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08-30-2002, 03:27 PM

I know that in the imperial era legion's had one tribune of senatorial rank and five of equestrian rank. What was the class of the tribunes in the army during the Punic Wars and the late rebulican era of Marius-Julius Caesar? Caesar states that he had 10 legates and a quaestor, all of senatorial rank, did he have equestrian rank officers as well? If so were they given mid level commands in Caesar's cavalry and light troops? 
thanks,

Catiline · 08-30-2002, 03:58 PM

Polybius gives an outline of the roman army in his sixth book. It is perhaps stylised and idealised, but the basic principles are now doubt correct. 
 
6.19 Deals with the tribunes. The gist is this. In raising consular armies 24 military tribunes were elected or chosen by the people /consuls. I intended what different sets of circumstances caused the selection to be made, but haven't got around to it yet. Someone can answer that with luck. 
 
10 of these were drawn from those who'd seen ten years service, the senior tribunes, ie those about 27 years old. The other 14, the junior tribunes were drawn from those with 5 years sevice. 
 
The tribunes were divided into 4 groups, in the order of selection/ election. The first and third consular legions got four junir and two senior tribunes, the second and fourth three of each. 
 
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08-30-2002, 05:26 PM

Salve, 
 
These 24 elected tribunes were known as comitiati, whereas others were picked by commanders when the number of legions under arms exceeded the four assigned to the consuls. The latter category was eventually termed rufuli after Rutilius Rufus. 
 
Livius 7.5 (text and translation) 
 
Festus 368L 
 
 Rufuli tribuni militum appellabantur quos consul faciebat, non populus; de quorum iure Rutilius Rufus legem tulerit 
 
'Rufulan tribunes of the soldiers are called those that the consul appoints, not the people: Rutilius Rufus has made codified the law regarding them' 
 
Regards, 
 
Sander van Dorst Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=sandervandorst>Sander van Dorst</A> at: 8/30/02 7:28:43 pm

08-31-2002, 03:36 AM

Though neither of you stated (and neither does Polybius) it seems to me that as long as the Equestrian class actually provided citizen cavalry that the tribunes of this period were probably of Patrician class. Perhaps in the later Army reforms and the dependancy on foreign cavalry that an Equstrian class of tribunes was established to provide a military career path for them. Does that sound reasonable/logical?

Catiline · 08-31-2002, 09:48 AM

You've made an extra distinction that didn't apply in Republican Rome. The tribunes were drawn laregly though not exclusively from the ranks of those of a senatorial background. There were patrician and plebian senators, hence the name patres et conscripti something that pretty much throughout Republican history caused problems. Until 172 it was a requirement that one of the consuls was patrician. 
 
The senate was originally the advisory council of the kings. With the expulsion, whenever that took place, the noble families that formed the senate were those that came to be regarded as patrician. The word is probably a dreivative of patres - fathers, elders. 
 
Caesar and Octavian had the right to confer patrician status, during the Empire families were promoted as an honour by the Emperors. 
 
The patricians seem to have served with the cavalry, indeed they probably had to inorder to get their careers going without the threat of repeated conscription. Before anyone could stand for election to a political magistracy they had to complete ten years service, the required minimum for service in the cavalry. 
 
Senators were required it seems to have met the equestrian census, ie 400, 000 HS. The sons of senators were equestrian until they gained their place in the senate. Under Sulla this was regulated, requiring the tenure of a magistracy, usually the quaestorship, but not exclusively, P Cornelius Lentulus Sura was expelled from the Senate in 70 BC, having been consul in 71BC, and regained his place by election to the praetorship in 63, only to get involved in the Catilinarian conspiracy and get himself executed by Cicero for trying to burn Rome. Military heros were also put int the Senate, Sulla wanted to put some backbone into it, after the Social war and the Civil wars senators were thin on the ground, especially physically courageous ones, and those who stood by pirinciples that weren't the sdame as Sulla's. Caesar entered the Senate in this way, but what else would one expect of him <!-- : 
 
The equestrian career under the principate certainly seems a reasonable hypothesis, but to an extent it's due to the fact that senatorial office came with a career in the Republic. Equestrians who wanted to have a career could have one, provided they had the cash to fund it, or the patronsunder the empire the senate was specifically undermined, not necessarily through overt methods. The main reason the Senate never stood a chance of reasserting itself was Augustus' ill grace in living so damned long. Being only 18 in 44 BC he lived to be 76, there was noone left who remebered a period when there hadn't been an emperor, let alone those who remembered the last time the senate had had power. 
 
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08-31-2002, 12:49 PM

Salve, 
 
The patricians were part of the senatorial class, which was comprised of both patrician and plebeian gentes. Both belonging to the filthy rich but the former distinguished by descent, certain peculiarities of footwear and religious customs. 
 
The tribuni militum of the republican era came from both the equestrian and the senatorial class. Though by the time of Caesar many were young and inexperienced in earlier times even former consuls are attested as holding the tribunate. Young members of families of senatorial standing technically belonged to the equestrian class until they had fulfilled the junior magistracies that conferred membership of the senate. As the men of equestrian families they would generally serve in the legions as cavalrymen, though some served as contubernales on the staff of commanders to watch and learn from their elders, as no formal military academies existed. The very strict would even require their sons to serve in the ranks as common legionaries. 
 
