Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

TRAGULA.

385

TRIBUNUS.

TRAGULA. [Hasta.]

TRANSTRA. [Navis.]

TRANSVECTIO EQUITUM. [Equites,
p. 157.]

TRlARII. [Exercitus.]

TRIBULA or TRIBULUM (TptjSoXos), a
corn-drag, consisting of a thick and pon-
derous wooden board, which was armed un-
derneath with pieces of iron or sharp flints,
and drawn over the corn by a yoke of oxen,
either the driver or a heavy weight being
placed upon it, for the purpose of separating
the grain and cutting the straw.

TRIBULUS (Tpi'/3oXos), a caltrop, also
called murex. "When a place was beset with
troops, the one party endeavoured to impede
the cavalry of the other party, either by
throwing before them caltrops, which neces-
sarily lay with one of their four sharp points
turned upwards, or by burying the caltrops
with one point at the surface of the ground.

TRIBUNAL, a raised platform, on which
the praetor and judices sat in the Basilica.
[Basilica.] There was a tribunal in the
camp, which was generally formed of turf,
but sometimes, in a stationary camp, of stone,
from which the general addressed the sol-
diers, and where the consul and tribunes of
the soldiers administered justice. When the
general addressed the army from the tribunal
the standards were planted in front of it, and
the army placed round it in order. The ad-
dress itself was called Allocutio.

TRIBUNUS, a tribune. This word seems
originally to have indicated an officer con-
nected with a tribe [tribus], or who repre-
sented a tribe for certain purposes ; and this
is indeed the character of the officers who
were designated by it in the earliest times
of Rome, and may be traced also in the later
officers of this name.—(1) Tribunes of the
three ancient tribes.—At the time when
all the Roman citizens were contained in the
three tribes of the Ramnes, Tities, and Lu-
ceres, each of them was headed by a tribune,
and these three tribunes represented their
respective tribes in all civil, religious, and
military affairs; that is to say, they were in
the city the magistrates of the tribes, and
performed the sacra on their behalf, and in
times of war they were their military com-
manders. The tribunus celertim was the
commander of the celereg, the king's body-
guard, and not the tribune of the tribe of
the Ramnes, as is supposed by some modern
writers. In what manner the tribunus ce-
lerum was appointed is uncertain, but it is
probable that he was elected by the tribes;
for we find that when the imperium was to
be conferred upon the king, the comitia were
held under the presidency of the tribunus

celerum ; and in the absence of the king, to
whom this officer was next in rank, he con-
voked the comitia: it was in an assembly of
this kind that Brutus proposed to deprive
Tarquinius of the imperium. A law passed
under the presidency of the tribunus celerum
was called a lex tribunicia, to distinguish it
from one passed under the presidency of the
king. The tribunes of the three ancient
tribes ceased to be appointed when these
tribes themselves ceased to exist as political
bodies, and when the patricians became in-
corporated in the local tribes of Servius
Tullius. [Tribus.]—(2) Tribunes of the

Servian tribes W>uAapxoi, Tpirruapxoi)._

When Servius Tullius divided the common-
alty into thirty local tribes, we again find a
tribune at the head of these tribes. The
duties of these tribunes, who were without
doubt the most distinguished persons in their
respective districts, appear to have consisted
at first in keeping a register of the inhabit-
ants in each district, and of their property,
for purposes of taxation, and for lewing the
troops for the armies. When subsequently
the Roman people became exempted from
taxes, the main part of their business was
taken from them, but they still continued to
exist. The tribuni aerarii, who occur down
to the end of the republic, were perhaps only
the successors of the tribunes of the tribes.
When (b. c. 406) the custom of giving pav
{stipendium) to the soldiers was introduced,
each of the tribuni aerarii had to collect the
tributum in his own tribe, and with it to pay
the soldiers; and in case they did not fulfil
this duty, the soldiers had the right of pig-
noris capio against them. In later times
their duties appear to have been confined to
collecting the tributum, which they made
over to the military quaestors who paid the
soldiers. [Quaestor.] The Lex Aurelia,
b. c. 70, called the tribuni aerarii to the
exercise of judicial functions, along with the
senators and equites, as these tribunes re-
presented the body of the most respectable
citizens. But of this distinction they were
subsequently deprived by Julius Caesar.
—(3) TaiBtnn Plebis (Srjuapxoi, the office
Styuuyxui). — The ancient tribunes of the
plebeian tribes had undoubtedly the right
of convoking the meetings of their tribes,
and of maintaining the privileges granted to
them by king Servius, and subsequently by
the Valerian laws. But this protection was
very inadequate against the insatiable am-
bition and usurpations of the patricians.
When the plebeians, impoverished by long
wars, and cruelly oppressed by the patri-
cians, at last seceded in b. c. 494 to the Mons
Sacer, the patricians were obliged to grant

2 c