CONSULS AND R E S P U B L I C A The consulate was the focal point of Roman politics. Both the ruling class and the ordinary citizens fixed their gaze on the republic’s highest office – to be sure, from different perspectives and with differing expectations. While the former aspired to the consulate as the defining magistracy of their social status, the latter perceived it as the embodiment of the Roman state. Holding high office was thus not merely a political exercise. The consulate prefigured all aspects of public life, with consuls taking care of almost every element of the administration of the Roman state. This multifaceted character of the consulate invites a holistic investigation. The scope of this book is therefore not limited to political or constitutional questions. Instead, it investigates the predominant role of the consulate in, and its impact on, the political culture of the Roman republic. h a n s b e c k is John MacNaughton Professor and Director of Classical Studies in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University. His publications include Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century bc () with John Buckler. a n t o n i o d u p l á is Associate Professor in the Departamento de Estudios Clásicos at the Universidad del Paı́s Vasco in Vitoria-Gasteiz, where he teaches Ancient History and Classical Reception. m a r t i n j e h n e is Professor of Ancient History in the Institut für Geschichte at the Technische Universität Dresden. f r anc i sc o p ina p o l o is Professor of Ancient History in the Departamento de Ciencias de la Antigüedad at the Universidad de Zaragoza. His publications include The Consul at Rome: The Civil Functions of the Consuls in the Roman Republic (). CONSULS AND RES PUBLICA Holding High Office in the Roman Republic edited by HANS BECK, ANTONIO DUPL Á , MARTIN JEHNE AND FRANCISCO PINA POLO cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/  c Cambridge University Press  This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published  Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Consuls and res publica : holding high office in the Roman Republic / edited by Hans Beck... [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ---- . Consuls, Roman – History. . Political culture – Rome – History. . Rome – History – Republic, – b.c. . Rome – Politics and government – – b.c. . Social classes – Rome – History. . Social status – Rome – History. . Power (Social sciences) – Rome – History. . Rome – Social conditions – – b.c. I. Beck, Hans, – II. Title. dg..cc   ′ . – dc isbn ---- Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents Preface List of contributors page vii ix The republic and its highest office: some introductory remarks on the Roman consulate  Hans Beck, Antonio Duplá, Martin Jehne and Francisco Pina Polo part i the creation of the consulship  The magistrates of the early Roman republic   Christopher Smith  The origin of the consulship in Cassius Dio’s Roman History  Gianpaolo Urso  The development of the praetorship in the third century bc  Alexander Bergk part ii powers and functions of the consulship  Consular power and the Roman constitution: the case of imperium reconsidered   Hans Beck  Consuls as curatores pacis deorum  Francisco Pina Polo  The Feriae Latinae as religious legitimation of the consuls’ imperium Francisco Marco Simón v  Contents vi  War, wealth and consuls  Nathan Rosenstein part iii symbols, models, self-representation  The Roman republic as theatre of power: the consuls as leading actors   Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp  The consul(ar) as exemplum: Fabius Cunctator’s paradoxical glory  Matthew B. Roller  The rise of the consular as a social type in the third and second centuries bc  Martin Jehne  Privata hospitia, beneficia publica? Consul(ar)s, local elite and Roman rule in Italy  Michael P. Fronda part iv ideology, confrontation and the end of the republican consulship  Consular appeals to the army in  and : the locus of legitimacy in late-republican Rome   Robert Morstein-Marx  Consules populares  Antonio Duplá  The consulship of  bc. Catulus versus Lepidus: an optimates versus populares affair  Valentina Arena  Consulship and consuls under Augustus  Frédéric Hurlet Bibliography Index of persons Subject index    Preface This volume is primarily the result of the work carried out by an international research network, which was established in  with the main purpose of studying the consulship in the Roman republic. The editors formed the core group of this network: Hans Beck (Montreal, Canada), Antonio Duplá (Vitoria, Spain), Martin Jehne (Dresden, Germany) and Francisco Pina Polo (Zaragoza, Spain), the last acting as Principal Investigator. The core group met on various occasions in Spain, and a large international conference was held at the University of Zaragoza in September , where most of the papers presented in this book were delivered. These papers were significantly revised for publication. Other contributions were added as this volume took shape, to fill in the most significant gaps. The result is by no means a comprehensive study of the consulship, let alone a complete one. Rather, we look at the present volume as a contribution to an ongoing debate on Roman republican politics. That debate is more vibrant than ever. Branching out into the realms of other societies in the ancient Mediterranean, we feel that its applied models, concepts and thought paradigms are also relevant to the general discussion of elite power in antiquity. We are grateful to the Ministerio de Ciencia y Educación of Spain for its sponsorship of two consecutive funding cycles of “Consuls, Consulars and the Government of the Roman Republic” (HUM– and HUM–/HIST), which was vital to the work of our team. When the volume entered the publishing pipeline, Margherita Devine and Brahm Kleinman helped with the challenge of editing the work of scholars from so many different linguistic backgrounds and academic cultures. Special thanks go to them, as to Fabian Knopf, who took on the laborious task of compiling the index of persons. As so often, the