§ 1. After the Kings had been expelled, the Consulship was the principal office in the Roman state. In the creation and adornment of this Magistracy I find many things instituted most wisely and some less prudently—not because they lacked wisdom, but because through fear, rivalry, and desire they overstepped the bounds of what was right.
§ 2. In the beginning the creation of Consuls was conducted with the greatest integrity. In the two hundred and forty-fourth year from the foundation of the city, two were created by the Prefect of the City from the registers of Servius Tullius: Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus; and this was done in the Centuriate Assembly.
Servius preferred the Centuriate Assembly, lest the elections be in the hands of the lowest men. For although the poor were the greater part, the Magistracies were nevertheless in the power of the wealthiest. There were six classes: the first was of the wealthiest, the second of the rich. There were one hundred and ninety-three centuries; in the first class were ninety-eight centuries, in the second twenty. Those two classes, therefore, when they agreed, designated the Magistrates. Lesser Magistrates were created in the Tribal Assembly, in which the people had greater power; accordingly Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius cast the rabble of the Forum, which had been mingled through all the tribes, into the four urban tribes. Thus the elections were always in the power of the principal men. This must be attended to with the greatest care in a free state, lest wicked and needy men designate as Consul one to whose advantage it is that the state be afflicted and overthrown.
§ 3. The consular age was forty-two years, and an ordinary return to the office was not permitted except after an interval of ten years. This also was observed: access to the highest dignity was made through the grades and through other Magistracies well administered. Yet all these things were sometimes changed either through ambition or through the necessity of the state. Afterward the rule of age was neglected, and Honorius as a boy was raised to the Consulship. Claudian:
A Consul amid your cradle-clothes, You advance, marking the fasti merely by your name, And the year which brought you forth is given to you. Your mother herself clothed you, still small, in the Quirinal robe And taught you to crawl toward your first curule chairs.
§ 4. The honor of the Consuls was great. First, his chair was ivory, altogether royal. Hence it is called the most ample dignity, is preferred to all dignities, and was an honor sought even by Emperors. Statius, book 4 of the Silvae:
Every honor takes its light from the Consul.
Next came the bordered toga. In the later age it was customarily given by Emperors. Vopiscus, in Probus: “The palm-embroidered Capitolian robe awaits you.” Valerian wrote to Aurelian: “Receive, therefore, for your achievements four mural crowns,” and so forth, “a bordered toga, a palm-embroidered tunic, a painted toga, a deep under-tunic, and an ivory chair; for today I designate you Consul, and I shall write to the Senate that it assign you a scepter and also assign you the fasces.”
In this matter they were liberal, while observing the precept of Maecenas: “Preserve honor for the Consuls; take away their strength.”
Third, the year was inscribed with the name of the Consuls. For this reason the names of wicked men were sometimes erased from the fasti, and Claudian deservedly complains:
Through the cities an old woman in the consular robe Is displayed and effeminates the title of the year.
Libanius describes that dignity, which long afterward remained without power: “What could be more venerable than to encompass the whole world, after the manner of the sun, by the appellation of one’s name, and for the name given by one’s parents to be in the mouth of all men—a name whose remembrance attends many necessities: judgments, marriages, the forum, harbors, debts, sales, those contracting, those making agreements, litigants, those establishing credit by letters, those entering into association, those separating, and the birthdays of wealthy sons?”
§ 5. The power of the Consuls was altogether royal. Livy speaks truly in book 2: “You may reckon the origin of liberty from this rather—that the consular government was made annual—than from the fact that anything was diminished from royal power. The first Consuls retained all the rights and all the insignia. This alone was guarded against: lest, if both possessed the fasces, terror should appear doubled. Brutus first possessed the fasces with his colleague’s consent; and he had not been a more vigorous vindicator of liberty than he was afterward its guardian. First of all he compelled the people, greedy for their new liberty, by an oath that they would permit no one to reign at Rome, lest afterward they could be bent by the entreaties or gifts of Kings.”
