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The Origins of the Tribunate of the Plebs*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2015

Christopher Smith
Christopher Smith*
Affiliation:
The British School at Rome /, The University of St Andrews, director@bsrome.it
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Abstract

The tribunes of the people at Rome were an immensely significant constitutional institution and are intimately associated with the early days of the Republic. The sources present a varied account of their origin and powers, and the debates visible in those versions are strongly related to the disputed nature of the plebs and its role in the formation of Rome's political community. Moreover, the close connections of the tribunes with writing, record-keeping and with Greekness all raise questions about the sophistication of the early Republic, but are also implicated in debates over the reliability of the historiographical tradition. This paper considers the arguments for accepting the reliability of some aspects of that tradition and presents an account of the tribunes' functions in the early Republic, including their sacrosanctity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 46 , 2012 , pp. 101 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2012

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Footnotes

*

This paper was delivered at the 33rd Conference of The Australasian Society for Classical Studies, held in Auckland, New Zealand, in January 2011. I am grateful to the organisers of the event for their hospitality, and to the audience at that conference and Antichthon's anonymous readers for their suggestions [Professor Smith was the keynote speaker at ASCS 33 (2011).]

References

1 Some discussions of sceptical approaches include: Bleicken, J., Lex publica: Gesetz und Recht in der römischen Republik (Berlin and New York 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bilancio critico su Roma arcaica ira monarchia e repubblica in memoria di Ferdinando Castagnoli (Roma, 3-4 giugno 1991) (Rome 1993)Google Scholar; Forsythe, G., A Criticai History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War (Berkeley 2005)Google Scholar.

2 Destruction of documents in the Gallic sack: Iivy 6.1 (cited tendentiously at Plut. Mor. 326a); with Livy 8.40.4-5; Cic. Brut. 62 (the sceptics' key texts); Plut. Num. 1.2 citing ‘a Clodius’ (Claudius Quadrigarius? If so, he was defending his decision to start his history, in unorthodox fashion, in 390 BC); see Oakley, S.P., A Commentary on Livy Books VI to X (Oxford 1997–2005)Google Scholar on Livy 6.1: ‘no-one familiar with the problems of book vi would wish to assert that the quality of evidence it provides is notably superior to that found in book v.’

3 The retrojection hypothesis: the master was E. Pais, but the methodology has seldom been fully explored. Pais' work is voluminous and often repetitive, but his Storia critica di Roma durante i primi cinque secoli, four vols (Rome 1913–1920)Google Scholar is indicative; for a critical assessment, see Polverini, L. (ed.), Aspetti della storiografia di Ettore Pais: incontri perugini di storia della storiografia antica e sul mondo antico, Atti del Convegno, Acquasparta, Palazzo Cesi, 25-27 maggio 1992 (Naples 2002)Google Scholar. The main modem proponent of this tradition in the context of the tribunate is Wiseman, T.P., Remembering the Roman People: Essays on Late-Republican Politics and Literature (Oxford 2009) 59–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the most substantial (if unconvincing) attempt to rethink the Fasti along the lines of an invention, see Mora, F., Fasti e schemi cronologici. La riorganizzazione annalistica del passato remoto romano, (Historia Einzelschriften 125, Stuttgart 1999)Google Scholar.

4 Ridley, R.T., ‘Notes on the Establishment of the Tribunate of the Plebs’, Latomus 27 (1968) 535-58Google Scholar; and see also ‘Patavinitas among the Patricians? Livy and the Conflict of the Orders’, in Eder, W. (ed.), Staat und Staatlichkeit in der frühen römischen Republik (Stuttgart 1990) 103-38Google Scholar; Badian, E., ‘Tribuni Plebis and Res Publica’, in Linderski, J. (ed.), Imperium Sine Fine: T. Robert. S. Broughton and the Roman Republic, Historia Einzelschriften 105 (Stuttgart 1996) 187–213Google Scholar; Momigliano, A., ‘Ricerche sulle magistrature romane: 3: l'origine del tribunato della plebe’, Bull. Com. 53 (1932) 157-77Google Scholar ( = Quarto Contributo 294-313). Other helpful accounts include Lintert, A.W., The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Oxford 1999) 121-33Google Scholar; Cornell, T.J., The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c.1000-264 BC) (London 1995) 258-65Google Scholar; and Richard, J.-C., Les origines de la plèbe romaine. Essai surla formation du dualisme patricio-plébéien (Rome 1978) 435–585CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the connection with Ceres and the Greek world, see Sordi, M., ‘D. santuario di Cerere, Libero e Libera e il tribunato della plebe’, in Sordi, M. (ed.), Santuari e politica nel mondo antico (Milan 1983) 127-39Google Scholar; Wiseman, , ‘Liber: Myth, Drama and Ideology in Republican Rome’, in Bruun, C. (ed.), The Roman Middle Republic: Politics, Religion, and Historiography c. 400-133 B.C. (Rome 2000) 265-99Google Scholar (= Unwritten Rome [Exeter 2008] 84–139)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Underlining all accounts, of course, is Mommsen, Th., Römisches Staatsrecht, 3rd edn (Berlin 1887–1888) 2.272–330Google Scholar. There are important accounts, including a listing of the tribunes, by Niccolini, G. in Il tribunato della plebe (Milan 1932)Google Scholar and I fasti dei tribuni della plebe (Milan 1934)Google Scholar; the latter will be updated by Eric Kondratieff shortly, and I am grateful to him for allowing me to see his work. For an overall account which lays out many of the salient issues, see Lintott, , Constitution (n. 4) 121–8Google Scholar.