editorial work took longer than anticipated, and the editors would like to thank the contributors not vii viii Preface only for their willingness to participate, but also for their patience. Finally, we are grateful to Michael Sharp, Commissioning Editor for Classics at Cambridge University Press, for his support and guidance in bringing this publication to light. Contributors valentina arena, Lecturer in Roman History, Department of History, University College London hans beck, John MacNaughton Chair of Classics, Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University alexander bergk, Philosophische Fakultät, Technische Universität Dresden antonio duplá, Associate Professor, Departamento de Estudios Clásicos, Universidad del Paı́s Vasco michael p. fronda, Assistant Professor, Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University karl-joachim h ölkeskamp, Professor of Ancient History, Historisches Institut, Universität Köln frédéric hurlet, Professor of Roman History, Département d’Histoire, Université de Nantes martin jehne, Professor of Ancient History, Institut für Geschichte, Technische Universität Dresden francisco marco sim ón, Professor of Ancient History, Departamento de Ciencias de la Antigüedad, Universidad de Zaragoza robert morstein-marx, Professor and Chair, Department of Classics, University of California, Santa Barbara francisco pina polo, Professor of Ancient History, Departamento de Ciencias de la Antigüedad, Universidad de Zaragoza matthew b. roller, Professor, Department of Classics, Johns Hopkins University ix x List of contributors nathan rosenstein, Professor of Ancient History, Department of History, Ohio State University christopher smith, Professor of Ancient History, School of Classics, University of St Andrews, Director of the British School at Rome gianpaolo urso, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milano The republic and its highest office: some introductory remarks on the Roman consulate Hans Beck, Antonio Duplá, Martin Jehne and Francisco Pina Polo The consulship of the Roman republic is notoriously under-researched. To be sure, the republican “constitution,” and with it the consulate, have been addressed to a certain extent. Examples in English include Andrew Lintott’s The Constitution of the Roman Republic and T. Corey Brennan’s and John North’s more recent syntheses. In some sense, these studies provide a comprehensive summary of a long series of scholarly contributions on the republic’s institutional apparatus, starting with Theodor Mommsen’s contribution and explored further in the works of Ettore de Ruggiero, Francesco de Martino, Jochen Bleicken, Wolfgang Kunkel and Roland Wittmann. This scholarship deals with the Roman “constitution” in general terms, and all of these essays focus, more or less, on the supreme magistracy in the republic. Furthermore, the consulship has been studied in research on Roman chronology and on the Roman nobility. Republican prosopography is roughly based on the Fasti Consulares as a starting point. In fact, without Broughton’s monumental work it would be practically impossible to tackle any study on the republican period. And, of course, the groundbreaking work of Adalberto Giovannini must be mentioned. Giovannini succeeded in proving the non-existence of the assumed lex Cornelia de provinciis ordinandis, prompted by Mommsen, and      Lintott b; Brennan ; North . Mommsen –; de Ruggiero , –; de Martino –; Bleicken ; Kunkel & Wittmann . Cf. for instance Hölkeskamp ; Feig Vishnia ; Beck . Drummond ; Pinsent ; Mora . Broughton –. The work of Lippold  has a more limited purpose, since he analyzes the political role of the consuls in the period between the years  and , as does the work of Badian b. Badian studies the prosopography of the consuls between the passing of the lex Villia and the beginning of the civil war, focusing on descent to analyze the importance of noble status for the recruitment of consuls.   h. beck, a. duplá, m. jehne, f. pina polo specified the characteristics of the consular imperium. However, there is no book-length treatment of the office and its competences, or of the tasks performed by the consuls and their role in the government of Rome during the republic. The situation is somewhat different in other areas of constitutional research. The senate, the popular assemblies, the aedileship, the tribunate of the plebs, the censorship, the dictatorship and most recently the praetorship have all received in-depth treatment and works of analysis that were at times truly magisterial. In other words, virtually all republican institutions have, at some point, been the subject of extensive, although not completely updated, research. To date, the consulship is the only institution that has not received this attention. This is astonishing, at best. The situation cannot be explained by the hazards of scholarship alone. Rather, the consulship is a nebulous office, which makes it an elusive subject of research from a constitutional point of view. While the tribunate of the plebs and the praetorship have fairly clearcut responsibilities and spheres of authority, the consulship has only an aura of general leadership with rather blurred limits of competence. Consuls are allowed to take care of nearly everything in the administration of the res publica, but often their surveillance remains more or less an abstraction without much significance in everyday business. To understand Roman consuls better it is therefore necessary to determine not so much what they were allowed to do according to constitutional theory, but what they did in political practice. Or to rephrase it in a more programmatic way: the analysis of the consulship is better suited to cultural history and historical anthropology than the classical “Staatsrecht.” And there is much to do in this approach. It is precisely the study of the consulship that is the main objective of the research team formed a few years ago by the authors of this introduction. The research work has been carried out under the sponsorship of the Ministerio de Ciencia y Educación of Spain, which funded a project entitled “Consuls, Consulars and the Government of the Roman       Giovannini . The maintenance of the imperium militiae by the consuls during their consular year after Sulla had already been pointed out by Balsdon  and by Valgiglio , esp.