The summit of their power was nevertheless bestowed chiefly for the conduct of wars, after the example of the Lacedaemonians, among whom there was a King and two annual Commanders. Hence came the fasces and Lictors, all after the royal manner. Later, in the time of the Emperors, scarcely any wars were entrusted to Consuls. It was extraordinary that Belisarius, after being made Consul, conducted the war in Sicily and laid down the Magistracy in the province, although by then it was not a Magistracy but the empty mask of an honor.
§ 6. First, their power was diminished by the addition of a colleague with equal power, so that, if one were wicked or seditious, he might be restrained by his colleague, since they held the fasces by turns.
Next, the government was annual, so that they might rule more moderately over men who were sometime to possess the Magistracy over them. This is still the custom in many cities, though in another and happier manner than among the Romans.
But since not even in this way was the imperious pride of certain men sufficiently restrained, it was afterward established that they should judge and act according to the Senate’s opinion. Indeed, an appeal from the Consuls to the people was granted. At length they reached such a pitch of contention that they broke the Consuls’ fasces and refused to answer to their name. Livy, book 2, under the Consuls Aulus Verginius and Titus Veturius.
At length the Tribunes were opposed to them. Hence came all those conflicts of a divided state. Hence in book 2 they threaten Claudius with bonds; in book 5 they command that the military Tribunes be under the Senate’s power; in book 7 they compel Manlius to resign the Dictatorship; and in book 4 they stir up the people against the Consuls. Amid these struggles between the Fathers and the plebs the state passed a great part of its life, because it possessed governments contending with one another.
§ 7. They possessed an army only by a decree of the Senate or a plebiscite. Julius Caesar was proclaimed Consul and Dictator for ten years; when the first opportunity came, those who had been compelled to do this reclaimed their authority. Augustus also, just as he began to possess tribunician power, likewise possessed Proconsular command. Dio says:
ἀνθύπατον ἐστὶ καθάπαξ, ὥστε μήτε ἐν τῇ εἰσόδῳ τῇ ἔσω πωμηρίῳ καταλῦσαι τὴν ἀρχήν.
He was created Proconsul—that is, he possessed consular power always and perpetually—so that not even by entering the Pomerium did he lay down his power. Otherwise, upon entering the city, he lost Proconsular command. The plebs conferred a perpetual Consulship upon the elder Africanus because of his immense services to the state, but with greater moderation he refused it. Domitian numbered seventeen Consulships, not without ridicule.
§ 8. The management of public money was in the hands of the Consul. Hence Caesar, when Consul, stole golden ingots and substituted gilded bronze ones in their place. This indeed was a great power, but afterward that charge was entrusted to others. On his first entrance Caesar opened the treasury and threatened the Tribune who forbade him with death. He brought forth twenty-six thousand golden ingots and three hundred thousand in coined money; the sum was twenty-six million.
§ 9. The Consul possessed the ordinary right of consulting the Senate. This was observed so strictly that the Emperor did not possess the power of convening the Senate except by a special privilege. Accordingly, we read that it was granted to Vespasian by decree of the Senate: “That he be permitted to hold the Senate, make a motion, remit a matter, and make a decree of the Senate by motion and division,” and so forth. “That whenever the Senate is held according to his will or authority, by his command or mandate, or in his presence, the law of all matters should be regarded and observed in the same way as if the Senate had been summoned and were held according to law.”
This right was therefore customarily given to Princes. The Consul who possessed the fasces in that month made the motion. This was the ordinary rule; nevertheless, Senators were sometimes accustomed to ask that they might refer a matter to the Senate and themselves speak at length about urgent affairs. It is evident from the beginning of the eighth Philippic and elsewhere that the Consul nevertheless possessed great weight.
§ 10. Military Tribunes with consular power were created in the 309th year of the city; after the year 396 they ceased to exist. During that time they did not enter the Magistracy continuously, but almost alternately with the Consuls. The reason for creating military Tribunes with consular power was that the Fathers refused to make plebeians Consuls, while the Tribunes demanded it. They therefore preferred Tribunes who might be taken from both plebs and Fathers. At first three were elected from the Fathers, and the plebs was content because account had been taken of its members; afterward four, and finally six, were made, partly patricians and partly plebeians. At length there were eight. Livy, at the beginning of book 5. I marvel that some regard that passage as corrupt and think that there were never eight, since Livy refutes this: “Peace had been obtained elsewhere; the Romans and Veientes were in arms, with such anger and hatred that it appeared the end awaited the vanquished. The elections of the two peoples were held by very different methods. The Romans increased the number of military Tribunes with consular power. Eight, as had never been created before, were elected: Marcus Aemilius Mamercus for the second time, Lucius Valerius Potitus for the third, Appius Claudius Crassus, Marcus Quinctilius Varus, Marcus Julius Tullus, Marcus Postumius, Marcus Furius Camillus, and Marcus Postumius Albinus.”