6 For the tribunate in the later Republic, see Bleicken, J., Das Volkstribunat der klassischen Republik. Studien zu seiner Entwicklung zwischen 287 und 133 v. Chr., 2nd edn, Zetemata 13 (Munich 1968)Google Scholar; Thommen, L., Das Volkstribunat der späten römischen Republik, Historia Einzelschriften 59 (Stuttgart 1989)Google Scholar.

7 For a substantial collection of essays exploring the Struggle, see Raaflaub, K. (ed.), Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders, 2nd edn (London 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These include Momigliano's, A. brilliant account, ‘The Rise of the Plebs in the Archaic Age of Rome’, 168-84Google Scholar.

8 For a challenging account, see Wiseman, , ‘Roman Republic, Year One’, C&R 45 (1998) 19–26Google Scholar (= Unwritten Rome [Exeter 2008] 306-19CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

9 Richard, Les origines de la plèbe romaine (n. 4), and Smith, C. J., The Roman Clan: From Ancient Ideology to Modem Anthropology (Cambridge 2005) 251-80Google Scholar, discuss various theories at length.

10 See Lintott, , ‘The Tradition of Violence in the Annals of the Early Roman Republic”, Historia 19 (1970) 12–29Google Scholar; Oakley, , Commentary (n. 2) 2.381-2Google Scholar.

11 See Altheim, F., Lex Sacrata: Die Anfange derplebeischen Organisation (Amsterdam 1940)Google Scholar; Fiori, R., Homo sacer. Dinamica politico-costituzionale di una sanzione giuridico-religiosa (Naples 1996) 293–324Google Scholar; Oakley, , Commentary (n. 2) 2.361-89, 4.392-8Google Scholar; on the ver sacrum see Dench, E., From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman and Modem Perceptions of Peoples from the Central Apennines (Oxford 1995) esp. 183-93Google Scholar.

12 Flower, H., Roman Republics (Princeton 2010) 35–57Google Scholar.

13 Cic. ap. Ase. In Corn. 77 C. On the context of the original trial, see Griffin, M., ‘The Tribune C. Cornelius’, JRS 63 (1973) 196–213Google Scholar; on the passage, see Marshall, B.A., A Historical Commentary on Asconius (Columbia 1985) 264-8Google Scholar.

14 Varro LL 5.81. The location of the secessions of the plebs was variously located at the Sacer Mons, by reference to leges sacratae, and the Aventine Hill, the plebeian hill and location of the temple of Ceres. Cf. Festus p. 422 L: Sacer MODS appellatur, paullo ultra tertium miliarium, and see Coarelli, F., LTUR Suburbium V.32-3Google Scholar.

15 Liv. 2.33 (494 BC): Sigonius emended to Albinius; see Wiseman, Remembering (n. 3) 63-4 for the connection with the Albinius who rescued the Vestal Virgins in 390 BC.

16 Liv. 2.58 (471 BC). See Calpurnius Piso Frugi F 22-3 Peter; commentary by Forsythe, G. in The Historian L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi and the Roman Annalistic Tradition (Lanham 1994) 264–96Google Scholar.

