A Person Elected to Roman Consul Served a Term of 1 Year and Could Not Run Again for
A consul held the highest elected political function of the Roman Republic (c. 509 BC to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the cursus honorum (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politicians aspired) later that of the censor. Each year, the Centuriate Assembly elected 2 consuls to serve jointly for a one-year term. The consuls alternated in holding fasces – taking turns leading – each month when both were in Rome and a consul's imperium extended over Rome and all its provinces.
There were two consuls in order to create a bank check on the power of any individual citizen in accordance with the republican belief that the powers of the old kings of Rome should be spread out into multiple offices. To that end, each consul could veto the actions of the other consul.
After the establishment of the Empire (27 BC), the consuls became mere symbolic representatives of Rome'due south republican heritage and held very little ability and authorisation, with the Emperor acting as the supreme dominance.
History [edit]
Nether the Republic [edit]
According to Roman tradition, afterwards the expulsion of the final king, Tarquin Superbus, the powers and say-so of the king were given to the newly instituted consulship. Originally, consuls were called praetors ("leader"), referring to their duties as the chief military commanders. Past at least 300 BC the title of Consul became commonly used.[1] Aboriginal writers usually derive the title consul from the Latin verb consulere, "to take counsel", but this is nearly probable a later gloss of the term,[2] which probably derives—in view of the articulation nature of the office—from con- and sal-, "get together" or from con- and sell-/sedl-, "sit down down together with" or "adjacent to".[3] In Greek, the championship was originally rendered as στρατηγὸς ὕπατος , strategos hypatos ("the supreme general"), and after simply as ὕπατος (hypatos).[2]
The consulship was believed by the Romans to date back to the traditional establishment of the Republic in 509 BC, but the succession of consuls was non continuous in the 5th century BC, when the consulship was supposedly replaced with a board of consular tribunes, who was elected whenever the armed services needs of the country were significant enough to warrant the election of more than the ii usual consuls.[4] These remained in place until the office was abolished in 367 BC and the consulship was reintroduced.[v]
Consuls had extensive powers in peacetime (authoritative, legislative, and judicial), and in wartime often held the highest military command. Boosted religious duties included certain rites which, as a sign of their formal importance, could merely be carried out by the highest country officials. Consuls too read auguries, an essential religious ritual earlier leading armies into the field.
2 consuls were elected each year, serving together, each with veto ability over the other's actions, a normal principle for magistracies. They were elected by the comitia centuriata, which had an aristocratic bias in its voting structure which only increased over the years from its foundation.[ citation needed ] [ dubious ] All the same, they formally causeless powers but after the ratification of their election in the older comitia curiata, which granted the consuls their imperium past enacting a law, the "lex curiata de imperio".
If a delegate died during his term (not uncommon when consuls were in the forefront of battle) or was removed from part, another would be elected by the comitia centuriata to serve the remainder of the term as delegate suffectus ("suffect consul"). A delegate elected to commencement the yr—chosen a consul ordinarius ("ordinary consul")—held more prestige than a suffect delegate, partly considering the year would be named for ordinary consuls (see consular dating).
According to tradition, the consulship was initially reserved for patricians and but in 367 BC did plebeians win the right to stand for this supreme office, when the rogatio Licinia Sextia provided that at least ane consul each twelvemonth should be plebeian. The first plebeian consul, Lucius Sextius, was elected the post-obit year. Nevertheless, the office remained largely in the easily of a few families as, according to Gelzer[ who? ], simply xv novi homines - "new men" with no consular background - were elected to the consulship until the election of Cicero in 63 BC.[6] Mod historians have questioned the traditional account of plebeian emancipation during the early Republic (see Conflict of the Orders), noting for instance that about 30 percent of the consuls prior to Sextius had plebeian, not patrician, names. It is possible that just the chronology has been distorted, but information technology seems that one of the first consuls, Lucius Junius Brutus, came from a plebeian family.[7] Another possible explanation is that during the 5th-century social struggles, the office of consul was gradually monopolized past a patrician aristocracy.[8]
During times of war, the master qualification for consul was military machine skill and reputation, merely at all times the selection was politically charged. With the passage of fourth dimension, the consulship became the normal endpoint of the cursus honorum, the sequence of offices pursued by the ambitious Roman who chose to pursue political power and influence. When Lucius Cornelius Sulla regulated the cursus by law, the minimum age of ballot to consul became, in effect, 42 years of age.[9]
Beginning in the late Republic, subsequently finishing a consular twelvemonth, a former delegate would usually serve a lucrative term as a proconsul, the Roman Governor of one of the (senatorial) provinces.