–. Girardet , esp.– = Girardet . Bonnefond-Coudry ; Ryan . Botsford ; Taylor ; Develin b; Farrell ; Yakobson ; Pina Polo , ; Laser ; Millar ; Sandberg ; Morstein-Marx .  Bleicken ; Lobrano ; Sancho ; Thommen . Sabbatucci . Suolahti ; Pieri . Cf. also the papers of Astin ; Astin .  Brennan . Bandel ; Hartfield ; Hurlet . The republic and its highest office  Republic” (HUM– and HUM–/HIST). In this context, an international conference was held at the University of Zaragoza in September  where most of the papers that make up this volume were presented. In the traditional account, the consuls are the regular supreme magistrates of the Roman “constitution” and their image is linked to the politicalmilitary management of the state from the very beginning. During the conquest of Italy and, later on, the Mediterranean, their military dimension as commanders of the army became particularly relevant. Finally, during the late republic, their political dimension is highlighted once again in the persistence of their office in the troubled times of the last century of the republic. But the republic’s highest office, like the Roman “constitution” itself, should be regarded as a “work in progress,” and it cannot be analyzed without taking into account the changing historical circumstances of the five centuries of republican history. Roman tradition itself, as opposed to other historical sources, highlighted the fact that the system developed with the contributions of many generations, and not as a result of the work of one particular legislator at a given time. The consulship is, in that sense, a splendid example of the elements of continuity and change that co-exist in the “constitution” of the Roman republic. On the one hand, the picture, firmly anchored in Roman imagery, of the consuls as the immediate substitutes for the king in the change from monarchy into republic is a reflection of that continuity. The so-called lex curiata de imperio may well be another example of this, if the provision indeed was a genuine archaic relic that became, and continued to be, an imperative for superior magistrates, although it was reduced to a ritual formality later on. On the other hand, the various changes that affect the powers of the consuls with regards to newly created magistracies, or questions such as the date they took office or, something more essential, the transformations of the imperium, indicate a dramatic development and adaptation to the changing needs of each particular time. Consequently, the development of the consulship is an indication of the flexibility and creativity of Rome’s ruling class in the republican period. According to Roman traditions, Livy’s narrative and his predecessors in particular, two consuls, acting as equal partners in power, replaced the  As the main result of the research project, the coordinator of the team, Francisco Pina Polo, has published a monograph entitled The Consul at Rome: The Civil Functions of the Consuls in the Roman republic (Cambridge, ).  h. beck, a. duplá, m. jehne, f. pina polo king as superior magistrates in  bc. However, Livy himself and later authors, such as Festus, also refer to a praetor maximus, which has led some to think of a principal magistrate at the head of the newly born republic. Reports regarding the praetor maximus and the annual fixing of the nail on the Capitoline temple would support that interpretation. Moreover, the traditional account of the establishment of a new regime is embellished with a series of historical-literary items that render it highly implausible. The stories of Lucretia, the first consuls Brutus and Tarquinius Collatinus, the Etruscan King Porsenna, the expulsion of the relatives of the gens of the king, including Collatinus, the conspiracy of Brutus’ sons in favor of the restoration of the monarchy and their subsequent execution, as well as other similar events, all suggest tenuous historicity. The complexity of the many problems deriving from the reconstruction of the beginnings and of the first century and a half of the republic is enormous. There are debates over the names of the first magistrates, whether or not they had dual character, why tribuni militum consulare potestate existed, and whether the Fasti are relatively historical or totally false. The possibility of a historical reconstruction of that period is discussed, considered in the sources by both believers and non-believers. Without getting bogged down by specific problems, which are out of place in this short description of the history of the consulship, we can establish certain starting points. After the rejection of the monarchy-tyranny, it is logical to suppose that an absolute ruler was replaced by a series of magistrates, of variable number, to ensure a better distribution of power. In an open city-state, like Rome by the end of the sixth century bc, after an oligarchic coup d’état against a monarch-tyrant, it is reasonable to argue for a joint and temporary exercise of power by the leaders of the most important clans, who were endorsed by their election-ratification at the assemblies. These superior magistrates could be elected by the comitia centuriata, originally the people in arms, to hold the office for a limited period of time: one year. The joint and temporary nature of the post seems to be the coherent result of a new distribution of power among aristocratic families. In fact, joint magistracies, in variable number and with limited duration of office, are recurrent in the tradition of the fifth century bc (decemviri, tribuni plebis, tribuni militum consulare potestate). The essential element of superior magistrates is the imperium, a civil and military authority, of sacred nature, exercised domi and militiae. This imperium is complemented by a series of external signs of power: twelve lictors with fasces and secures, sella curulis, toga praetexta. They take turns  Livy ... The republic and