17 Liv. 3.54-5 (449 BC).

18 Cornell, , Beginnings of Rome (n. 4) 276-8Google Scholar, is defensive of the authenticity of the laws, but gives references to the opposite viewpoint. For a good discussion, see Hölkeskamp, K.-J., ‘Die Entstehung der Nobilität und der Funktionswandel des Volkstribunats: die historische Bedeutung der lex Hortensia de plebiscitis,’ in Senatus Populusque Romanus: Die politische Kultur der Republik — Dimensionen und Deutungen (Munich 2004) 49–84Google Scholar. On provocano, see Cloud, J.D., ‘L'origine de la provocatio’, RPh 72 (1998) 25–48Google Scholar; Scandone, E. Tassi, Leges Valeriae De provocatione. Repressione criminale e garanzie costituzionali (Naples 2008)Google Scholar.

19 The aedileship is a complicated office and would repay further study. See Mommsen, , Staatsrecht (n. 5) 2.470–522Google Scholar; Sabbatucci, D., L'edilità romana: magistratura e sacerdozio (Rome 1954)Google Scholar; Lintott, , Constitution (n. 4) 129–33Google Scholar.

20 See e.g. Richardson, J., ‘Ancient Historical Thought and the Development of the Consulship’, Latomus 67 (2008) 328-41, 627–33Google Scholar; “The Oath per Iovem Lapidem and the Community in Archaic Rome’, RhM 153 (2010) 25–42Google Scholar.

21 See Smith, , Early Rome and Latium c 1000 to 500BC: Economy and Society (Oxford 1996) 166-71Google Scholar, for a summary.

22 See Cornell, , ‘The Tyranny of the Evidence: A Discussion of the Possible Uses of Literacy in Etruria and Latium in the Archaic Age’, in Beard, M.et al., Literacy in the Roman World, JRA Suppl. 3 (Ann Arbor MI 1991) 7–33Google Scholar.

23 Dion. Hal. 6.89-90 (Loeb translation). The main text is not discussed further elsewhere in this article, and so is not cited here, but the provisions for the aediles are as follows: 'And having obtained this also, they asked further that the senate should allow them to appoint every year two plebeians to act as assistants to the tribunes in everything the latter should require, to decide such causes as the others should refer to them, to have the oversight of public places, both sacred and profane, and to see that the market was supplied with plenty of provisions. Having obtained this concession also from the senate, they chose men whom they called assistants and colleagues of the tribunes, and judges. Now, however, they are called in their own language, from one of their functions, overseers of sacred places or aediles, and their power is no longer subordinate to that of other magistrates, as formerly; but many affairs of great importance are entrusted to them, and in most respects they resemble more or less the agoranomoi or “market-overseers” among the Greeks.’

24 Plut, . Cor. 7Google Scholar.

25 Diod. Sic. 11.68.8.

26 Zonaras 7.15.

27 Dio fr. 17.15.

28 On all this see Urso, G., Cassio Dione e i magistrati: Le origini della repubblica nei frammenti della Storia Romana (Milan 2005) 53–100Google Scholar. For Zonaras' comment on walls, see Gaius, Inst. 2.4, distinguishing res sacrae and res sanctae, e.g. walls.

29 John Lydus, de magistratibus 1.43-4.

30 Of the many general treatments of this theme, one may pick out Cornell, , ‘The Value of the Literary Tradition Concerning Archaic Rome,’ in Raaflaub, (ed.), Social Struggles (n. 7) 47–74Google Scholar, and several contributions to Feldherr, A. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians (Cambridge 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 See Momigliano, in Raaflaub (ed.), Social Struggles in Archaic Rome (n. 7).

32 For an early example of an interpretation based on ethnicity, see Rose, H.J., ‘Patricians and Plebeians at Rome’, JRS 12 (1922) 106-33Google Scholar. Radical re-readings: Mitchell, R.E., Patricians and Plebeians: The Origin of the Roman State (Cornell 1990)Google Scholar; Howarth, R., The Origins of Roman Citizenship (Lewiston 2006)Google Scholar.

33 Ampolo, C., ‘Demarato. Osservazioni sulla mobilità sociale arcaica,’ Dd'A IX-X (1976–1977) 333–45Google Scholar, remains hugely valuable.

34 Seen. 10 above.

35 Flower, Roman Republics (n. 12).

36 Raaflaub, , ‘Born to be Wolves? Origins of Roman Imperialism’, in Wallace, R.W. and Harris, E.M. (eds), Transitions to Empire: Essays in Greco-Roman History, 360-146 B. C., in Honor of E. Badian (Oklahoma 1996) 273–314, quote at 298Google Scholar; North, J.A., “The End of the Republic’, JRA 23.2 (2010) 469-72Google Scholar; Humm, M., Appius Claudius Caecus: La République accomplie (Rome 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A classic account of the integration of new families into the nobility is Münzer, F., Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (Stuttgart 1920)Google Scholar, trans. Ridley, T. as Roman Aristocratie Parties and Families (Johns Hopkins 1999)Google Scholar; see also the classic work by Hölkeskamp, K.-J., Die Entstehung der Nobitität. Studien zur sozialen und politischen Geschichte der Römischen Republik im 4. Jhdt. v. Chr. (Stuttgart 1987)Google Scholar.

