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

TRIBUNUS,

TKIBUNUS.

name tribunida potestas, and extended at no
time farther than one mile beyond the gates
of the city; at a greater distance than this
they came under the imperium of the ma-
gistrates, like every other citizen. As they
were the public guardians, it was necessary
that ever}' one should have access to them
and at any time ; hence the doors of their
houses were open day and night for all who
were in need of help and protection, which
they were empowered to afford against any
one, even against the highest magistrates.
For the same reason a tribune was not al-
lowed to be absent from the city for a whole
day, except during the Feriae Latinae, when
the whole people were assembled on the
Alban Mount. In b.c. 45G the tribunes, in
opposition to the consuls, assumed the right
of convoking the senate, in order to lay
before it a rogation, and discuss the same;
for until that time the consuls alone had had
the right of laying plebiscita before the
senate for approbation. Some years after,
b.c. 452, the tribunes demanded of the con-
suls to request the senate to make a senatus-
consultum for the appointment of persons
to frame a new legislation ; and during the
discussions on this subject the tribunes them-
selves were present in the senate. The
written legislation which the tribunes then
wished can only have related to their own
order; but as such a legislation would only
have widened the breach between the two
orders, they afterwards gave way to the re-
monstrances of the patricians, and the new
legislation was to embrace both orders.
From the second decernvirate the tribune-
ship was suspended, but was restored after
the legislation was completed, and now
assumed a differer.t character from the change
that had taken place in the tribes. [Tribus.]
The tribunes now had the right to be present
at the deliberations of the senate ; but they
did not sit among the senators themselves,
but upon benches before the opened doors of
the senate house. The inviolability of the
tribunes, which had before only rested upon
a contract between the two estates, was now
sanctioned and confirmed by a law of M.
Horatius. As the tribes now also included
the patricians and their clients, the tribunes
might naturally be asked to interpose on
behalf of any citizen, whether patrician or
plebeian. Hence the patrician ex-decemvir,
Appius Claudius, implored the protection of
the tribunes. About this time the tribunes
also acquired the right of taking the auspices
in the assemblies of the tribes. They also
assumed again the right, which they had
exercised before the time of the decemvirate,
of bringing patricians who had violated the

rights of the plebeians before the comitia of
the tribes. By the Lex Valeria passed in the
Comitia Centuriata (b. c. 449), it was enacted
that a plebiscitum, which had been voted by
the tribes, should bind the patricians as well.
While the college thus gained outwardly new
strength every day, a change took place in
its internal organisation, which to some ex-
tent paralysed its powers. Before b.c. 394,
every thing had been decided in the college
by a majority; but about this time, we do
not know how, a change was introduced,
which made the opposition (intercessio) of
one tribune sufficient to render a resolution
of his colleagues void. This new regulation
does not appear in operation till 394 and 393
b. c. ; the old one was still applied in b. c.
421 and 415. From their right of appearing
in the senate, and of taking part in its dis-
cussions, and from their being the represen-
tatives of the whole people, they gradually
obtained the right of intercession against any
action which a magistrate might undertake
during the time of his office, and this even
without giving any reason for it. Thus we
find a tribune preventing a consul from con-
voking the senate, and preventing the pro-
posal of new laws or elections in the comitia ;
they interceded against the official functions
of the censors ; and even against a command
issued by the praetor. In the same manner
a tribune might place his veto upon an ordi-
nance of the senate ; and he could thus either
compel the senate to submit the subject to a
fresh consideration, or could raise the session.
In order to propose a measure to the senate
they might themselves convene a meeting, or
when it had been convened by a consul they
might make their proposal even in opposition
to the consul, a right which no other magis-
trates had in the presence of the consuls.
The senate, on the other hand, had itself, in
certain cases, recourse to the tribunes. Thus,
in b. c. 431 it requested the tribunes to com-
pel the consuls to appoint a dictator, in com-
pliance with a decree of the senate, and the
tribunes compelled the consuls, by threatening
them with imprisonment, to appoint A. Pos-
tumius Tubertus dictator. From this time
forward we meet with several instances in
which the tribunes compelled the consuls to
comply with the decrees of the senate, si nun
extent in auctoritate senatus, and to execute
its commands. In their relation to the senate
a change was introduced by the Plebiscitum
Atinium, which ordained that a tribune, by
virtue of his office, should be a senator.
When this plebiscitum was made is uncertain ;
but we know that in b. c. 170 it was not yet
in operation. It probably originated with
C. Atinius, who was tribune in b. c. 132.

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