its highest office  carrying the fasces to emphasize the joint nature of their power. Regardless of the debated historicity of the first leges Valeriae de provocatione, it is probable that there was, from a very early stage, some sort of right of appeal of the people against the possible arbitrariness of superior magistrates; thus the balance between imperium and provocatio is one of the defining characteristics of Rome’s political system. The intercessio from a colleague or a tribune of the plebs was another mechanism to assure some balance of power, aimed at preventing abuses and favoring reaching consensus. Rome’s constitutional structure, certainly quite peculiar, is also well defined from the beginning in the account that sources give of the origin of the republic. A rigorous analysis of the information provided by historians and antiquarians raises many questions that cannot be answered clearly. Nonetheless, without denying those difficulties, we can outline a historical reconstruction from the retrievable elements in those sources. For example, even if we accept the possible existence of eponymous magistrates from the start, it implies the existence of lists of magistrates from a very early stage, which in turn supports the plausibility of the Fasti. Indeed, it is undeniable that only after the enactment of the LicinianSextian laws (/ bc) do we have more detailed and reliable information about the consulship. The various theories about consuls or praetor maximus and other praetores, or magister populi–magister equitum, about the tribuni militum consulare potestate, give way to greater certainties. From that moment on, we have definite knowledge of a double magistracy, linked to the patrician–plebeian conflict and the plebeian demand for political parity. Fabius Pictor already pointed out the importance of this milestone in the history of the Roman constitution. After /, and for over a century, there were to be three superior magistrates cum imperio, with closely linked powers. It is possible that the so-called lex Licinia Sextia de consule plebeio enabled the election of a plebeian consul and that later on (lex Genucia, in  bc), this election was made compulsory. The formation of a new patrician-plebeian ruling class, the nobilitas, was to be, from then on, closely linked to the exercise of the consulship, maximus honos, as the clearest expression of their prominence and control over the political system. From the second half of the fourth century bc, once the direct patrician– plebeian confrontation was over and as the integration of the plebeian elite within the new Roman aristocracy was in progress, the central feature of the history of Rome is external expansion. The conquest of Italy first and later on of the Mediterranean is characteristic of this middle period of the republic, from the final few decades of the fourth century to the final decades of the second century bc. This almost uninterrupted series of military campaigns, increasingly more distant and longer-lasting, was to  h. beck, a. duplá, m. jehne, f. pina polo be the background for the leading role of consuls as generals of the Roman legions. Military needs and the growing complexity of the Roman state brought about a series of important changes in the Roman “constitution” that affected the consulship. Its status as a supreme regular magistracy never wavered but some aspects, in particular regarding the imperium, did undergo some changes. In this period, almost all the consuls went to the provinces that had been allotted to them, either in Italy or beyond, after remaining in Rome just a few weeks, or at most, two or three months at the beginning of the consular year. As opposed to the more common practice in the late republic, very few remained in Rome year-round. These consules-imperatores were famous for their military deeds and became the essential core of the res gestae of the nobilitas, the backbone of Rome’s historical narrative. As previously mentioned, the new military demands resulted in a series of innovations in the exercise of the magistracy of the consulship. Probably the most remarkable instance was the prorogatio imperii, which entitled an exmagistrate to hold imperium and, consequently, to continue in command of the army beyond the annual term of his office. The first instance is attributed to Q. Publilius Philo, cos.  and promagistrate pro consule the following year, within the context of the Samnite Wars. From the second half of the third century bc onwards, that prorogatio is increasingly more frequent. As indicated in this volume, during the Hannibalic War we know of about eight extensions of the imperium each year, simply by means of a decree of the senate. The dates of the elections and of the assumption of office are also modified. In the more ancient period, the election was held upon the consuls’ return from military campaigns or before their term of office expired; with Sulla, the elections were called in the summer. The date the consuls took office was March  between the years  and  bc. From the year  onwards, the appointed date was January , thus allowing a longer period to deal with political duties in Rome and with military reparations and requirements outside Rome. The gradual creation of new magistracies also had an historical effect on the powers of the consulship. The censorship was created in the fifth century bc, by means of the Licinian-Sextian laws, the praetorship in the fourth century bc, and the second praetorship in the middle of the third century bc. It was probably at this point that the cursus honorum was established as a more or less strict sequence in the exercise of the various magistracies. The cursus became definitively established with the lex Villia annalis of  bc. The consulship was the highest executive rank, the supreme military The republic and its highest office  command and therefore the major source of prestige. The increase in the number of praetors did nothing but reinforce the prominent status of the consulship. This pre-eminence is evident in the res publica through their leading role in politics and in diplomatic, military