37 On Veii see R. Cascino, H. di Giuseppe and H. Paterson (eds), Veil: The Historical Topography of the Ancient City (London forthcoming).

38 Cornell, , Beginnings (n. 4) 227-30Google Scholar; Smith, , ‘The Magistrates of the Early Republic,’ in Beck, H., Duplá, A., Jehne, M. and Polo, F. Pina (eds), Consuls and Res Publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic (Cambridge 2011) 19–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 This office has given rise to an enormous bibliography, but few clear conclusions; see Cornell, , Beginnings (n. 4) 334–9Google Scholar.

40 On matters of chronology, see Feeney, D., Caesar's Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History (Berkeley 2007)Google Scholar; Purcell, N., ‘Becoming Historical: The Roman Case’, in Braund, D. and Gill, C. (eds), History and Culture in RepubUcan Rome (Exeter 2003) 12–40Google ScholarPubMed. Eclipse: Cic. rep. 1.25, quoting Ennius Fl 53 Skutsch; cf. Cato ap. Gell. 2.28.6.

41 Festus 180L; Val. Max. 6.3.2.

42 Meyer, E., ‘Der Ursprung des Tribunals und die Gemeinde der vier Tribus,’ Hermes 30 (1895) 1–24Google Scholar, for the relationship to the four urban tribes; Urban, R., ‘Zur Entstehung des Volkstribunates,’ Historia 22 (1973) 761-4Google Scholar, on the problems raised by the passage.

43 Wiseman, Remembering (n. 3) 59–80Google Scholar.

44 Liv. 7.9.3-4. See Oakley, , Commentary (n. 2) 2.112–13Google Scholar.

45 Ogilvie, R.M., A Commentary on Livy Books 1 to 5 (Oxford 1965) 497Google Scholar.

46 Cornell, ‘Value of the Literary Tradition’ (n. 30), with Raaflaub's critique in the same volume, 1-46.

47 Ridley, ‘Notes’ (n. 4); Hanell, K., Das altrömische eponyme Amt (Lund 1946)Google Scholar.

48 Gjerstad, E., Early Rome IVA: Synthesis of Archaeological Evidence (Lund 1966)Google Scholar; cf. Capodiferro, A. and Fortini, P. (eds), Oli scavi di Giacomo Boni al foro Romano, Documenti dall'Archivio Disegni della Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma LI (Planimetrie del Foro Romano, Gallerie Cesaree, Comizio, Niger Lapis, Pozzi repubblicani e medievali) (Roma 2003)Google Scholar. On Volscians at Satricum, see Gnade, M., The Southwest Necropolis of Satricum (Le Fernere): Excavations 1981-1986 (Amsterdam 1992)Google Scholar.

49 Pompon. Dig. 1.2.2.3: ‘Then, when the kings were thrown out under a tribunician enactment, these statutes [the Papirian statutes from the time of Tarquinius Superbus] all fell too, and for a second time the Roman people set about working with vague ideas of right and customs of a sort rather than with legislation, and they put up with that for about twenty years.’ What follows is the decemvirate, so Pomponius is perhaps reflecting the 471 date, but then his chronology of the fall of the kings is unorthodox.

50 For the evidence, see Smith, , Early Rome and Latium (n. 21) 150-84Google Scholar; Scott, R.T., ‘The Contribution of Archaeology to Early Roman History’, in Raaflaub, (ed.) Social Struggles (n. 8) 98–106Google Scholar; and a controversial account in Carandini, A., Rome: Day One (Princeton 2011)Google Scholar.

51 Liv. 1.38; Plin. NH 36.107-8.

52 All figures derived from Cornell, , Beginnings (n. 4) 202-8Google Scholar; these can only be guesses but they will be approximately correct and show Rome as much the largest city in Latium and heading towards the size of cities in Etruria and Magna Graecia. For some further reflections on this, see Cifani, G. and Stoddart, S. (eds), Landscape, Ethnicity, Identity in the Archaic Mediterranean Area (Oxford forthcoming)Google Scholar.

