Promotor Prof. Dr. Andries Johan Zuiderhoek Vakgroep Geschiedenis Decaan Prof. dr. Marc Boone Rector Prof. dr. Anne De Paepe Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Loonis Logghe The tribuni plebis and the end of the Roman Republic Proefschrift voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van Doctor in Geschiedenis 2016 List of Abbreviations C Clark, Albert Curtis, ed. Q. Asconii Pediani orationum Ciceronis quinque enarratio. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907. CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 17 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1853-. F Flemisch, Michael, ed. Grani Liciniani quae supersunt. Leipzig: Teubner, 1904. FGrH Jacoby, Felix, ed. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 19 vols. Berlin: Weidmann, 1923-26; Leiden: Brill, 1940-99. ILS Dessau, Hermann, ed. Inscriptiones Latinae Selecae, 3 vols. Berlin: Weidmann, 1892-1916. Inscr. It. Degrassi, Attilio, ed. Inscriptiones Italiae, 13 vols. Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1937-86. MRR Broughton, T. Robert S. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 3 vols. New York: American Philological Association, 1951- 86. RE Wissowa, Georg et alii, eds. Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 34 vols., 15 suppls. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1894-1980. RRC Crawford, Michael H. Roman Republican Coinage, 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Stangl Stangl, Thomas, ed. Ciceronis Orationum Scholiastae. Leipzig: Freitag, 1912. v List of Figures Figure 1 Simplified schematic representation of contention ...................................... 38 vii Table of Contents Introduction 1 The tribuni plebis and the end of the Roman Republic ........................................................ 1 Status quaestionis ................................................................................................................... 10 Sources ..................................................................................................................................... 24 The structure of this work .................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 1 Theoretic framework .................................................................................... 29 1.1 Structured agency and contention ............................................................................ 30 1.1.1 A theory of structure and agency .................................................................. 30 1.1.2 Primary contention .......................................................................................... 33 1.1.3 Secondary contention ...................................................................................... 34 1.2 More concepts: societal groups, interests, and ‘contention costs’ ........................ 39 1.2.1 Societal groups: collective agency, choice, differentiation, ideology ...... 39 1.2.2 Interests and desires ........................................................................................ 42 1.2.3 The ‘costs’ of contention ................................................................................. 43 1.3 Politics ............................................................................................................................ 44 1.3.1 Central governmental institutions ................................................................ 44 1.3.2 Politics and society ........................................................................................... 45 1.3.3 Contentious politics ......................................................................................... 47 1.4 Positioning the tribunate ............................................................................................ 51 Chapter 2 Societal Groups in the late Republic: demographic, economic, and social structures ............................................................................................ 55 2.1 General demography and economy of Italy ............................................................. 56 2.1.1 Demographic evolutions ................................................................................. 56 2.1.2 Development of the economy ......................................................................... 61 2.2 Societal groups .............................................................................................................. 66 2.2.1 Legal status ........................................................................................................ 66 2.2.2 Sex ....................................................................................................................... 75 2.2.3 Socio-economic factors ................................................................................... 76 2.2.4 Geography and culture .................................................................................... 90 Chapter 3 Politics and the tribunate in the late Republic: general considerations ............................................................................................... 95 ix 3.1 Political groups ............................................................................................................. 96 3.2 The relevance of non-elites to late Republican politics ....................................... 103 3.3 The tribunate and other governmental institutions............................................. 115 Chapter 4 The tribunate as agent institution .............................................................121 4.1 Possibilities for contention by principals ............................................................... 122 4.1.1 The tribunes in the public transcript .......................................................... 122 4.1.2 ‘Reining in’ the tribunes: reactive involvement by the principals ......... 128 4.1.3 ‘Spurring on’ the tribunes: active involvement by principals ................ 134 4.2 A complex web of strings: consequences of a model with multiple principals ..................................................................................................................... 145 4.2.1 Conflicting principals .................................................................................... 146 4.2.2 Power costs of contention ............................................................................. 161 4.3 Tribunes and the tribunate: individual factors in contention ............................. 182 4.3.1 Struggle between tribunes ............................................................................ 182 4.3.2 The individual tribune as a factor ................................................................ 192 4.3.3 Socialisation and role-making ...................................................................... 203 4.4 Principals, tribunate, and tribuens: conclusion ..................................................... 210 Chapter 5 The end of the Republic ..............................................................................213 5.1 The tribunes as puppets: privilegia ........................................................................... 217 5.1.1 Extraordinary military commands .............................................................. 218 5.1.2 Other extraordinary commissions ............................................................... 242 5.1.3 Personal prerogatives .................................................................................... 246 5.1.4 Servants of the “Great Individuals”? ........................................................... 253 5.2 The tribunes as demagogues: destructive agitators, or release valve for popular dissatisfaction? ............................................................................................. 255 5.2.1 Tribunes as the primary cause of conflict? ................................................ 256 5.2.2 Breaking claims of a status quo .................................................................... 263 5.2.3 Indicating rifts in society .............................................................................. 271 5.3 The relevance of the tribunate in the last decades of the late Republic ............ 294 5.3.1 The path to the Principate ............................................................................ 294 5.3.2 A new dominant coalition and the role of the tribunate ......................... 302 5.4 The tribunate in the end: conclusion ...................................................................... 309 Conclusion 311 Bibliography 317 x Introduction The tribuni plebis and the end of the Roman Republic The tribunate of the plebs was a very peculiar magistracy in Antiquity, as to the best of our knowledge there were no ready parallels in other city-states. Cicero compared the tribuni plebis to the ephors in classical Sparta, and while there are some similarities (mostly the check on the highest power), there are many differences too, and no direct link.1 There is a relatively clear origin story for the tribunes, which ascribes their creation to the first secessio plebis in 494 BCE and a vow by the plebs to protect their new magistrates, the lex sacrata. While the story then becomes somewhat shaky, with the sources having differing theories, the tribunes do always prominently figure in the ‘Struggle of the Orders’ between the plebs and the patricians. Despite a relatively fixed tradition on the origins of the tribunes, there was much discussion about these magistrates at the end of the late Republic and the start of the Principate. To name but two examples, Cicero’s de Legibus features a relatively long and undecided debate