Conclusions

Summary

The goal of any young Roman at the start of his political career was to reach the highest office of the Republic: the consulship. For an aristocratic family the accumulation of consulships over decades and centuries provided an indelible political and symbolic capital which remained forever in their own familial records and imagines maiorum, and which the family wished to be remembered by the Roman citizens for as long as possible. When Lucius Scipio Asiaticus became consul in 83, some fifteen Scipiones had already held the highest office from the fourth century onwards. When in 57 Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos held the consulship, thirteen Caecilii Metelli had been consuls before him since the third century. The consulship obviously carried enormous prestige, but the office only lasted for one year – regardless of whether it was held again later, or whether the imperium of a consul could be prolonged with a promagistracy. However, the conclusion of the consulship implied becoming a consularis for life – the evidence shows that consulars were only exceptionally expelled from the Senate – which meant that an ex-consul was automatically included among the crème de la crème in the Senate and, therefore, in Roman society.