06-06-2009, 09:11 AM
Quote:What exactly was a consulship without coleague if not another name for a dictatorship.There's quite a difference: a consul's measures were subject to veto, and a consul could not overrule magistracies with imperium of their own. A consul without colleague could encounter praetorian opposition. Note, in this context, that Pompey had always, even when he still used the optimate tactic, a proponent of the restoration of the tribunicial powers. When he had successfully demolished the Sullan system, he started to use popular tactics; being outsmarted by Caesar and Marc Antony, he reverted nilly-willy to the optimate tactics.
Quote:the Republic was no more once he marched on Rome...That's Caesarian propaganda, and I think that Marc Antony's policy showed that the system was still capable of self-reform after Caesar's coup. Maybe the Bellum Mutinense was the real turning point.