It would non be uncommon for the patrician consuls of the early republic to intersperse public part with agricultural labor.[10] In Cicero's words: in agris erant tum senatores, id est senes:[eleven] 'In those days senators—that is, seniors—would live on their farms'. This do was obsolete by the 2nd century.
Nether the Empire [edit]
Although throughout the early years of the Principate, the consuls were yet formally elected by the Comitia Centuriata, they were de facto nominated past the princeps.[12] As the years progressed, the distinction between the Comitia Centuriata and the Comitia Tributa (which elected the lower magisterial positions) appears to take disappeared, and then for the purposes of the consular elections, in that location came to be just a single "associates of the people" which elected all the magisterial positions of the state, while the consuls continued to be nominated past the princeps.[13]
The imperial consulate during the principate (until the 3rd century) was an important position, admitting as the method through which the Roman aristocracy could progress through to the higher levels of imperial administration – only former consuls could get consular legates, the proconsuls of Africa and Asia, or the urban prefect of Rome.[14] Information technology was a mail that would be occupied by a homo halfway through his career, in his early thirties for a patrician, or in his early forties for well-nigh others.[12] Emperors frequently appointed themselves, or their protégés or relatives, consuls, even without regard to the age requirements. Cassius Dio states that Caligula intended to make his horse Incitatus consul, but was assassinated earlier he could do so.[15]
The demand for a pool of men to fill the consular positions forced Augustus to remodel the suffect consulate, allowing more than the 2 elected for the ordinary consulate.[12] During the reigns of the Julio-Claudians, the ordinary consuls who began the year usually relinquished their role mid-twelvemonth, with the election for the suffect consuls occurring at the same time as that for the ordinary consuls. During reigns of the Flavian and Antonine emperors, the ordinary consuls tended to resign after a period of four months, and the elections were moved to 12 January of the year in which they were to agree function. Election of the consuls were transferred to the Senate during the Flavian or Antonine periods, although through to the 3rd century, the people were still called on to ratify the Senate's selections.[xvi]
The proliferation of suffect consuls through this process, and the resource allotment of this role to homines novi tended, over fourth dimension, to devalue the office.[14] Withal, the high regard placed upon the ordinary consulate remained intact, as it was one of the few offices that one could share with the emperor, and during this period it was filled mostly past patricians or by individuals who had consular ancestors.[12] If they were especially skilled or valued, they may even take achieved a 2nd (or rarely, a third) consulate. Prior to achieving the consulate, these individuals already had a meaning career behind them, and would wait to go along serving the state, filling in the postal service upon which the country functioned.[17] Consequently, holding the ordinary consulship was a keen honor and the office was the major symbol of the still relatively republican constitution. Probably as part of seeking formal legitimacy, the break-away Gallic Empire had its own pairs of consuls during its beingness (260–274). The listing of consuls for this country is incomplete, fatigued from inscriptions and coins.
