Tribune of the plebs

“ The unceasing care which both the consuls are taking to protect your liberties is a guarantee that nothing will be done which will call for the power of the tribunes." This spirit of moderation shown by the tribune relieved the fears of the patricians, but it also intensified their resentment against the consuls, for they seemed to be so wholly devoted to the plebs, that the safety and liberty of the patricians were a matter of more immediate concern to the plebeian than they were to the patrician magistrates. ”

“ We have further dwelt on the anomalous duality of the office, and seen how in a certain sense it is not a magistracy, the tribune lacking both the requisite insignia [1130] and the right of taking auspicia impetrativa, [1131] [234] but how, on the other hand, it becomes practically a magistracy of the people, when functions originally purely plebeian come to be used in the interest of the whole state. The right of acting with the Plebs gave the tribunes the power of initiating legislation when plebiscita had been raised to the level of leges ”

“ In spite of our good offices, in spite of the wrongs done by the patricians, with all the freedom you now enjoy of exercising powers you did not possess before, not a single member of the plebs has been raised to the quaestorship, to say nothing of the consular tribuneship! The appeals of a father on behalf of a son, of a brother on behalf of a brother, have been unavailing, though they are tribunes, invested with an inviolable authority to protect your liberties. There has certainly been dishonesty somewhere; A. Sempronius has shown more adroitness than straightforwardness. ”

“ Great honours made great men. When the plebeians began to be respected, every plebeian would respect himself. Surely they might now try the experiment in one or two cases, to prove whether any plebeian is capable of holding high office, or whether it would be little short of a miracle for any one sprung from the plebs to be at the same time a strong and energetic man. After a desperate fight, they had secured the election of military tribunes with consular powers, for which plebeians were eligible. Men of tried ability, both at home and in the field, became candidates. ”

“ I wish it were possible to give the entire extract, but I must content myself with a few quotations from it. "'A tribune,' he said, 'of the people, is sacred indeed, and ought to be inviolable, because in a manner consecrated to be the guardian and protector of them; but if he degenerates so far as to oppress the people, abridge their powers, and take away their liberty of voting, he stands deprived by his own act of honors and immunities, by the neglect of the duty for which the honor was bestowed upon him..... ”

“ The tribunes were thus in their origin only a protecting magistracy of the plebs, but in the course of time their power increased to such a degree that it surpassed that of all other magistrates, and the tribunes then became a magistracy for the whole Roman people, in opposition to the senate and the oligarchical party in general, although they had nothing to do with the administration or the government. During the latter period of the republic they became true tyrants, and may be compared to the national convention of France during the first revolution. ”

“ Not only did they lack the courage to claim their share in the chance of preferment to the consulship, but even in the election of consular tribunes, which was open to both patricians and plebeians, they never thought of their tribunes or their party. They need be no longer surprised that no one interested himself in the welfare of the plebs. Toil and danger were incurred for those objects from which profit and honour might be expected. There was nothing which men would not attempt if rewards were held out proportionate to the greatness of the effort. ”

“ But now the plebeians were more angry at the silence of the tribunes than at the exercise of authority on the part of the consuls. They said that it was all over with their liberty, they had gone back to the old state of things, the tribunitian power was dead and buried with Genucius. Some other method must be thought out and adopted by which they could resist the patricians, and the only possible course was for the commons to defend themselves, as they had no other help. Four-and-twenty lictors attended on the consuls, and these very men were drawn from the plebs. ”

“ Is it right and proper for the Roman people to enact a law, if it wishes to do so, or are you going, whenever a measure is proposed, to order a levy by way of punishment? Am I to call the tribes up to vote, and as soon as I have begun, are you, the consuls, going to compel those who are liable for service to take the military oath, and then march them off to camp, threatening alike the plebs and the tribunes? ”

“ The weakest, from a Roman standpoint or indeed from that of any stable political society, was the identification of the permanent and temporary character of an institution, the assumption that a meeting of the people was the people, that a tribune was the tribune. ”

“ At all events the people, it is said, felt so indignant that no one but Mamercus possessed sufficient authority to protect the censors from violence.
25 The tribunes of the plebs held constant meetings of the Assembly with a view to preventing the election of consuls, and after bringing matters almost to the appointment of an interrex, they succeeded in getting consular tribunes elected. They looked for plebeians to be elected as a reward for their exertions, but not a single one came in; all who were elected were patricians. ”

“ They are, really, like so many quack doctors looking for work, always anxious to find some diseased spot in the republic that there may be something which you can call them in to cure." Then, turning to the tribunes, "Are you defending or attacking the plebs? Are you trying to injure the men on service or are you pleading their cause? ”

“ This assembly, however, did not perpetuate its original military character, and the unit of voting naturally selected for the city-gatherings at which the tribunes were appointed was the curia, to which Plebeians had for some time belonged. This assembly of the Plebs was known as the concilium plebis curiatim. [361]
[94]
With respect to power the tribunate has, from its origin, a double character. It possesses a negative control of the whole people (generally in the person of its magistrate) exercised in defence of the Plebs, and a positive authority within the plebeian community. ”

“ He who assails the power of the people, is no longer a tribune at all. Is it not inconceivable, that a tribune should have power to imprison a consul, and the people have no authority to degrade him when he uses that honor which he received from them, to their detriment? For the tribunes, as well as the consuls, hold office by the people's votes. The kingly government, which comprehends all sorts of authority in itself alone, is morever elevated by the greatest and most religious solemnity imaginable into a condition of sanctity. ”

