L’Antiquité Classique 77 (2008), p. 107-125. Who Were the Tribuni Militum Consulari Potestate?
According to the history of early Rome as recounted by Livy, beginning in 444 B. C. and with only nine exceptions from 426 until 367 the commonwealth was led not by consuls but by boards of magistrates called tribuni militum consulari potestate. 1 As
tribuni militum these men were army officers. But their potestas consularis gave them the highest civilian magistracy as well as imperium in the field. 2 This double nature of their office is reflected in the two explanations for its creation that appear in Livy. Livy’s own view was that the office was a compromise offered to the plebeians by the senate at one juncture in the political struggles between the orders, denying plebeian access to the consulship but offering participation in an equivalent magistracy under another name. 3 The consulship may have been invisus plebi magistratus, “ a magistracy hated by the people”, but the new magistracy brought nothing but a change of name. 4 According to Livy, it was not until 400 that a plebeian was elected tribunus militum consulari potestate. 5 Livy’s pious remark on the plebeians’ acquiescence to the outcome of the first election, Hanc modestiam aequitatemque et altitudinem animi ubi nunc in uno inveneris, quae tum populi universi fuit, “ this modesty, fairness and highmindedness that you might find today individually was then found among the whole people” hardly masks the absurdity of the situation. Livy, however, realized that others saw the matter differently. According to this different view the first college of three tribuni militum consulari potestate took office in 444 because facing a war on three fronts (Veii, Aequi and Volscians as well as a rebellious Ardea), the Romans
1 There is an alternative date for the introduction of the military tribunate, 389 B. C. EUTROPIUS II, 1. Save for fragments the History of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is lost for this period. For other sources including Diodorus Siculus and the Fasti Capitolini and Fasti Hydatiani see the entries for each year in T. R. S. BROUGHTON, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic I, New York, 1951. – This paper was begun while I was Professor in Charge of the Classical School of the American Academy in Rome in 2005-2006. A preliminary version was kindly read by Profs. Ronald Ridley and Ann Vasaly, whom I wish to thank for their suggestions while acknowledging my responsibility for the shortcomings of the final result. The translations are my own. For convenience I shall employ the commonly used Varronian dates accompanying the text of Livy in the Loeb edition, although the reader should keep in mind that the dates we derive from the ancient historians for events during the Early Republic are open to question and that events, even when not suspect in themselves, are often tenuously positioned in the narrative of history.
2 For the question of the legal powers of the new magistracy in Rome see Th. MOMMSEN,
Römische Geschichte I, Berlin, 190910, p. 288.
3 IV, 1-6.
4 V, 29, 2.
5 P. Licinius, Livy, V, 12, 11-12. It has been thought that L. Atilius of the college of 444 and Q. Antonius of the college of 422 were plebeians, see BROUGHTON, o. c. (n. 1), p. 84, n. 1.