By the terminate of the tertiary century, much had changed. The loss of many pre-consular functions and the gradual inroad of the equites into the traditional senatorial administrative and military functions, meant that senatorial careers virtually vanished prior to their appointment as consuls.[17] This had the effect of seeing a suffect consulship granted at an before age, to the point that by the 4th century, it was being held by men in their early twenties, and mayhap younger, without the significant political careers backside them that was normal previously.[17] As time progressed, 2nd consulates, usually ordinary, became far more common than had been the example during the first 2 centuries, while the first consulship was usually a suffect consulate. Besides, the consulate during this menstruum was no longer just the province of senators – the automatic awarding of a suffect consulship to the equestrian praetorian prefects (who were given the ornamenta consularia upon achieving their role) immune them to style themselves cos. II when they were later granted an ordinary consulship past the emperor.[17] All this had the event of further devaluing the office of consul, to the bespeak that by the final years of the 3rd century, property an ordinary consulate was occasionally left out of the cursus inscriptions, while suffect consulships were hardly ever recorded by the beginning decades of the 4th century.[17]
I of the reforms of Constantine I (r. 306–337) was to assign one of the consuls to the metropolis of Rome, and the other to Constantinople. Therefore, when the Roman Empire was divided into two halves on the death of Theodosius I (r. 379–395), the emperor of each half caused the right of appointing i of the consuls—although on occasion an emperor did let his colleague to engage both consuls for various reasons. The consulship, bereft of whatsoever real power, continued to be a great award, but the celebrations attention information technology – above all the chariot races – had come to involve considerable expense, which only a few citizens could afford, to the extent that function of the expense had to be covered by the state.[xviii] In the 6th century, the consulship was increasingly sparsely given, until it was allowed to lapse nether Justinian I (r. 527–565): the western consulship lapsed in 534, with Decius Paulinus the last holder, and the consulship of the East in 541, with Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius. Consular dating had already been abolished in 537, when Justinian introduced dating by the emperor's regnal yr and the indiction.[xix] In the eastern court, the appointment to consulship became a part of the rite of proclamation of a new emperor from Justin Ii (r. 565–578) on, and is last attested in the proclamation of the futurity Constans 2 (r. 641–668) as consul in 632.[20] In the tardily 9th century, Emperor Leo the Wise (r. 886–912) finally abolished consular dating with Novel 94. By that fourth dimension, the Greek titles for consul and ex-delegate, "hypatos" and "apo hypaton", had been transformed to relatively lowly honorary dignities.[21]
In the west, the rank of consul was occasionally bestowed upon individuals past the Papacy. In 719, the championship of Roman consul was offered by the Pope to Charles Martel, although he refused information technology.[22] Most 853, Alfred the Great, then a child aged iv or five, was made a Roman consul by the Pope.
Powers and responsibilities [edit]
Republican duties [edit]
Traditionally, subsequently the expulsion of the kings, all the powers that had belonged to the kings were transferred to two offices: the consulship and the office of rex sacrorum. While the rex sacrorum inherited the kings' position as imperial priest and various religious functions were handed off to the pontiffs, the consuls were given the remaining civil and military responsibilities. To forbid abuse of the kingly power, this authority was shared by two consuls, each of whom could veto the other'south actions, with brusque annual terms.[23]
The consuls were invested with the executive ability of the state and headed the government of the Commonwealth. Initially, the consuls held vast executive and judicial power. In the gradual development of the Roman legal system, withal, some important functions were detached from the consulship and assigned to new officers. Thus, in 443 BC, the responsibility to conduct the demography was taken from the consuls and given to the censors. The 2nd function taken from the consulship was their judicial power. Their position as chief judges was transferred to the praetors in 366 BC. Afterwards this time, the consul would only serve equally judges in extraordinary criminal cases and merely when called upon past decree of the Senate.
Civil sphere [edit]
For the most office, power was divided between civil and military spheres. As long equally the consuls were in the pomerium (the urban center of Rome), they were at the caput of government, and all the other magistrates, with the exception of the tribunes of the plebeians, were subordinate to them, merely retained independence of office. The internal machinery of the Democracy was under the consuls' supervision. In order to let the consuls greater authorization in executing laws, the consuls had the right of summons and arrest, which was limited but by the right of entreatment from their judgment. This ability of penalization even extended to inferior magistrates.
As part of their executive functions, the consuls were responsible for carrying into effect the decrees of the Senate and the laws of the assemblies. Sometimes, in great emergencies, they might even act on their own authorization and responsibility. The consuls too served as the chief diplomat of the Roman country. Earlier any foreign ambassadors reached the Senate, they met with the consuls. The consul would introduce ambassadors to the Senate, and they alone carried on the negotiations between the Senate and foreign states.