“ That men ought to love or hate others, approve or disapprove of measures, according to the dictates of their own judgment; but that a tribune ought not to depend on the look or nod of another man, veer about at the movements of another’s will, and make himself a tool to his displeasure; nor remember a private charge, committed to him by Marcus Æmilius, and forget that the tribuneship was a public charge, intrusted to him by the Roman people, for the protection and liberty of private citizens, not to aggrandize the arbitrary power of a consul. ”

“ These five, as usually happens with men who desert their party, were embarrassed and dismayed, and defended their opposition by borrowed arguments privately suggested to them by the patricians. They urged that as a large number of plebeians were in the army at Velitrae the Assembly ought to be adjourned till the return of the soldiers, to allow of the entire body of the plebs voting on matters affecting their interests. ”

“ Some of the concessions made at this time related to temporary provisions for relief of debtors; but the great innovation was that which established the office of tribune. The character of the office of tribune is absolutely unique in the political history of the world. The tribunes, elected by the people in the comitia tributa, were plebeian officers who were at first without any constructive part in the carrying on of the Roman government and whose sole duty at the outset [52] was to protect the members of the plebeian order from the oppression of the patrician officials. ”

“ To [bring about] that object [they saw] that they should exert themselves. That the plebeians, by endeavouring and persevering, had already gained a step towards it, whence, if they struggled forward, they might reach the summit, and be on a level with the patricians, in honour as well as in merit. For the present it was resolved that plebeian tribunes should be created, in which office they might open for themselves a way to other honours. ”

“ His veiled threats, uttered during his rare appearances at the speaker's tribune, embraced even the most popular, the most prominent, amongst the representatives of the people. Every one, in fact, who was likely to stand in his way when he was ready to snatch the supreme power. ”

“ They hold their sacrosanct character through the gods; they lose it, therefore, when they sin against the gods. Should the same not be true of the tribune? It is on account of the people that he is sacred; he cannot retain this divine character when he wrongs the people; he is a man engaged in destroying the very power which is the source of his strength. If the tribunate can justly be gained by a favourable vote of the majority of the tribes, can it not with greater justice be taken away by an adverse vote of all of them? ”

“ Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes,
For that they will not intercept my tale. 40
When I do weep, they humbly at my feet
Receive my tears, and seem to weep with me;
And, were they but attired in grave weeds,
Rome could afford no tribune like to these. 44
A stone is as soft wax, tribunes more hard than stones ”

“ Why are we making that which ought to be a contest between the State and one pestilent citizen into a conflict between patricians and plebeians? Why do we attack the plebs through him when it is so much safer to attack him through the plebs, so that he may sink into ruin under the weight of his own strength? It is our intention to fix a day for his trial. Nothing is less desired by the people than kingly power. As soon as that body of plebeians become aware that the quarrel is not with them, and find that from being his supporters they have become his judges ”

“ It is a people conscious of their political power and dignity, an organised people; it is a people with a constituted head, capable of instructing them in the doctrine of political duties and rights. It is the tribune now who conducts this review of the Military Hero's civil claims. It is the careful, learned Tribune who initiates, from the heights of his civil wisdom, this great, popular veto, this deliberate 'rejection' of the popular affirmation. ”

“ This is the secret understanding that has been come to by all the nobles, and we shall never see the end of the war till we have elected as our consul a man who is really a plebeian, that is, one from the ranks. The plebeian nobility have all been initiated into the same mysteries; when they are no longer looked down upon by the patricians, they at once begin to look down upon the plebs. Who does not see that their one aim and object was to bring about an interregnum in order that the elections might be controlled by the patricians? ”

“ It would be nothing new or surprising to me, Quirites, to hear once more the reproach that has always been levelled against our family by revolutionary tribunes, namely, that from the very beginning we have never regarded anything in the State as more important than the honour and dignity of the patricians, and that we have always been inimical to the interests of the plebs. ”

“ As the comitia curiata and comitia centuriata, under patrician presidents, had from the beginning been termed populus, nothing could be more natural than that from the time an assembly convened under plebeian presidency for plebeian objects, the latter should by way of distinction be termed plebs, even though the few patricians were included. Ordinarily the plebeians must have welcomed patricians to their assemblies, as the presence of magistrates and senators and their sons added dignity and weight to the proceedings. ”

“ The tribunes, however, when the people assembled, made them vote by tribes, and not by centuries; [27] by which device the votes of rich respectable men who had served the State in the wars would be swamped by those of the needy rabble who cared nothing for truth or honour. In the next place, they passed by the charge of treason, as being impossible to prove, and repeated what Marcius had originally said before the Senate, when he dissuaded them from lowering the price of corn, and advised the abolition of the office of tribune. ”

“ If there be a vile thing in the world, it is a plebeian, advanced by patricians, not for the purpose of righting his own order, but for playing the pander to the worst interests of theirs. He who is of the people but makes himself a traitor to his birth, if he furnishes the excuse for these tyrant hypocrites to lift up their hands and cry—‘See what liberty exists in Rome, when we, the patricians, thus elevate a plebeian!’ Did they ever elevate a plebeian if he sympathized with plebeians? ”