and religious matters. Polybius, in his reconstruction of the Roman “constitution,” says that the consuls, in their powers and leading roles, are similar to kings. However, Polybius himself at the same time acknowledges the absolutely central role of the senate; the balance of power between magistrates, in particular the consuls and the senate, is the key element in the stability and achievements of the Roman system in the third and second centuries bc. The break of that cohesion was a key factor in the unleashing and development of the late-republican crisis. In the late republic, there were again changes in the sphere of power of the consuls and in their political role. We must look at, on the one hand, the appearance of the so-called extraordinary commands, and on the other hand, what Millar described as the “politicization” of the consulship. Through the commands of proconsuls and propraetors, the imperium had become fragmented and separated from the exercise of the annual magistracies. At this moment, with the imperium maius granted to Pompey in the years  and , a new modification was introduced and along with it a precedent of immeasurable consequence was set. Socio-political and military-specific needs caused the introduction of constitutional innovations that affected the traditional hierarchy and distribution of power. A potential source of conflict between the various holders of imperium emerged, which contributed to the destabilization of the traditional Roman “constitution.” The leading role of the popular assemblies in the granting of these extraordinary commands did nothing but exacerbate the problem. In an increasingly conflict-ridden context from the last third of the second century onwards, another change took place regarding the direct political leadership of the consuls in the Urbs. Whereas in the second century the consulares had been particularly active in Rome’s regular political life, in the first century the consuls themselves took on a central political role. After Sulla, the consuls gradually left the city more frequently at the end of the year, after remaining in Rome for about ten months, or even remained in the Urbs their whole year of office. This practice was attributed by modern historiography, endorsed by the authority of Mommsen’s interpretation, to a supposed lex Cornelia de provinciis ordinandis. A series of scholars, in particular Giovannini, have demonstrated the non-existence of that law. Once we accept the absence of any laws in this regard, we must,  h. beck, a. duplá, m. jehne, f. pina polo however, question what the reason was for this change in the patterns of behavior of the consuls. The consuls’ growing participation in the politics of Rome can be observed in the contiones, and in the presentation of rogationes, in the debates of the senate. It could be asserted that this new and active leading role brought them closer to the tribunes of the plebs in their political leadership in the city. This change fits well within the overall contents of the Sullan reform, in that it limited the leadership of tribunes in the political arena. Nevertheless, whatever the cause, this was another substantial change in the traditional distribution of political roles in the “constitution” of the Roman republic. Apart from the two main events mentioned above, that is, the extraordinary commands and the politicization, the particularly troubled circumstances of the last republican century also affected the exercise of the consulship at different stages. For example, despite the prohibition of iteration, probably set forth in the second century, we find the successive consulships of Marius, Cinna or Carbo, although all of them were certainly exceptional cases. Besides this, different measures were proposed for a better regulation of the exercise of the higher magistracies, such as a possible Sullan law on the minimum age for the magistracies. The management of the empire became one of Rome’s main problems and we know of several laws regarding the government of the provinces that directly affected consuls and consulars; for instance, the Gracchan law on the allocation of provinces before the consuls take office, the lex Iulia repetundarum of  or the lex Pompeia de provinciis of , which set forth a lapse of five years between the magistracies and the government of a province. Leaving aside all the changes, modifications or new regulations of their spheres of control and competences, the consulship always remained the ultimate ambition for any nobilis. Becoming a consul determined one’s place in the hierarchy of the ruling class. Its joint nature was the permanent expression of the aristocratic concern to prevent an individual from amassing excessive power through higher magistracies. Pompey’s consulship sine collega in , for a short period of time, is an extraordinary occurrence and the fact that it was an exception, and not a regular practice, confirms a soundly established rule. The relevance of the consulship, from the point of view of the senatorial aristocracy, was also confirmed at various critical instances that reoccur in the last century of the republic. In those circumstances, when the senate resorts to the so-called senatus consultum ultimum, the consuls are mentioned in the first place in this senatorial appeal, to stress their prominence and responsibility in the restoration of order and normality in the res publica. The republic and its highest office  With the advent of the principate a profound change in the nature of the consular imperium took place. The magistracy remained as the culmination of the cursus but there was a substantial alteration in its nature, parallel to the gradual concentration of actual power in the hands of Octavian-Augustus. Then the “demilitarization of the consulship” occurred. However, the political system was then different from the republic, and the res publica was shadowed by the princeps. Up until that moment and throughout five centuries, at least as it is recorded by the Roman sources, the consuls had been not only the supreme magistrates but the very personification of the republic itself. The