The consuls could convene the Senate, and presided over its meetings. Each delegate served as president of the Senate for a calendar month. They could also summon any of the iii Roman assemblies (Curiate, Centuriate, and Tribal) and presided over them. Thus, the consuls conducted the elections and put legislative measures to the vote. When neither delegate was within the metropolis, their borough duties were assumed by the praetor urbanus.
Each consul was accompanied in every public appearance past twelve lictors, who displayed the magnificence of the office and served as his bodyguards. Each lictor held a fasces, a package of rods that contained an axe. The rods symbolized the power of scourging, and the axe the power of death penalty[ commendation needed ]. When inside the pomerium, the lictors removed the axes from the fasces to testify that a denizen could not be executed without a trial. Upon entering the Comitia Centuriata, the lictors would lower the fasces to evidence that the powers of the consuls derive from the people (populus romanus).
Military sphere [edit]
Outside the walls of Rome, the powers of the consuls were far more than extensive in their role as commanders-in-chief of all Roman legions. Information technology was in this function that the consuls were vested with full imperium. When legions were ordered past a decree of the Senate, the consuls conducted the levy in the Campus Martius. Upon entering the ground forces, all soldiers had to take their oath of allegiance to the consuls. The consuls also oversaw the gathering of troops provided past Rome's allies.[24]
Inside the metropolis a consul could punish and arrest a citizen, but had no power to inflict death penalty. When on campaign, withal, a consul could inflict any punishment he saw fit on any soldier, officer, denizen, or ally.
Each consul commanded an ground forces, commonly two legions stiff, with the help of armed forces tribunes and a quaestor who had fiscal duties. In the rare case that both consuls marched together, each one held the control for a day respectively. A typical consular army was about 20,000 men potent and consisted of two citizen and two allied legions. In the early on years of the Democracy, Rome'southward enemies were located in primal Italian republic, and then campaigns lasted a few months. Equally Rome's frontiers expanded, in the 2nd century BC, the campaigns became lengthier. Rome was a warlike order, and very seldom did non wage war.[25] And so the consul upon inbound part was expected by the Senate and the People to march his ground forces against Rome'due south enemies, and expand the Roman frontiers. His soldiers expected to return to their homes subsequently the entrada with spoils. If the delegate won an overwhelming victory, he was hailed as imperator by his troops, and could request to exist granted a triumph.
The consul could conduct the entrada every bit he saw fit, and had unlimited powers. Notwithstanding, after the entrada, he could be prosecuted for his misdeeds (for example for abusing the provinces, or wasting public coin, as Scipio Africanus was accused by Cato in 205 BC).
Abuse prevention [edit]
Abuse of ability by consuls was prevented with each consul given the power to veto his colleague. Therefore, except in the provinces equally commanders-in-chief where each consul's ability was supreme, the consuls could but act not against each other'due south adamant volition. Against the sentence of one delegate, an entreatment could be brought before his colleague, which, if successful, would see the sentence overturned. In social club to avoid unnecessary conflicts, only one consul would actually perform the office'south duties every calendar month and could act without direct interference. In the next month, the consuls would switch roles with one another. This would continue until the finish of the consular term.
Another point which acted as a check confronting consuls was the certainty that after the terminate of their term they would be chosen to account for their actions while in part.
There were also three other restrictions on consular ability. Their term in office was short (one year); their duties were pre-decided by the Senate; and they could non stand again for election immediately after the end of their office. Usually a period of ten years was expected between consulships.
Governorship [edit]
Subsequently leaving office, the consuls were assigned by the Senate to a province to administer equally governor. The provinces to which each consul was assigned were drawn by lot and adamant before the end of his consulship. Transferring his consular imperium to proconsular Imperium, the delegate would become a proconsul and governor of i (or several) of Rome'due south many provinces. As a proconsul, his imperium was limited to just a specified province and not the entire Republic. Any exercise of proconsular imperium in whatever other province was illegal. Also, a proconsul was not allowed to get out his province before his term was complete or before the inflow of his successor. Exceptions were given only on special permission of the Senate. Virtually terms as governor lasted between 1 and five years.