Yet the moderation of the plebs in this matter was great, because for forty-four years no man from the plebs was created military Tribune in the camps, although they contended that plebeians should be Consuls. Thus it appears that the pride of the nobility, not the ill will of the plebs, was the reason why Magistracies were shared with the lowest men.
§ 11. In the creation and administration of this supreme Magistracy there are many things which I find wanting. In truth, poor provision was made for the ancient state.
The source of the evil was that annual power, by always instilling new hopes into men eager for change, possessed too little authority and too little strength to restrain the people. The Romans themselves concede this to me. Livy, book 2: “From this point I shall relate the deeds of the Roman people, now free, in peace and war; their annual Magistrates; and the commands of laws more powerful than those of men. The pride of the last King had caused this liberty to be more welcome. For the earlier Kings reigned in such a manner that they are not undeservedly all numbered thereafter among the founders of the parts of the city, because they added new settlements for the multitude which they themselves had increased. Nor is it doubted that the same Brutus, who earned so much glory by expelling the proud King, would have acted to the greatest public harm if, through desire for an immature liberty, he had wrested the kingdom from any of the former Kings. For what would have happened if that rabble of shepherds and immigrants, fugitives from their own peoples, having obtained liberty—or at least impunity—under the protection of an inviolate sanctuary, had, when royal fear was removed, begun to be agitated by tribunician storms and to sow conflicts with the Fathers in an alien city before the pledges of wives and children and love of the very soil, to which men become accustomed over a long time, had united their spirits? The still immature state would have been scattered by discord. The tranquil moderation of government fostered it and brought it, by nourishing it, to the point that, with its strength now mature, it could bear the good fruit of liberty.”
He plainly admits that a free people could not have grown under those conditions. Indeed, while Tarquin, so savage and so proud a King, was still alive, they wished there to be a Dictator because of fear of the Latin war. Livy explained this excellently in book 2: “After a Dictator—Lartius—was created for the first time at Rome, when they saw axes carried before him, great fear seized the plebs, so that they were more intent upon obeying his command. For there was not, as under the Consuls who possessed equal power, the aid of the other; nor was there appeal; nor was there any help anywhere except in careful obedience.” A little afterward Postumius the Dictator fought with Tarquin. Then, when the Kings had been removed, tyranny was doubled and a sedition of the plebs soon arose. Livy, book 2: it began when Appius Claudius and Publius Servilius were Consuls. “It was already near the point at which not even the majesty of the Consuls could restrain the passions of men.” And a little afterward: “From that point one Consul and the Fathers raged; but the courage of the plebs had increased, and they proceeded by a very different path from that which they had first begun. For, despairing of aid from the Consuls and Senate, when they saw a debtor being led to court, they rushed together from every side. The Consul’s decree could not be heard because of the din and shouting; and when he had decreed, no one obeyed. The matter was conducted by force, and all fear and danger to liberty, when individuals were assaulted by many in the Consul’s sight, had turned from the debtors upon the creditors.” At length a secession was made, and, lest they be bound by the military oath, they resolved to kill the Consuls.
§ 12. The reasons why the Consulship is not a suitable Magistracy are manifold: it belongs to canvassers; it is annual; it belongs to the inexperienced and to rivals; and it is exercised over men whom the Consul fears and whom for many reasons he cannot offend.