main purpose of this book is to begin to fill the gap in scholarship on the consulship by studying the Roman republic. The approach is by no means limited to “constitutional” questions. Instead, the predominant role of the consulship in, as well as its impact on, the political culture of the republic is investigated. As the highest magistracy of the res publica, the consulate was the focal point of Roman political life. Both the ruling class and the citizens of the lower social stratum fixed their gazes on the maximus honos – to be sure, from different perspectives and with differing expectations. While the former aspired to the consulate as the defining office of their social rank, the latter perceived it as the embodiment of the Roman state. Thus the consulship was not merely a political office, but rather prefigured all aspects of public life. The multifaceted character of the consulate invites a full-fledged investigation, and the book explores these various facets with contributions touching on the political, social, cultural, religious and also economic implications of holding the highest office. It covers the entire period of the Roman republic, from its beginnings in the fifth century until the reign of Augustus. The fifteen chapters are arranged both in a diachronic order and clustered around broader themes. The first section deals with the much-debated question of the origin of consulship as the supreme magistracy in the Roman republic. The problem, as is well known, rests on chronologically establishing the beginning of consulship, whether it existed since the end of the monarchy or was the result of a process in which other magistracies in charge of the civitas could have existed previously. Ultimately, the main difficulty lies in whether or not to accept the ancient sources, which unanimously refer to the existence of the consulship from the year , and in particular the reliability of the list of consuls known through the Fasti Capitolini. Three chapters refer to these problems and make up the first part of the book. Christopher Smith (“The magistrates of the early Roman republic”)  h. beck, a. duplá, m. jehne, f. pina polo leans toward granting credibility to the list of ancient magistrates. While he is skeptical about the fact that some ancient historians may have simply invented magistrates for the initial part of the republic, in his opinion, historians and antiquarians worked simultaneously using the same lists of magistrates and the same evidence, trying to produce a coherent discourse regarding a process of creation of the republican institutions that Romans knew were the result of the work of various generations and not of one single legislator. Gianpaolo Urso (“The origin of the consulship in Cassius Dio’s Roman History”) defends the credibility of Cassius Dio as a source for the early republic. The Greek author was following a source that acknowledges an original unequal collegiality among the chief Roman magistrates. His account indicates that the consulship resulted from an evolutionary process in the first half of the fifth century, as multiple praetors possessing unequal power were finally replaced by two consuls enjoying equal power during the decemvirate of –. Finally, Alexander Bergk (“The development of the praetorship in the third century bc”) rejects the idea that the praetor had a minor position in relation to the consuls in the fourth and earlier third century bc. On the contrary, the three chief magistracies created in the year , two consuls and one praetor, were colleagues. When wars took place increasingly far away from Rome, the permanent presence of at least one magistrate with imperium in Rome was required. The praetor then lost his military function and the city of Rome was his usual field of action. Only then did the hierarchy of consuls and praetors emerge, and the cursus honorum was born. From the time of their creation, the consuls were the chief magistrates of the Roman state and always acted in close collaboration with the senate. The consulship’s imperium determined the consuls’ powers and gave the office numerous functions, in both the military and the civil domains. In his analysis of the Roman republican institutions, Polybius describes consuls, above all, as the supreme commanders of the Roman army, and as such he claims they had absolute power on the battlefield. Between the fourth and second centuries, the consuls were indeed mainly imperatores, and as such they left Rome year after year to go to their provinciae, where they commanded the legions they had previously recruited. In that period the consuls were the main persons in charge of Roman expansion, first in Italy, and later throughout the Mediterranean. Yet, as Polybius also says, the consuls carried out a great number of civil tasks, mainly, but not only, during their stay in Rome at the beginning of the consular year after taking  Polyb. .. The republic and its highest office  office, a stay that could last a few weeks or months depending on the changing circumstances of internal and external politics. The consuls were the head of Roman diplomacy and as such they had to receive foreign embassies in the Urbs and introduce them, if necessary, in the senate; they had legislative initiative, although the number of consular laws passed during the middle republic was relatively small and unquestionably smaller than that of tribunician laws; on occasion, the consuls were commissioned by the senate to conduct extraordinary investigations; the consuls were responsible for and promoted many public works, such as a large number of the temples erected in Rome between the fourth and second centuries, and many roads built in Italy during that period; the consuls were responsible for appointing a dictator; and finally, they presided over the elections, which in the pre-Sullan period were held at the end of the consular year. The second part of the book deals with the powers consuls had and the functions they carried out. Hans Beck (“Consular power and the Roman constitution: the case of imperium reconsidered”) deals with the term imperium, the keystone of