Appointment of the dictator [edit]
In times of crunch, when Rome'south territory was in immediate danger, a dictator was appointed by the consuls for a period of no more than six months, afterward the proposition of the Senate.[26] While the dictator held office, the imperium of the consuls was subordinate to the dictator.
Regal duties [edit]
Later on Augustus became the commencement Roman emperor in 27 BC with the establishment of the principate, the consuls lost most of their powers and responsibilities under the Roman Empire. Though even so officially the highest role of the state, with the emperor's superior imperium they were merely a symbol of Rome'due south republican heritage. One of the two consular positions was often occupied by emperors themselves and somewhen became reserved solely for the Emperor. However, the imperial consuls withal maintained the right to preside at meetings of the Senate, exercising this right at the pleasure of the Emperor[ citation needed ]. They partially administered justice in boggling cases, and presented games in the Circus Maximus and all public solemnities in honor of the Emperor at their ain expense. Later the expiration of their offices, the ex-consuls usually went on to govern one of the provinces that were administered by the Senate. They ordinarily served proconsular terms of three to five years[ citation needed ].
Consular dating [edit]
Roman dates were customarily kept according to the names of the 2 consuls who took office that yr, much similar a regnal year in a monarchy. For case, the twelvemonth 59 BC in the mod calendar was called past the Romans "the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus", since the two colleagues in the consulship were Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus — although Caesar dominated the consulship and then thoroughly that year that it was jokingly referred to as "the consulship of Julius and Caesar".[27] The appointment the consuls took office varied: from 222 BC to 153 BC they took office fifteen March, and due to the 2d Celtiberian State of war, from 153 BC onwards the consuls took office on 1 Jan.[28] The practice of dating years ab urbe condita (from the supposed foundation date of Rome) was less oft used.
In Latin, the ablative absolute structure is frequently used to express the date, such as "M. Messalla et M. Pupio Pisone consulibus", translated literally as "Marcus Messalla and Marcus Pupius Piso beingness the consuls", which appears in Caesar's De Bello Gallico.
Consular Dating Key
- 509–479 BC: 1 September–29 August (Baronial had simply 29 days in Aboriginal Rome)
- 478–451 BC: 1 August–31 July
- 449–403 BC: 13 December–12 December
- 402–393 BC: one October–29 September (September had 29 days)
- 392–329 BC: 1 July–29 June (29 days)
- 222–154 BC: 15 March–fourteen March
- 153–46 BC: i January–29 Dec (29 days)[29]
Epigraphy [edit]
An antoninianus commemorating the third consulate ("COS III") of the emperor Philip (248 Advertising).
The word consul is abbreviated as COS. [30] The disappearance of the N is explained by the fact that in Classical Latin an Due north earlier a fricative is pronounced as a nasalization of the previous vowel (meaning consul is pronounced /kõːsul/).
Also, consul is pronounced [ko:sul], as shown in ancient writing, "COSOL", whereas the classical spelling (consul) seems like an etymological reminder of the nasal consonant.[31] If a senator held the consulship twice so: COS becomes COS 2; thrice becomes COS III, etc.
Lists of Roman consuls [edit]
For a complete list of Roman consuls, meet:
- List of Roman consuls
- List of undated Roman consuls
- Listing of consuls designate
See too [edit]
| | Look upward delegate in Wiktionary, the gratis dictionary. |
- Constitution of the Roman Democracy – Norms, customs, and written laws, which guided the authorities of the Roman Republic
- French Consulate – Government of Revolutionary French republic from 1799 to 1804
References [edit]
- ^ Lintott, Andrew (2004). The Constitution of the Roman Commonwealth. Oxford Academy Press. p. 104. ISBN0198150687.
- ^ a b Kübler, B. (1900). "Consul". Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Band 4, Halbband 7, Claudius mons-Cornificius. pp. 1112–1138.
- ^ Gizewski, Christian (2013). "Delegate(es)". Brill's New Pauly. Brill Online. Archived from the original on x November 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
- ^ Forsythe, Gary (2005). A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the Kickoff Punic War . Academy of California Printing. p. 236. ISBN0520226518.
