The Gracchi brothers were two brothers who lived during the beginning of the late Roman Republic: Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus. They served in the plebeian tribunates of 133 BC and 122–121 BC, respectively. They have been received as well-born and eloquent advocates for social reform who were both killed by a reactionary political system; their terms in the tribunate precipitated a series of domestic crises which are viewed as unsettling the Roman Republic and contributing to its collapse.
The Senate was the governing and advisory assembly of the aristocracy in the ancient Roman Republic. It was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors, which were appointed by the aristocratic Centuriate Assembly. After a Roman magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic appointment to the Senate. According to the Greek historian Polybius, the principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government. Polybius noted that it was the consuls who led the armies and the civil government in Rome, and it was the Roman assemblies which had the ultimate authority over elections, legislation, and criminal trials. However, since the Senate controlled money, administration, and the details of foreign policy, it had the most control over day-to-day life. The power and authority of the Senate derived from precedent, the high caliber and prestige of the senators, and the Senate's unbroken lineage, which dated back to the founding of the Republic in 509 BC. It developed from the Senate of the Roman Kingdom, and became the Senate of the Roman Empire.
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was a reformist Roman politician and soldier who lived during the 2nd century BC. He is most famous for his tribunate for the years 123 and 122 BC, in which he proposed a wide set of laws, including laws to establish colonies outside of Italy, engage in further land reform, reform the judicial system and system for provincial assignments, and create a subsidised grain supply for Rome.
The Roman provinces were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as governor.
In ancient Rome, a promagistrate was a person who was granted the power via prorogation to act in place of an ordinary magistrate in the field. This was normally pro consule or pro praetore, that is, in place of a consul or praetor, respectively. This was an expedient development, starting in 327 BC and becoming regular by 241 BC, that was meant to allow consuls and praetors to continue their activities in the field without disruption.
The Concilium Plebis was the principal assembly of the common people of the ancient Roman Republic. It functioned as a legislative/judicial assembly, through which the plebeians (commoners) could pass legislation, elect plebeian tribunes and plebeian aediles, and try judicial cases. The Plebeian Council was originally organized on the basis of the Curia but in 471 BC adopted an organizational system based on residential districts or tribes. The Plebeian Council usually met in the well of the Comitium and could only be convoked by the tribune of the plebs. The patricians were excluded from the Council.
The lex Titia was a Roman law passed on 27 November 43 BC that established the Triumvirate of Octavian, Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus for five years until the end of 38 BC. The triumvirate established by the law was then renewed in 38 BC. Unlike the so-called First Triumvirate, which was a private arrangement among three men, the Second Triumvirate was a legal instrument which created a formal legal framework to empower the three triumvirs with practically absolute power.
A Roman governor was an official either elected or appointed to be the chief administrator of Roman law throughout one or more of the many provinces constituting the Roman Empire.
The lex Hortensia, also sometimes referred to as the Hortensian law, was a law passed in Ancient Rome in 287 BC which made all resolutions passed by the Plebeian Council, known as plebiscita, binding on all citizens. It was passed by the dictator Quintus Hortensius in a compromise to bring the plebeians back from their secession to the Janiculum.
Macedonia was a province of ancient Rome, encompassing the territory of the former Antigonid Kingdom of Macedonia, which had been conquered by the Roman Republic in 168 BC at the conclusion of the Third Macedonian War. The province was created in 146 BC, after the Roman general Quintus Caecilius Metellus defeated Andriscus of Macedon, the last self-styled King of Macedonia in the Fourth Macedonian War. The province incorporated the former Kingdom of Macedonia with the addition of Epirus, Thessaly, and parts of Illyria, Paeonia and Thrace.
The lex Gabinia, lex de uno imperatore contra praedones instituendo or lex de piratis persequendis was an ancient Roman special law passed in 67 BC, which granted Pompey the Great proconsular powers in any province within 50 miles of the Mediterranean Sea without holding a properly elected magistracy for the purpose of combating piracy. It also gave Pompey the power to appoint many legates and significant financial resources. The law was proposed and passed by the tribune Aulus Gabinius.
The constitution of the Roman Republic was a set of uncodified norms and customs which, together with various written laws, guided the procedural governance of the Roman Republic. The constitution emerged from that of the Roman kingdom, evolved substantively and significantly—almost to the point of unrecognisability—over the almost five hundred years of the republic. The collapse of republican government and norms beginning in 133 BC would lead to the rise of Augustus and his principate.
The lex Calpurnia de repetundis was a Roman law sponsored in 149 BC by the tribune of the plebs Lucius Calpurnius Piso. It established the first permanent criminal court in Roman history, in order to deal with the growing number of crimes committed by Roman governors in the provinces. The lex Calpurnia was a milestone in both Roman law and politics.
The Valerian and Porcian laws were Roman laws passed between 509 BC and 184 BC. They exempted Roman citizens from degrading and shameful forms of punishment, such as whipping, scourging, or crucifixion. They also established certain rights for Roman citizens, including provocatio, the right to appeal to the tribunes of the plebs. The Valerian law also made it legal to kill any citizen who was plotting to establish a tyranny. This clause was used several times, the most important of which was its usage by Julius Caesar's assassins.
The Roman Senate was the highest and constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the city of Rome as the Senate of the Roman Kingdom, to the Senate of the Roman Republic and Senate of the Roman Empire and eventually the Byzantine Senate of the Eastern Roman Empire, existing well into the post-classical era and Middle Ages.
The Senate of the Roman Empire was a political institution in the ancient Roman Empire. After the fall of the Roman Republic, the constitutional balance of power shifted from the Roman Senate to the Roman Emperor. Beginning with the first emperor, Augustus, the Emperor and the Senate were technically two co-equal branches of government. In practice, however, the actual authority of the imperial Senate was negligible, as the Emperor held the true power of the state. As such, membership in the senate became sought after by individuals seeking prestige and social standing, rather than actual authority. During the reigns of the first Emperors, legislative, judicial, and electoral powers were all transferred from the "Roman assemblies" to the Senate. However, since the control that the Emperor held over the senate was absolute, the Senate acted as a vehicle through which the Emperor exercised his autocratic powers.
Marcus Baebius Tamphilus was a consul of the Roman Republic in 181 BC along with P. Cornelius Cethegus. Baebius is credited with reform legislation pertaining to campaigns for political offices and electoral bribery (ambitus). The Lex Baebia was the first bribery law in Rome and had long-term impact on Roman administrative practices in the provinces.
The constitutional reforms of Augustus were a series of laws that were enacted by the Roman Emperor Augustus between 30 BC and 2 BC, which transformed the Constitution of the Roman Republic into the Constitution of the Roman Empire. The era during which these changes were made began when Augustus defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and ended when the Roman Senate granted Augustus the title "Pater Patriae" in 2 BC.
A quaestio perpetua was a permanent jury court in the Roman republic. The first was established by the lex Calpurnia de repetundis in 149 BC to try cases on corruption and extortion. More were established in following years to hear cases on various crimes, such as maiestas (treason), ambitus, peculatus, and vis. Unlike the older trials before a popular assembly, which had to be convoked for that purpose by a sitting magistrate, the courts were always open and any citizen could bring charges.
1. Hardy, E.G. C. Plinii Caecilii Secundi Epistulae. London, England. MacMillan and Company. 1889. (primary source)