Roman constitutional hierarchies. He starts from the observation that imperium gave a spatial distinction to the spheres where it was exercised. This process was related to various changes: the development of the magistracies, in both numbers and competences; the growing use of extraordinary commands, which also contributed to the inherent tensions in the relations between imperium holders; and finally, as the republic expanded from city-state to Mediterranean empire, the changing perceptions of the space itself in which imperium was exercised. In examining these changes from a diachronic perspective, Beck’s chapter reveals Roman perceptions of space, political power and the nature of imperium. Francisco Pina Polo and Francisco Marco Simón offer a complementary perspective concerning the religious duties and tasks performed by the consuls. As Pina Polo emphasizes (“Consuls as curatores pacis deorum”), religious tasks were integral to the consuls’ power, as well as the Roman civitas: such tasks included religious ceremonies conducted in the civic realm, namely public vows, the expiation of prodigies, and the appointment of the date for the celebration of the Feriae Latinae, as well as presidency over the festival at the Mons Albanus, presidency over the public games, and especially responsibility for the proper performance of a ver sacrum. Such tasks were obviously of a religious nature, but they should also be considered as political functions, because consuls, as supreme magistrates, acted on behalf of the state with the ultimate purpose of preserving the res publica, thus adopting the role of curatores of the pax deorum. Marco Simón  h. beck, a. duplá, m. jehne, f. pina polo (“The Feriae Latinae as religious legitimation of the consuls’ imperium”) stresses the dual importance of the Feriae Latinae, a ceremony that was held for over a thousand years. This ritual, celebrated on the Mons Albanus, a space of augural nature, expressed the differentiated identity of Rome and its supremacy within the Latin league; additionally, compulsory attendance at the annual ceremonies, where the consul acted as high priest of the city, worked to legitimize consular authority. This part ends with the chapter by Nathan Rosenstein “War, wealth and consuls,” which analyzes the close relation between the role of the consuls as imperatores and the supply of funds to the aerarium due to the wars of expansion directed by them. Rosenstein starts from the difference between praeda and manubiae and goes on to propose a series of questions on the extent to which the spoils generated by consular victories were a boost to Rome’s public economy, fueled her military expansion by funding future wars and could be a source of personal wealth for consuls. As supreme magistrates of the civitas the consuls were at the core of the political scene. They were the top executors of the orders of the senate and the leaders of Rome’s government. At the same time, as supreme commanders of the army, both Rome’s survival and her capacity to expand rested in their hands. Thus, the consuls were the primary, visible authority in Roman society during their term of office, but their reputation went beyond the magistracy itself and automatically turned the ex-consuls, the consulares, into individuals whose auctoritas granted them influence in the senate and in society as a whole. The consuls represented Rome before the rest of the world and they had to be role models for their fellow citizens. On the other hand, the Italian aristocracies created a vast network of friendships and personal relations between cities. Roman aristocracy was obviously aware of this behavior. It was important for them to promote these relations with Italian notables as much as possible, as it was convenient for the latter to have connections with the families who had decisionmaking capacity in Rome. In this context, the reputation of the consuls and the consulars no doubt served to attract the attention of many Italian aristocrats willing to maintain ties with them and their families. These questions are dealt with in the third section of contributions. The paper by Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp (“The Roman republic as theatre of power: the consuls as leading actors”) presents the consuls as leaders in the republican “theatre of power,” and explores the symbolic role of the consulship within Roman society. Consuls personified institutionalized power through their protagonistic participation in civic rituals and public spectacles, for instance in the different political and social processions that The republic and its highest office  took place in Rome throughout the year, namely the inauguration ritual at the beginning of the consular year and the procession on the day of consuls’ departure to their provinces. Good and bad exempla were decisive in the creation of the collective memory of the Roman citizens and its historiographical reflection. Matthew B. Roller (“The consul(ar) as exemplum: Fabius Cunctator’s paradoxical glory”) emphasizes how consuls were the figures most likely to be presented as exempla in the Roman tradition, since they were the chief magistrates, supreme military commanders, and, consequently, the most visible members of the Roman aristocracy, at least during their year in office. Roller specifically analyzes the tradition around Q. Fabius Cunctator, elevated to a model to later generations of Romans for preserving Rome with his delaying tactics during the Hannibalic War. Martin Jehne’s paper (“The rise of the consular as a social type in the third and second centuries bc”) deals with the political role played by the consulares. The rank of consulares at the top of the senate seems to have been established only in the late third or early second century. From that point on, the military career of a Roman senator usually culminated in the consulship, with rare exceptions such as Marius, so consulares were free to care for the res publica in the Urbs as senators. Thus, senatorial activity compensated for the loss of army commands, while the individual influence of consulares depended on the senate’s