- ^ Forsythe, Gary (2005). A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the Offset Punic War . University of California Press. p. 237. ISBN0520226518.
- ^ Wirszubzki, Ch. Libertas as a Political Thought at Rome during the Late Democracy and Early Principate. Reprint. Cambridge University Printing, 1960, p. 15.
- ^ Oxford Classical Lexicon, tertiary ed., Hornblower, Southward. and Spawforth, A. edd., s.5. Iunius Brutus, Lucius
- ^ T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, chapter 10.4.
- ^ Telford, 50. (2014). Sulla: A Dictator Reconsidered. Uk: Pen & Sword Military, pg. 216
- ^ Jehne, Chiliad. (2011) 'The rising of the consular as a social type in the third and 2nd centuries BC' in Becket al. (eds.) Consuls and Res Publica (Cambridge) 212
- ^ Cic. Sen. 56
- ^ a b c d Bagnall et al. 1987, p. 1. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBagnallCameronSchwartzWorp1987 (help)
- ^ Coffin, John B, A History of the Roman Empire from its Foundation to the Death of Marcus Aurelius (1893), pg. 29
- ^ a b Bagnall et al. 1987, pp. i–ii. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBagnallCameronSchwartzWorp1987 (help)
- ^ Cassius Dio, Roman History, 59:14:7
- ^ Michael Gagarin, Elaine Fantham; The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, Volume 1 (2010), pgs. 296-297
- ^ a b c d east Bagnall et al. 1987, p. two. sfn mistake: no target: CITEREFBagnallCameronSchwartzWorp1987 (assist)
- ^ Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991), Oxford Lexicon of Byzantium, Oxford University Printing, p. 527, ISBN978-0-19-504652-6
- ^ Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991), Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford Academy Press, pp. 526–527, ISBN978-0-19-504652-vi
- ^ Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991), Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford Academy Press, p. 526, ISBN978-0-19-504652-half dozen
- ^ Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991), Oxford Lexicon of Byzantium, Oxford Academy Printing, pp. 526, 963–964, ISBN978-0-19-504652-6
- ^ e. The Frankish Kingdom. 2001. The Encyclopedia of Earth History Archived 2009-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Derow 2012, p. 368.
- ^ Polybius - Histories book VI
- ^ State of war and society in the Roman Globe ed. Rich & Shipley
- ^ Arthur Keaveney, in Sulla, the Terminal Republican (Routledge, 1982, 2d edition 2005), p. 162ff online, discusses the appointment of a dictator in regard to Sulla, in which case exceptions were made.
- ^ Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars: Julius Caesar Chapter XX.
- ^ Due east.J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient Earth (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), p. 64
- ^ Robert Maxwell Ogilvie, Commentary on Livy, books one–5, Oxford, Clarendon Printing, 1965, pp. 404, 405.
- ^ (in French) Mireille Cébeillac-Gervasoni, Maria Letizia Caldelli, Fausto Zevi, Épigraphie latine. Ostie : cent inscriptions dans leur contexte, Armand Colin, 2006, ISBN 2-200-21774-9, p. 34.
- ^ (in French) Pierre Monteil, Éléments de phonétique et de morphologie du latin, Nathan, 1970, p. 75.
Bibliography [edit]
- Bagnall, Roger Due south; et al. (1987). Consuls of the later Roman Empire. Philological monographs of the American Philological Association. Vol. 36. London: Scholar Press.
- Burgess, R. Westward. (1989). "Consuls and Consular Dating in the Subsequently Roman Empire". Phoenix (Review). 43 (ii): 143–157. doi:10.2307/1088213. JSTOR 1088213.
- Brook, Hans; Duplá, Antonio; Jehne, Martin; et al., eds. (2011). Consuls and Res Publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-one-139-49719-0.
- Derow, Peter Sidney (2012). "delegate". In Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (eds.). The Oxford classical dictionary (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 368–7. ISBN978-0-19-954556-viii. OCLC 959667246.
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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_consul
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