to take this opportunity of acknowledging the debt which all students of the Roman Republic owe to this admirable piece of work.
26 o.c. 252.
27 o.c. 253, ‘ja möglich, aber doch sehr wenig wahrscheinlich.’
28 That this was not due to disappointment with the military capacity of the patrician Consular Tribunes of the preceding year is shown by the careers of the Consular Tribunes of 401 and of two at least of those of 397. So, too, the college that preceded that of 379 was full of proved generals.
29 Despite variant numbers in Diodorus it is generally agreed that the number six was constant. See Beloch, o.c. 255 ff.
30 Livy VII, 3, 3–8.
3l o.c. II3, 75, n. 2.
32 Mommsen, o.c. II3, 184.
33 Even granted that the wars of the last generation or so may well have thinned the ranks of the patricians they must have displayed a marked self abnegation in accepting this settlement.
34 See for recent discussions of these events K. von Fritz, o.c., and J. Bleicken, Das Volkstribunat der klassischen Republik 16 ff.
35 Two patrician consuls are found in the Fasti for the years 355, 354, 353, 351, (?) 349 (see Broughton, o.c. 128), 345, 343. The few instances later than this are not beyond dispute and do not affect this question.
36 Livy VII, 5, 9.
37 Livy IX, 30, 3.
38 Livy VIII, 23, 12.