influence as an institution and on the regular opportunity to decide on the significant problems facing the community. The new position of the consulares in Roman politics explains how some sort of common and stable foreign policy was achieved, despite the frequent changing of generals each seeking spectacular military action. Current scholarship revisits the relationship between Rome and the allied communities in Italy, questioning the Mommsenian teleology that it was Italy’s destiny to become a part of the greater Rome. In his paper, Michael P. Fronda (“Privata hospitia, beneficia publica? Consul(ar)s, local elite and Roman rule in Italy”) modifies the old view (cf., for instance, Münzer) that wealthy families throughout Italy came to Rome and bound themselves to great patrician clans through marriage and other alliances, in order to gain political and social influence in the Urbs. Fronda approaches Roman–Italian aristocratic relations from a different perspective, focusing not on how Italian elites sought to integrate themselves into the Roman political system, but rather on how their local status was confirmed by private and public associations with Roman aristocrats. During the first century bc, the main change in the consulship as a magistracy was the fact that the consuls remained in Rome much longer  h. beck, a. duplá, m. jehne, f. pina polo than in the previous centuries. Those who left for their provinces while being consuls always did so, except in extraordinary cases, very late in the year. Many others, such as Pompey in the year , Cicero in  and Caesar in , remained in the city throughout their term of office as consuls. Some of them even expressly renounced their consular provinces, as was the case of Cicero. This substantially changed the operations of the consulship. Whereas up until then the consuls had dedicated most of their time to military duties, their presence in Rome now made them much more actively involved in everyday politics. The consuls constantly took part in debates in the senate or before the people, and they had to openly state their opinion on topical questions. They were, in short, politicians. The last part of the book deals with the participation of the consuls in the political confrontations of the late republican period, emphasizing the possible support for the two ideological trends defined by Cicero as that of the optimates and that of the populares. Starting from Sulla’s appeal to his army in  and Cinna’s similar action in , Robert Morstein-Marx (“Consular appeals to the army in  and : the locus of legitimacy in late-republican Rome”) promotes the thesis that political legitimacy in late-republican Rome had no single institutional source. In the cases of the consuls Sulla in  and Cinna in  the character and role of the consulship were a central issue in the civil conflicts of those years. Both episodes show the reverence of Roman citizens, and perhaps especially soldiers, for the consul and the consulship, and help us to understand the meaning of the consulship in republican political culture. In Cicero’s matrix of politics, politicians of the late Roman republic could be characterized as either populares or optimates, and the significance of these terms in relation to the consulship is examined in the papers of Antonio Duplá (“Consules populares”) and Valentina Arena (“The consulship of  bc. Catulus versus Lepidus: an optimates versus populares affair”). The first collects and analyzes the sources on consules populares in order to understand the different historical circumstances and source traditions concerning the definition of the word popularis as applied to consuls all through the Roman republic. In particular Duplá focuses on some late-republican consuls. The political and socio-economic measures undertaken by the so-called consules populares (agrarian laws, laws concerning new colonies, or the full restoration of the tribunician potestas) also offer new insights into the failure of the social and political consensus of the last republican century in Rome. The existence of consuls who can be related more or less directly to the populares would have widened the divisions within the ruling class. The republic and its highest office  Arena argues that there was not just one idea of optimates in the republic, but rather multiple concepts were in circulation. Some of these concepts were based on conscious re-elaborations on the part of individual thinkers (such as Cicero, in the pro Sestio), some on the absorption of Greek political and ethical philosophy, and some on the simple use of the term in daily political discourse. In particular Arena states that Stoicism provided the basis for many of the conventional ethical assumptions held by the Roman optimates, but was also actively present in the real political conflicts of the time. Arena focuses her attention on the example of the political career of Catulus, especially his consulship in the year , when he confronted his colleague Lepidus. The establishment of the principate under Augustus meant an end to the republic and the foundation of a real monarchy with a republican façade, under the banner of restoration of the res publica. Certain republican institutions remained in force, adjusting themselves to the new political regime. What happened to the consulship? Frédéric Hurlet (“Consulship and consuls under Augustus”) tries to find the answer in the closing chapter of the book. First, there was continuity with the republic, as no argument proves decisively that the consulate underwent one or more institutional modifications under Augustus. One should not, however, ignore the fact that the Augustan principate accelerated certain developments that had emerged toward the end of the republic. In particular, the consuls were de facto deprived of the possibility to exercise an imperium militiae. As a matter of fact, the consulship suffered an undeniable devaluation under Augustus, but the competition for the consulship certainly persisted and consular rank remained the key criterion for a high-ranking position in the hierarchy of Rome’s strictly stratified society.