From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome (Rated Start-class, Mid-importance)
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, a group of contributors interested in Wikipedia's articles on classics. If you would like to join the WikiProject or learn how to contribute, please see our project page. If you need assistance from a classicist, please see our talk page.

Term of office of tribunes of the plebs ?[edit]

Shouldn't the term of office of the tribunes of the plebs be mentioned (with reference to the sources) ?
One assumes it's one year, as in other magistacies, but since it's actually not a magistracy per ce (not part of the cursus honorum), and it does not hold imperium, the one year's limit is not evident.

Ronbarak (talk) 17:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


Isn't it true that sacrosanct implied not only legal protections from harm, but religious as well?

Yep. At the time, in fact, there wasn't really a difference between the two. I'm not sure how to work this into the article as it stands, however.

There is a chronological error. It says the office of tribune was founded 15 years after the founding of the Roman Republic (494BC)it gives the date 509BC. However since it is BC years should be subtracted and it should 479BC instead.

There is a growing paragraph at the begining of this article pointing to alternative meanings, should this page now become a redirect to those other definitions? Giano | talk 10:52, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Was the judicial branch of the Roman Republic made up of the Tribunes, or was there even a judicial branch of the Roman Republic?

There were more than merely 2 classes of Tribunes to my knowledge, but the 2 major ones were seemingly seperated into military and plebian (mostly civil matters). If memory serves, Tribunes also had the options to Veto any bills that went before the senate, when introduced, during voting or even when ratified by the senate iirc. In reply to Giano: I believe it should be vice-versa. The other meanings should actually point to "Tribune" due to the broad responsibilties carried out by the Tribunate (assuming I haven't mistakenly attributed another offices duty to the tribunate, it's 9am and I haven't slept).

some tribunes are not tribunes[edit]

The "tribuni aerarii" is not a military officer; the "Tribune of the soldiers" is not a tribune at all. The whole section should be erased. Ori Redler 11:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to look into this if you elaborate. On the face of it, your statement is hard to understand. What sense of "tribune" do "tribune of the soldiers" not satisfy? Is the whole section fiction? If not, what is a more appropriate place to put info on "tribune of the soldiers"? If "tribuna aerarii" aren't military officers, would they be more appropriate in the previous section somewhere? I don't know enough about them to say what they did. Did you mean get rid of the whole "Roman Military Officers" section? That would be fine if the info was put into a more appropriate place, such as one of the many articles on Roman army organization, and briefly referenced here. It does seem a little out of place in this article, which seems to concentrate more on the civilian office. Kiaparowits 16:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Tribunes and tribuni militum share a similar name, but this is the only thing they share. The tribunus militum (tribune of the soldiers) was a military command position whose name is derived from tribus, because in ancient times one such tribune was sent as a representative of each of the original three tribes in Rome as commander of a legion. Since the tribuni militum were the top ranking officers in the Roman legion, there were many terms derived from their name in the sense of "command" or "related to the tribuni militum (e.g., tribunus cohortis). In my opinion, the whole section should be part or a new article: "tribune of the soldiers", although not every word starting with "trib..." should be there, in my opinion.

As to the tribuni aerarii -- this was not a military position and those tribuni were certainly not the "legions' paymasters" -- they were the tax collectors, probably private citizens, who were charged with the task to collect the tributum (which is probably how they gained their name) to pay the aes militare -- the fee for the foot soldiers at the earlier stages of the Roman republic. Also, later on the task was not delegated to the quaestors but to the state -- the magistrate here acted as its representative. You can create a new article for tribuni aerarii (the translation "tribunes of the treasury" is incorrect. "aerarii collectors" would be more accurate, perhaps).

So, yes, I think that section should be splintered out or simply go (as well as the "French revolutionary tribunat" which also seems out of place -- it is not the old institution revived). Ori Redler 01:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the tribunes of the treasury were civilian tax collectors, and I will change the article and add a source. Trainik 23:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that French Tribunate is out of place and should be handled seperately.

Yet, "tribunus militium" altough was not an office ranked equally as "tribunus plebis", I should remark that first elected consular tribunes were military tribunes. Therefore I think it must be handled under the same topic as tribune of the plebs. cxxı 00:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


Some references are not references. This article has none. Haploidavey (talk) 03:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The Roman Republic page has a list of references that appear to match the names in the footnotes here. If someone wants to take a look at the original sources and see if the citations are actually correct, this can be fixed. For reference, here is the list from that other article:

  1. Abbott, Frank Frost (1901). A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions. Elibron Classics. ISBN 0-543-92749-0.
  2. Byrd, Robert (1995). The Senate of the Roman Republic. U.S. Government Printing Office Senate Document 103-23.
  3. Caesar, Julius (58-50 BC). The conquest of Gaul. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-044433-5.
  4. Cicero, Marcus Tullius (1841). The Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero: Comprising his Treatise on the Commonwealth; and his Treatise on the Laws. vol. 1 (Translated from the original, with Dissertations and Notes in Two Volumes By Francis Barham, Esq ed.). London: Edmund Spettigue.
  5. Eck, Werner (2003). The Age of Augustus. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-22957-4.
  6. Flower, Harriet I. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic. Cambridge.
  7. Flower, Harriet I. (2009). Roman Republics. Princeton.
  8. Goldsworthy, Adrian (2003). The Complete Roman Army. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05124-0.
  9. Hart, B. H. Liddell (1926, reprint 2004). Scipio Africanus — Greater than Napoleon. DA CAPO Press. ISBN 0-306-81363-7.
  10. Holland, Tom (2005). Rubicon : the last years of the Roman Republic. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-50313-X.
  12. MacDonald, W. L. (1982). The Architecture of the Roman Empire. Yale University Press, New Haven.
  13. Matyszak, Philip (2004). The Enemies of Rome. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-25124-X.
  14. Owen, Francis (1993). The Germanic people; their Origin Expansion & Culture. Barnes & Noble Books. ISBN 0-19-926108-3.
  15. Palmer, L. R. (1954). The Latin Language. Univ. Oklahoma. ISBN 0-8061-2136-X.
  16. Polybius (1823). The General History of Polybius: Translated from the Greek. Vol 2 (Fifth ed.). Oxford: Printed by W. Baxter.
  17. Taylor, Lily Ross (1966). Roman Voting Assemblies: From the Hannibalic War to the Dictatorship of Caesar. The University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08125-X.

--Paultopia (talk) 04:39, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

recent changes[edit]

The recent changes by another editor made many minor alterations, often unsupported by the references which he left in place, and included a blanking of a perfectly reasonable section on the French institution which was named for the Roman institution of tribunes. I've reverted them, as the edit tags did not support or describe most of the changes made. I would be happy to discuss the particular changes, provided especially they don't materially alter text while leaving references intact, which creates an inadvertently incorrect citation--a particularly pernicious problem. 06:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

number of tribunes[edit]

The number of tribunes is extremely unclear. In the intro it says the title was shared by 10 elected officials. Then later in the same paragraph "In about 450 BC the number of tribunes was raised to Nine." So how can ten be "raised to nine" ? Why is Nine capitalised ? Salsa man (talk) 15:04, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

The "Nine" was introduced by a vandal recently; it should be "ten" of course. Thanks for catching it. Tb (talk) 18:32, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
So it was raised from 10 to 10? Thanks for clearing that up! ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 23:07, 14 May 2010 (UTC)