No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
GIVEN THE REMARKABLE CIRCUMSTANCES OF ITS SPONTANEOUS rise to prominence, and considering the sweeping range of social and political reforms achieved, it is scarcely surprising that the Roman tribunate has aroused interest among modern political theorists. According to Karl Loewenstein, this was ‘. . . an organ of officially authorized opposition . . .’. Maurice Duverger cites the tribunate as an example of the ‘separate organization’ of opposition, established specifically to criticize and challenge government policy, while not being expected itself to take part in government. To Ghiţa Ionescu and Isabel de Madariaga the tribunate ‘came near to the modern idea of an institutionalized opposition . . .’.
1 Loewenstein, Karl, The Governance of Rome, The Hague, Nijhof, 1973, p. 70;Google Scholar cf. his Political Power and the Governmental Process, London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2nd ed. 1965, pp. 130–2.
2 Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties (trans. Barbara and Robert North), London, Methuen, 2nd ed. 1959, p. 413.Google Scholar
3 Ionescu, Ghiţa and de Madariaga, Isabel, Opposition, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1972, p. 21.Google Scholar
4 de Jouvenel, Bertrand ‘The Means of Contestation’ Government and Opposition Vol. 1 No. 2 01 1966 pp 155–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 De Jouvenel, op. cit., p. 160.
6 De Jouvenel, op. cit., p. 158.
7 De Jouvenel, op. cit., p. 161.
8 See e. g., Sartori, Giovanni ‘Opposition and Control: Problems and Prospects’ Government and Opposition Vol. 1 No 2 01 1966 pp. 149–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar Duverger, op. cit., pp. 412–21; Lindsay, A. D., The Essentials of Democracy, London, Oxford University Press, 1930, pp. 34–50;Google Scholar Amery, L. S., Thoughts on the Constitution, London, Oxford University Press, 1964, pp. 30–2.Google Scholar
9 Sartori, op. cit., p. 151 (emphasis added).
10 De Jouvenel, op. cit., p. 157.
11 De Jouvenel, op. cit., p. 173.
12 Ionescu and de Madariaga, op. cit., p. 21.
13 See Livy, History Ab Urbe Condita, 6.37.4, where tribunes complain of their lack of imperium. Cf. Bleicken, Jochen, Das Volkstribunat der Klassischen Republik, Munich, Beck, 1955, p. 3.Google Scholar
14 On the Licinian‐Sextian Rogations of 367 BC see e. g. Cary, M. and Scullard, H. H., A History of Rome, London, Macmillan, 3rd ed. 1975, p. 76.Google Scholar
15 According to the great constitutional historian of Rome, Theodore Mommsen, the veto, though possessed by other magistrates, was used much more frequently by the tribunes because they lacked the imperative powers of the consuls (Römisches Staatsrecht, Basel, Schwabe, 3rd ed. 1952, 3 vols., Vol. 11, p. 291).
16 See Greenidge, A. H. J., Roman Public Life, London, Oxford University Press, 1930, p. 179.Google Scholar
17 Kunkel, Wolfgang, An Introduction to Roman Legal and Constitutional History (trans. J. M. Kelly), Oxford, Clarendon, 2nd ed. 1973, p. 31.Google Scholar Cf. Bleicken, op. cit., pp. 18–26.
18 Badian, E., Foreign Clientelae, Oxford, Clarendon, 1958, pp. 1–14.Google Scholar
19 Taylor, Lily Ross, Roman Voting Assemblies, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1966, pp. 85–106;Google Scholar Crawford, Michael, The Roman Republic, Glasgow, Collins, 1978, pp. 194–7.Google Scholar
20 Scullard, H. H., A History of the Roman World from 753 to 146 BC, London, Methuen, 3rd ed. 1961, p. 93.Google Scholar
21 Ciceto, De Legibus, 3.19.