The first source of weakness in that Magistracy is that, although the Consulship was sometimes given as a reward for virtue, constancy, and integrity, it more often yielded to flatteries and ambition. First, it was very frequently given to eloquent men. Cicero, On Canvassing for the Consulship: “The man who is regarded as a worthy advocate of Consulars cannot be thought unworthy of the Consulship.” Accordingly, supports were procured even through the greatest injustice, and favor privately. The same Cicero: “Then let both the multitude and the kinds of your friends appear. For you possess those things which new men have not possessed: all the publicans, almost the entire equestrian order, many municipalities besides, many men of every order defended by you, several colleges, and in addition very many young men conciliated by devotion to speaking, and the daily attendance and frequency of friends. Take care to retain these by commending, asking, and contriving by every means that they understand both what they owe you, as an occasion for returning favor, and that those who wish to oblige you will have no other time.” He then advises him to commend himself to the Optimates and nobles.
Hence we see that no man was so wicked that through his crimes he lost the hope of attaining the Consulship. The things which Cicero writes concerning Antony and Catiline, Galba and Cassius are astonishing; nevertheless they were competitors for the Consulship. They induced the tribes to support them by promise, hope, and gift. Hence came greeters, escorts, attendants, and friends who referred everything to the candidate’s ambition and nothing to the safety of the state. Hence, in popular solicitation and handshaking, came those enticements and deceits: knowledge of names, flatteries, assiduity, liberality, rumor, and hope. Hence came that rule of candidates: they were not to permit anyone to be able to say that he had not been asked, or had not been asked earnestly and diligently. Honorable and lavish promises and most profuse largesses often brought it about that they made Consul a man whom no good man would wish to have as a son. Hence came those plagues of the state: intermediaries, agents, and distributors.
Since very many therefore came to dignity by money and crimes, they could not administer with dignity or for the public good the state which they had been unable to obtain by virtue. Blinded by money, they rejected distinguished men. Quintus Aelius Tubero, because he had spread Punic couches with kidskins and had set out Samian ware instead of silver vessels, was rejected from the Praetorship. Paulus Aemilius, after being rejected, wearied the Campus and could not by the splendor of his nobility or the goods of his spirit prevent the Quirites from being adverse to him. The same envy drove the sorrowful Metellus from the Campus. But the greatest disgrace of the Roman people was that Vatinius was preferred to Cato in the Praetorship.
A greater evil arose from this: those Magistracies were very often conferred upon needy men who had poured out all their resources upon largesses. How, therefore, could authority, vigor, or esteem exist in men who, unless by injustice, sold opinions, corrupted judgments, and plunder of the provincials they amassed enough booty for themselves and their judges, would be dragged into bondage as soon as they laid down the Magistracy?
§ 13. Even if the Consuls were good, brave, equitable, and experienced in affairs, the brevity of their term nevertheless frustrated all the force of consular command. For this very fact—that the Magistracy lasted only a year—blunted the courage and confidence of the ruler; and those who obeyed unwillingly or were offended counted each day precisely. A Consul-designate also was often hostile; or, even if benevolent, a successor nevertheless loomed over him. But nothing hindered equally with the inexperience of those who were created. For every year they chose a new Ruler. This is just as if some Prince or city should every year choose for itself a new physician who had never healed anyone and should hazard his art at the risk of its life. The madness would be judged still greater if, captured by favor or gifts, they entrusted their health to an inexperienced man.
For this reason most free cities in Germany, although they change the Consulship, nevertheless permit it to remain among experienced men. The laws of Cologne have made excellent provision that a continuous Consulship remain among six men, in such a way that it returns to each one every third year.
From this they obtain the advantage that neither does excessive power belong to one man nor are affairs governed by the inexperienced. In place of a deceased Consul the Senate by decree substitutes a Senator of proven fidelity, virtue, and prudence. In his year that man enters the Magistracy with a colleague who has served before; thus they are governed by experienced men. No one aspires to the Consulship through ambition, because there is one access alone: if he has proved to the Senate his prudence, vigilance, constancy, justice, and dexterity in ruling.
