The Significance of the Consular Tribunate

Abstract

Livy preserves two explanations of the Senatorial decision of 445 B.C. to suspend the election of consuls and to confer imperium consulare upon tribuni militum . One, which he himself accepts, is that it was a political compromise designed to appease agitation for plebeian representation in the consulship. The other is that the military situation demanded the appointment of at least three holders of imperium . Until some forty years ago the majority of scholars, even if ready to admit that the reform had military advantages, joined with Livy in laying the chief emphasis on the political motive. More recently, however, the tendency has been to disown the connection between the innovation and the struggle for office. The change is explained as necessitated wholly by growing military commitments or administrative needs. My purpose here is merely to defend once again the traditional account that the decision of 445 B.C. marked an important stage in the Struggle of the Orders and to remove the major difficulties which have discouraged its acceptance.