53 See e.g. de Angelis, F., Megara Hyblaia and Selinous: The Development of Two Greek City-States in Archaic Sicily (Oxford 2003)Google Scholar.

54 Fiori, Homo sacer (n. 11) gives a comprehensive, and complex, account.

55 See above, n. 17.

56 Lintott, , Constitution (n. 4) 129Google Scholar.

57 See above, n. 11.

58 On the aediles and Ceres, see (conveniently) Spaeth, B., The Roman Goddess Ceres (Austin TX 1995) 81–102Google Scholar; Piganiol, A., ‘Les attributions militaires et les attributions religieuses du tribunat de la plèbe,’ Journal des Savants 17(1919) 237-48Google Scholar, on de Coulanges, N. D. Fustel, La cité antique (Paris 1864)Google Scholar.

59 Primary texts include CIL I2.1 (Lapis Niger); Festus 260L, 5L (leges regiae); Serv. Aen. 6.609 (XII Tables); Festus 422-2 L (Sacer mons); Festus 422L for the (scant) evidence for leges sacratae, of which the plebeian oath is the only example given.

60 Clark, A., ‘Nasica and Fides’, CQ 57 (2007) 125-31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, introduces the significance of Fides to the arguments over the Gracchi. On adfectatio regni more generally, see Smith, , ‘Adfectatio Regni in the Roman Republic’, in Lewis, S. (ed.), Ancient Tyranny (Edinburgh 2006) 49–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 See also Magdelain, A., ‘Le ius archaïque’, MEFRA 98 (1986) 265–358CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Cic, . Balb. 34Google Scholar: de quo foedere populus Romanus sententiam non tulit, qui iniussu suo nullo pacto potest religione obligan.

63 On tribuniciapotestas, Bauman, R., ‘Tribunician Sacrosanctity in 44, 36 and 35 BC’, RhM. 124 (1981) 166-83Google Scholar; for Trebatius Testa see Macr. Sat. 3.3.5 = Bremer IA p.406. Badian, ‘Tribuniplebis’ (n. 4), notes that, unlike imperium, sacrosanctity could not be passed by one individual to another without an act of the people.

64 P. Carafa, ‘Uccisioni rituali e sacrifici umani nella topografia di Roma’, in G. Bartolom e M. Gilda Benedettini (a cura di), ‘Sepolti tra i vivi. Buried among the living. Evidenza ed interpretazione di contesti funerari in abitato’, Atti del Convegno Internazionale, 26-29 aprile 2006, Scienze dell'Antichità 14.2, 2007/2008 (2009) 667-704; M. Torelli, ‘Exterminarlo’, ibid. 805-19.

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66 Badian, ‘Tribuniplebis’ (n. 4) 212 n. 42, suggests an augural discovery of the fact that plebeian consuls could ‘own’ the auspicia in 172 BC when for the first time two plebeians hold the consulship at the same time.

67 Smith, Roman Clan (n. 9) 263-8 for further arguments.

68 Liv. 8.14.12; see Badian, ‘Tribuni plebis’ (n. 4) 199-202, with a careful rejoinder by Vaahtera, Roman AuguralLaw (n. 65) 163-4.

69 Wiseman, ‘Liber’ (n. 4) 127-39.

70 See also Purcell, , ‘Becoming Historical’, (n. 40) 26–34Google Scholar

71 Smith, , Early Rome and Latium (n. 21) 217–18Google Scholar.

72 Musti, D., ‘Tendenze nella storiografia romana e greca su Roma arcaica: studi su Livio e Dionigi d'Alicamasso’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 10 (1970) 3–159CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gabba, E., Dionysius and the History of Archaic Rome (California 1991) esp. 93–147Google Scholar; Fox, M., Roman Historical Myths: The RegalPeriodin Augustan Literature (Oxford 1996) 49–95Google Scholar.

73 Liv. 4.25.3,4.29.7; LTUR s.v. Apollo, Aedes in Circo.

74 For an interesting recent comparison of ephors and tribunes, see Meier, M., ‘Ephoren, Volkstribunen, Goden: Zum Aufstieg politischer “Nebenkräfte” in Sparta, Rom und im mittelalterlichen Island’, in Linke, B., Meier, M. and Strothmann, M. (eds), Zwischen Monarchie und Republik: Gesellscha Mche Stabilisierungsleistungen und politische Transformations-potentiale in den antiken Stadtstaaten (Stuttgart 2010) 91–115Google Scholar.