§ 14. But what was the origin of all disasters was that in the Roman Consulship there was no force by which the injuries of powerful men could be restrained. For, first of all, Consuls were agitated by great personal hostilities, so that they sometimes betrayed their fatherland and army. Thus it happened at Veii, as Livy testifies in book 5. Sergius and Verginius were military Tribunes with consular power, each hated and was hostile to the other. “When it was reported to Verginius that most of the forts had been attacked, the defenses overcome, and the enemy was entering from both sides, he kept his soldiers under arms, repeatedly saying that, if there were need of aid, his colleague would send to him. The obstinacy of the other equaled this man’s arrogance: lest he appear to have sought any help from an enemy, he preferred to be conquered by the enemy rather than conquer through a fellow citizen. For a long time soldiers were slaughtered between them; at last, after abandoning the defenses, a very few made for the greater camp, but the largest part, and Sergius himself, for Rome. There, when he shifted all blame upon his colleague, it was resolved that Verginius be summoned from the camp and that the Legates command in the meantime. The matter was then debated in the Senate, and the colleagues contended with insults. Few supported the state; men supported one or the other according as private zeal or favor had seized each.”
Many examples teach that no Senator could be restrained by a Consul if only he possessed the spirit to resist. For the faction of the Patricians allowed nothing to be done for the advantages of the plebs, and the object was that the Consul should strengthen the domination of the nobility. But if anyone sought the favor of the plebs, he assuredly possessed an easy refuge against all patrician commands. Other things were then present by which justice could not be defended or injuries restrained: the conspiracy of the nobility, relationships by blood and marriage, the succession of others to the same dignity, and reciprocal hopes of concealment. No noble Consul was ever found who administered the Magistracy in such a way as to arouse against himself the hatred of his peers by impartial justice and the defense of the plebs. Nor were there lacking those who secretly and openly plotted snares and death. I therefore praise more highly the Veientes, who, weary of annual ambition, the cause of discord, created a King.
§ 15. Excessive expenses were also made in the Consulship, so that the purple of a single year reduced many to poverty. Lest anyone think that the lords of the earth are undeservedly censured, let him hear the most prudent judge Lipsius, book 2, chapter 11 of The Greatness of Rome: “I shall state the chief heads of expenditure. Lactantius speaks thus concerning them generally: ‘What is to be said of those who, led by popular fickleness, expend upon the presentation of shows resources sufficient even for great cities?’ Likewise Ambrose: ‘A Magistrate bestows and squanders his entire patrimony upon theaters, mimes, athletes, gladiators, and other kinds of men of this sort, so that he may acquire the favor of the crowd for a single hour.’ The Fathers deservedly condemn this ruinous madness, which strips private men of their goods through play and diminishes and saps Princes themselves. You may learn this both from the frequency of the shows and from their apparatus. Augustus alone says that he gave games twenty-four times in his own name and twenty-three times for other Magistrates who were absent or lacked the means. I scarcely think any of those princely games cost less than five hundred thousand or even a million sesterces, as their equipment and pomp will readily persuade us. For behold, how great were often the expenses in adorning the theater itself, the amphitheater, or the circus, since some charm and enticement of novelty was always sought in the very form. Nero, for example, overlaid and covered the entire theater—not merely its stage—with gold. Whatever was brought in, and every instrument and item of stage equipment, was likewise golden; and the awnings stretched above against the sun were wholly purple and interwoven with golden stars. Hence even that day was called Golden. Dio Cassius relates this concerning Nero. Pliny likewise signifies the same thing: ‘Nero covered Pompey’s theater with gold for one day, on which he displayed it to Tiridates, King of Armenia.’
“What of Julius Caesar before Nero, when he was not yet Prince? As Aedile, in the funeral show for his father, he was the first to use silver for all the equipment of the arena; and beasts being assailed with silver spears were then seen for the first time. Soon afterward, in something which even municipalities emulate, Gaius Antonius gave games with a silver stage.” Afterward the Consulship was a mere name; yet those shadows of Consuls did more to irritate spirits than to pacify them, since in this manner dignity was not added to citizens, but the memory of lost dignity was renewed, not without reproach. Pandulf Petrucci, the tyrant of Siena, imitated the same thing in the creation of Six Men.
