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The Atinian Plebiscite, Tribunes, and the Senate*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Robert Develin
Robert Develin
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
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Extract

We know of the Atinian plebiscite only from a tantalizing reference of Gellius, apparently citing Ateius Capito: ‘nam et tribunis, inquit plebis senatus habendi ius erat, quamquam senatores non essent ante Atinium plebiscitum.’ Willems was able to note two interpretations, one of which held that the plebiscite required that all tribunes be senators already, the other that it allowed tribunes the enjoyment of senatorial rights. The first was rightly rejected; since all we know disallows the notion that an aedileship would precede the tribunate, senatorial status could only come after the quaestorship and while there were only eight or less quaestors, clearly ten tribunes could hardly all be ex-quaestors. Consequently Willems adopted the second alternative: acquisition of the tribunate entailed the ius sententiae dicendae in the senate.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , May 1978 , pp. 141 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1978

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References

1 NA 14.8.2.

2 Willems, P., Le Sénat de la république romaine 2 (Louvain, 1885), i.228 ff.Google Scholar; see also 689 ff. on Lange, , de plebiscitis Ovinio et Atinio (Leipzig, 1878), p.36,Google Scholar who placed the plebiscite between 216 and 209, but not for good reasons.

3 On the number of quaestors see now Harris, W. V., ‘The Development of the Quaestorship, 267–81 B.C.’, CQ N.S. 26 (1976), 92 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Römisches Staatsrecht, iii.862.Google Scholar

5 Gabba, E., ‘Note Appianee,’ Athenaeun 33 (1955), 220.Google Scholar

6 Wiseman, T. P., New Men in the Roman Senate 139 B.C.-A.D. 14 (Oxford, 1971), pp.97 f.Google Scholar

7 As Willems pointed out (op. cit. i. 229)Google Scholar, examples of tribunes being passed over in censorial lectiones tell us nothing, as this need mean only that they were eligible for selection, not that they enjoyed senatorial privileges. I think this holds good, despite Gabba, , art. cit. 221 n.4.Google Scholar

8 See MRR i. 500 f.Google Scholar; on the Atinii as a whole see Astin, A. E., ‘The Atinii’, Hommages à M. Renard (Coll. Latomus 102, 1969), pp.34 ff.Google Scholar

9 Bruns, , Fontes 10.13, 16.22.Google Scholar

10 Op. cit. i. 230f.Google Scholar

11 Op. cit. iii. 858 n.2.Google Scholar

12 Tibiletti, G., ‘Le leggi de iudiciis repetundarum fino alia guerra sociale’, Athenaeum 31 (1953), 68Google Scholar, accepted by Gabba, , art. cit. 220 f.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Wiseman, , op. cit., p.97.Google Scholar

14 Livy 8.23.12.

15 Livy 22.61.5.

14 N.A. 14.8.

17 The Festus passage tells us that consuls and military tribunes used to choose patricians and then plebeians closest to them until the Ovinian plebiscite. Willems, , op. cit. i. 42 ff.Google Scholar, thought the senate was wholly patrician until the end of the fifth century.

18 MRR i. 260, 285.Google ScholarGabba, , art. cit. 221 f.,Google Scholar avoids drawing a firm conclusion from these events.

19 MRR i. 366.Google Scholar

20 MRR i. 512.Google Scholar

21 As did Niccolini, G., I fasti dei tribuni iella plebe (Milan, 1934), p.129Google Scholar; the possibility is included by MRR i. 458 f.Google Scholar It is lardly worth suggesting an alternative estoration, but see Astin, , art. cit. 34.Google Scholar

22 See Willems, , op. cit. i. 285 ffGoogle Scholar

23 As those by Willems, , op. cit. i. 153 ff 279 ff.Google Scholar; Cavaignac, E., ‘Le Sénat de 220; étude démographique’, REL 10 (1932), 458 ff.Google Scholar