Lex Trebonia (448 BC)

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The Lex Trebonia was a law passed in 448 BC to forbid the tribunes of the plebs from co-opting colleagues to fill vacant positions. Its purpose was to prevent the patricians from pressuring the tribunes to appoint colleagues sympathetic to or chosen from the aristocracy.

Tribunus plebis, rendered in English as tribune of the plebs, tribune of the people or plebeian tribune, was the first office of the Roman state that was open to the plebeians, and throughout the history of the Republic, the most important check on the power of the Roman Senate and magistrates. These tribunes had the power to convene and preside over the Concilium Plebis ; to summon the senate; to propose legislation; and to intervene on behalf of plebeians in legal matters; but the most significant power was to veto the actions of the consuls and other magistrates, thus protecting the interests of the plebeians as a class. The tribunes of the plebs were sacrosanct, meaning that any assault on their person was prohibited by law. In imperial times, the powers of the tribunate were granted to the emperor as a matter of course, and the office itself lost its independence and most of its functions. During the day the tribunes used to sit on the tribune benches on the Forum Romanum.

The patricians were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the early Republic, but its relevance waned after the Conflict of the Orders, and by the time of the late Republic and Empire, membership in the patriciate was of only nominal significance.

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In 451 BC, Rome's traditional consular government was replaced by a committee of ten senior statesmen, known as the decemvirs, who were tasked with drawing up the complete body of Roman law, based on existing law and tradition, as well as on Greek models reported by a group of Roman envoys who had been sent to study Greek law. Their efforts resulted in the first ten tables of Roman law, but the work was incomplete, and so a second college of decemvirs was appointed for the following year. Appius Claudius Crassus, who had been consul-elect before the decemvirate, was the only member of the first college to participate in the second, and he ensured that his colleagues for the second year were like-minded and easily dominated by himself. The final two tables of Roman law that they drew up imposed harsh restrictions on the plebeians, and forbade the intermarriage of patricians and plebeians. [1] [2]

Roman consul High political office in ancient Rome

A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic, and ancient Romans considered the consulship the highest level of the cursus honorum.

Twelve Tables Roman statute forming the law

The Law of the Twelve Tables was the legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Tables consolidated earlier traditions into an enduring set of laws.

Appius Claudius Crassus Sabinus Regillensis, usually referred to simply as Appius Claudius Crassus or Crassinus, was one of the decemvirs, a committee of ten men chosen in the place of consuls to draw up the tables of Roman law beginning in 451 BC. He was the only member of the college to serve a second term in 450, having appointed himself to the position, together with nine others whose opinions agreed with his or whom he was able to dominate. They continued in office the following year, without bothering to hold elections, but were overthrown in a popular revolt, and the consular government restored.

The decemvirs then continued in office the following year, without calling for new elections. Public resentment of the decemvirs and many of the laws they had promulgated, combined with reports of their corruption, and in some cases tolerance of criminal acts committed by their allies, led to the overthrow of the decemvirate. The tribunes of the plebs passed laws restoring the consular government, and making permanent both the right of appeal and the continuance of their own college. [3] The new consuls then achieved what the decemvirs had failed to accomplish, winning military victories over the Sabines and the Aequi, but the Roman Senate refused them a triumph; the tribunes of the plebs then submitted the matter to a popular vote, and won a triumph for the consuls. [4] [5]

Sabines ancient Italic tribe

The Sabines were an Italic people that lived in the central Apennine Mountains of ancient Italy, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome.

Aequi

The Aequi were an Italic tribe on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains to the east Latium in central of Italy who appear in the early history of ancient Rome. After a long struggle for independence from Rome, they were defeated and substantial Roman colonies were placed on their soil. Only two inscriptions believed to be in the Aequian language remain. No more can be deduced than that the language was Italic. Otherwise, the inscriptions from the region are those of the Latin-speaking colonists in Latin. The colonial exonym documented in these inscriptions is Aequi and also Aequicoli. The manuscript variants of the classical authors present Equic-, Aequic-, Aequac-. If the form without the -coli is taken as an original, it may well also be the endonym, but to date further evidence is lacking.

Roman Senate A political institution in ancient Rome

The Roman Senate was a political institution in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome,. It survived the overthrow of the kings in 509 BC, the fall of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC, the division of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD, and the barbarian rule of Rome in the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries.

Flush with their successes against the aristocracy, the tribunes stood for re-election the following year. Fearful that his colleagues were repeating the mistakes of the decemvirs, the tribune Marcus Duilius, who presided over the election, refused to put their names forward for the election, and as a result only five candidates received enough votes for the office. Duilius then directed them to co-opt five colleagues to serve alongside them, frustrating the ambition of the other tribunes of BC 449. According to Livy, the five elected allowed themselves to be guided by the patricians, to the extent that they chose two patricians to serve as tribunes of the plebs: Aulus Aternius Varus and Spurius Tarpeius Montanus Capitolinus, who had been consuls in 454. [6] [7]

Aulus Aternius Varus, surnamed Fontinalis, was consul in 454 BC, with Spurius Tarpeius Montanus Capitolinus.

One of the plebeian members of the college, Lucius Trebonius, then proposed a law forbidding the co-optation of tribunes, but calling for their election to continue until the full number had been elected. The law was passed, and so effective was Trebonius at frustrating the patricians' designs during his year of office that he earned the surname Asper, meaning "prickly". [8] [9]

The Trebonian law was not always strictly enforced. When not enough tribunes were elected in 401 BC, the patricians attempted to have some of their number co-opted to the office. In this they failed, but two plebeians were still chosen as tribunes by co-optation, to the great annoyance of their colleague, Gnaeus Trebonius, whose name was attached to the flouted law. [10] [11]

See also

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References

  1. Livy, iii. 33–35.
  2. Broughton, vol. I, pp. 44–46.
  3. Livy, iii. 36–55.
  4. Livy, iii. 60–64.
  5. Broughton, vol. I, pp. 46–49.
  6. Livy, iii. 64.
  7. Broughton, vol. I, pp. 42, 48.
  8. Livy, iii. 65.
  9. Broughton, vol. I, p. 50.
  10. Livy, v. 11.
  11. Broughton, vol. I, p. 84.

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