And afterward: “But you will say that these things belonged only to principal men. You are mistaken. Cicero long ago said of Milo that he poured out three patrimonies upon these things; Vopiscus speaks of a certain Messala when he relates these things with indignation: ‘Let Junius Messala read this passage, whom I dare freely to blame. For he gave his patrimony to stage-players and denied it to his heirs; he gave his mother’s tunic to a female mime and his father’s cloak to a mime—and rightly so, if a tragic actor were to use his grandmother’s gold-and-purple mantle and trailing robe! Why should I speak now of linens sought from Egypt, or of those from Tyre and Sidon, translucent in their fineness, gleaming with purple, most celebrated for the difficulty of their embroidery? Cloaks sought from Arras were given; cloaks from Canusium were given; African riches never before seen appeared upon the stage. I committed these things to writing so that shame might touch future producers, lest, after disinheriting lawful heirs, they assign patrimonies to mimes and babblers.’”
The expense of all was immense, for the consular and triumphal banquet had passed into custom. Pliny, book 14, chapter 15: “Did not Caesar the Dictator also distribute amphorae of Falernian and Chian wine at the banquet of his triumph? At his Spanish triumph he likewise gave Chian and Falernian wine; but at the banquet in his third Consulship, Falernian, Chian, Lesbian, and Mamertine. It is established that this was the first time four kinds of wine were set out. Afterward, therefore, all other wines came into distinction, around the seven-hundredth year of the city.”
Let this, however, be granted to the congratulations of friends. Consuls gave games at the greatest loss to themselves and the public. But this surpasses all madness: even when the Consulship was only an honor and not also a power, many nevertheless purchased the mask of a dead Magistracy by the loss of their patrimony. Whoever does not know the expenses of the games is ignorant of Roman antiquity. Consuls exhibited a hunt. Claudian, book 3, On the Praise of Stilicho:
Beasts to be held with death delayed by nets and enclosures, And beasts to be led forth—restrain your eager arrows; Spare the monsters destined to fall for the Consul’s applause.
It was a matter of great expense and not suitable for a man who was about to return to private life. Thus, while they competed in expenditures at home, the spoils of the provinces were purchased in the Assembly much more ardently than monstrous beasts:
Then he gathers green leopards and the other prodigies Of the south, and together with them Latona’s monstrous tusks.
Nor do I censure the madness of expenditure without cause, for popular Emperors alleviated it. Aurelian gave the Consulship at public expense; he would not have given a benefit if he had not himself supplied an expense ruinous to a private man. Other, more prudent Emperors afterward reduced the expense, as Alexander Severus did. Yet ambition most wretched in its desire was not lacking: many judged it more tolerable to be ruined by expenses than to lack the Consulship.
The laws themselves agree with me. Valentinian and Marcian forbade it, Code, book 12, title 3: “We have recalled the order of the Consulship to the ancient ordinance, so that the throngs of the people may follow the chair of our honor for its merit, not through eagerness to seize gifts, and, laying aside desire for gain, may behold the venerable attire of our fathers and the ornaments of most fortunate antiquity. We therefore wish the Consuls to precede all others by this example also, and do not permit them to expend without effect. Thus, when this advantage of scattering gifts has ceased, let the most ample Consuls henceforth abstain from the error of ruining themselves as they proceed; and by the best counsel let that which was to be incompetently thrown away benefit a necessary work. Therefore let one hundred pounds of gold be furnished under each Consulship for the restoration of the aqueducts of this most ample city, so that the Consul may know that he has given to his fatherland and that it may be known that what is given will remain perpetually. Given when Sporacius and Herculanus were Consuls.”
Not even antiquity could endure that, after the power of making war and peace had been taken away—as the Emperor speaks in Novel 105—Consuls should exhaust themselves by largesse alone. Marcian altogether forbade the scattering of coins; Justinian permitted them to scatter silver but forbade gold. Yet it is useful to hear the laws: “What the Consul ought to scatter among the people in these seven processions we have determined better than the constitution of Marcian of divine memory declares. That law indeed altogether denied munificence; but we correct that provision, arranging it according to the will of the man who possesses the honor of the Consulship. For if he wishes to scatter nothing, we do not compel him; but if he again wishes to come to this and honor the people with gifts of silver, we do not forbid this either. Nevertheless, we do not permit him to scatter gold of any stamp or weight whatsoever, whether smaller, larger, or intermediate—but silver, as we have said.”
Let these things have been said concerning the office, honor, and power of the Consuls. When that power failed, the Romans supported it by the Dictatorship, concerning which I shall speak in its place.