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‘Tribunicia Potestate’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
A recent number of the Journal (vol. xx, p. 78) contains an article by Mr. Harold Mattingly, under the title given above, dealing with the reckoning of the tribunician power of the Roman emperors. He starts from the thesis of Mommsen, that ‘in the early empire, from Augustus to Nerva, the tribunician power was renewed year by year on the day of its first conferment, but that from Trajan onwards it was renewed instead at the beginning of the new year of the ordinary tribunes, December 10th.’ The second part of this thesis has been attacked in the past and Mr. Mattingly sets out to re-examine the evidence on the subject.
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- Copyright ©R. P. Longden 1931. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
page 131 note 1 There is abundant proof of this. Mr. Mattingly makes it clear enough (l.c. pp. 80–81).
page 131 note 2 C.I.L. iii, p. 862. Furthermore, the British diploma, C.I.L. iii, p. 1969, is also hard to reconcile with Mr. Mattingly's view. It reads ‘TR.P. COS. II’, a form which, according to him, was never official, or for a few days at most.
page 132 note 1 C.I.L. iii, p. 898, a fragmentary diploma of Decius, might be a parallel, but can more probably be explained otherwise. His tribunician reckoning is still very obscure.
page 132 note 2 9 without a number, 33 with one. I may have missed some, but not enough seriously to alter the proportion.
page 133 note 1 The chief reason consists in the Lower Moesian diplomas C.I.L. iii, pp. 1970 and 1971, which show TR.P. III on August 14, A.D. 99.
page 133 note 2 October 27, or a little later if Pliny, Pan. 86, be right.
page 133 note 3 There are other reasons. If Trajan continued to renew his potestas on a date in October, the Mauretanian diploma of November 24 (C.I.L. iii, p. 1973) would have to belong to 106, not 107, and this is unsuitable though not impossible. I.G.R.R. i, 983, and the subsequent sixth imperial salutation would be dated to the interval between the end of October and November 24.
page 133 note 4 C.I.L. vi, 451=I.L.S. 3619, from Rome, shows TR.P. IIII on December 19, 100, but probably in this case the coin evidence should outweigh that of the solitary inscription.