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

TKIBXJNU8.

388

T1UBUS.

But as the quaestorship, at least ir\ later
times, was the office which persons held pre-
ciously to the tribuneship, and as the quaes-
torship itself conferred upon a person the
right of a senator, the law of Atinius was in
most cases superfluous.—In their relation to
other magistrates we may observe, that the
right of intercessio was not confined to stop-
ping a magistrate in his proceedings, but
they might evei. command their viatores to
seize a consul or a censor, to imprison him,
or to throw him from the Tarpeian rock.
When the tribunes brought an accusation
against any one before the people, they had
the right of prehensio, but not the right of
vocntio, that is, they might command a per-
son to be dragged by their viatores before
the comitia, but they could not summon him.
They might, as in earlier times, propose a
line to be inflicted upon the person accused
before the comitia, but in some cases they
dropped this proposal and treated the case as
a capital one. The college of tribunes had
also the power of making edicts. In cases in
which one member of the college opposed a
resolution of his colleagues nothing could he
done, and the measure was dropped; but
this useful check was removed by the example
of Tiberius Gracchus, in which a precedent
was given for proposing to the people that a
tribune obstinately persisting in his veto
should be deprived of his office. From the
time of the Hortensian law the power of the
tribunes had been gradually rising to such a
height that at length it was superior to every
other in the state. They had acquired the
right of proposing to the comitia tributa or
the senate measures on nearly all the im-
portant affairs of the state, and it would he
end! ss to enumerate the cases in which their
power was manifested. Their proposals were
indeed usually made ex auctoritate senatus,
or had been communicated to and approved
by it; but cases in which the people itself
had a direct interest, such as a general legal
regulation, granting of the franchise, a change
m the duties and powers of a magistrate, and
others, might be brought before the people,
without their having been previously commu-
nicated to the senate, though there are also
instances of the contrary. Subjects belonging
to the administration could not be brought
before the tribes without the tribunes having
previously received through the consuls the
auctoritas of the senate. This, howevei, was
done very frequently, and hence we have
mention of a number of plebiscita on matters
of administration. It sometimes even occurs
that the tribunes brought the question con-
cerning the conclusion of peace before the
iribes, and then compelled the senate to

ratify the resolution, as expressing the wish
of the whole people. Sulla, in his reform of
the constitution on the early aristocratic
principles, left to the tribunes only the jus
auxiliandi, and deprived them of the right of
making legislative or other proposals, either
to the senate or the comitia, without having
previously obtained the sanction of the senate.
But this arrangement did not last, for Tom-
pey restored to them their former rights.
During the latter period of the republic,
when the office of quaestor was in most cases
held immediately before that of tribune, the
tribunes were generally elected from among
the senators, and this continued to be the
case under the empire. Sometimes, how-
ever, equites also obtained the office, and
thereby became members of the senate, where
they were considered of equal rank with the
quaestors. Tribunes of the people continued
to exist down to the fifth century of our era,
though their powers became naturally much
limited, especially in the reign of Nero. They
continued however to have the right of inter-
cession against decrees of the senate, and on
behalf of injured individuals.-—(4) Teibuni
militum cum coxsulari potest ate. When in
b. c. 445 the tribune C. Canuleius brought
forward the rogation that the consulship
should not be confined to either order, the
patricians evaded the attempt by a change in
the constitution; the powers which had
hitherto been united in the consulship were
now divided between two new magistrates,
viz. the Tribuni militum cum consulari poten-
tate and the censors. Consequently, in b. c.
444, three military tribunes, with consular
power, were appointed, and to this office the
plebeians were to be equally eligible with the
patricians. For the years following, how-
ever, the people were to he at liberty, on the
proposal of the senate, to decide whether
consuls were to be elected according to the
old custom, or consular tribunes. Hence-
forth, for many years, sometimes consuls and
sometimes consular tribunes were appointed,
and the number of the latter varied from
three to four, until in b. c. 405 it was in-
creased to six, and as the censors were re-
garded as their colleagues, we have some-
times mention of eight tribunes. At last,
however, in b. c. 367, the office of these
tribunes was abolished by the Licinian law,
and the consulship was restored. These
consular tribunes were elected in the comitia
of the centuries, and undoubtedly with less
solemn auspices than the consuls.—(5) Tri-
buni Mll.itares [exercitus, p. 169.]

TH1BUS (<f>i'^ov, efiuA.7)), a tribe. (1) Greek.
In the earliest times of Greek history men-
tion is made of people being divided into