Some source references. 
 
 
Comment on Cicero, Verres 1.30 
 
 Alii sunt comitiati , qui Romae comitiis designantur 
 
'Others are comitiati, those appointed by the assembly of Rome' 
 
Another name for a comitiatus was tribunus militum a populo 
 
Frontinus, Strategemata 2.4.4 
 
 ... Porcius Cato, qui tum, iam consularis, tribunus militum a populo factus in exercitu erat ... 
 
'... Porcius Cato, who then, even though a former consul, in the army having been made tribune of the soldiers by the people ...' 
 
As a former consul not only was M. Porcius Cato a senator, but also one that had already reached the higher echelons of a public career, not a young man about to start his. He was not a singular exception, as it is also attested elsewhere. 
 
Livius, 22.49 
 
 ... et undetriginta tribuni militum, consulares quidam praetoriique et aedilicii ...' 
 
'.. and twenty nine tribunes of the soldiers, former consuls, praetors and aediles ...' 
 
Livius, 42.49 
 
 ... Duo consulares tribuni militum cum eo missi, C. Claudius, Q. Mucius, et tres inlustres iuvenes, P. Lentulus et duo Manli Acidini: alter M. Manli, alter L. Manli filius erat. 
 
'... Two fromer consuls were sent along with him as tribunes of the soldiers, C. Claudius, Q. Mucius, and three illustrious young men, P. Lentulus and two Manlii Acidini, one M. Manlius, the other was the son of L. Manlius. ...' 
 
Livius, 44.1 
 
 ... M. Popilius consularis et alii pari nobilitate adulescentes tribuni militum in Macedonicas legiones consulem secuti sunt. ... 
 
'... M. Popilius the former consul and others, young men men of equal nobility, have followed the consul to the Macedonian legions as tribunes of the soldiers. 
 
'' 
 
Caesar, Bellum Gllicum 3.7-10, indicates that the tribuni militum were equites Romani. 
 
The tribunes appointed by commanders existed before the time of Rtilius Rufus, even though they were not termed rufuli or rutuli at that time. 
 
Livius 44.21 
 
 ... Senatus decreuit, ut in octo legiones parem numerum tribunorum consules et populus crearent. ... 
 
'... The senate decreed that consuls and people appoint an equal number of tribunes in the eight legions. ...' 
 
 
Regards, 
 
Sander van Dorst

Muzzaguchi · 08-31-2002, 01:43 PM

Catiline, 
 
You're not saying that sons of senators (ie patricians or plebeians who were sufficiently wealthy and were successfully elected to a senatorial office) were of equestrian class are you? And there were clearly deliniated career paths for patrician as opposed to equestrian offspring so I don't think that at any stage a patrician son would be considered equestrian and they certainly would not have considered themselves as such. And probably, since the equestrian career path was separate and complete - the pinnacle was to become a novus homo - like Marius (there is a reference in Val. Max to the first occasion where he earnt equestrian pay at Numantia under Scipio Aemilianus so obviously he started below equestrain status and earned that through wealth), equestrians would also have been very territorial about who was called equestrian. Kind of Jets and Sharks in the ancient West Side Story of Rome. 
 
Forgive me if I am wrong - more an empire man myself and I may have got confused. 
 
Anyway Cheers 
 
Muzzaguchi It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay Antiquity its due reverence - Erasmus of Rotterdam

08-31-2002, 02:07 PM

Salve, 
 
One could belong to a family of the senatorial class and not be a senator (which required having fulfilled the proper junior magistracy (after Sulla that of quaestor). An example from imperial times would be Claudius, who as member of the imperial family served as representative of the equestrians as he was not a member of the senate and not a senator. The men from both senatorial families and equestrian ones would serve in the legionary cavalry during the republican era. Equestrians could get into the senate if they acquired the necessary wealth, managed to be elected as homo novus to the appropriate magistracy, or as happended under the empire, be adlected to the senatorial order. 
 
Regards, 
 
Sander van Dorst Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showLocalUserPublicProfile?login=sandervandorst>Sander van Dorst</A> at: 8/31/02 4:14:07 pm

Catiline · 08-31-2002, 04:58 PM

Senators were excluded from the equestrian centuries in 129, but their relatives weren't (Cicero de Republica 4.2 apparently covers that, i don't have it to hand). Essentialy the equites and senators were one and the same class rather than two different ones, the idea of them as a middle class is an imperial one. Socially under the Republic they were on the same footing. they came from identical social backgrounds in the Republic, they were Rome's nobility. Senators were restricted from having commercial interesests, or at least had to be discreet about them. The basic requirements for being in the 18 centuriae were the same as for senators, they higher wealth threshold was a later innovation. They underwent the same scrutiny from the senators. The 18 centuries had voting privleges that allowed them to wield massive influence in the comitia centuriata, and consequently they were key to elections of senior magistrates and for passing laws. 
 
There were equites outside the 18 centuries, those without the Public horse, laterly the financial qualification became the most important. But basically senators before 129 were also equites, and a after 129 they were elevated out of the ordo by election, rather than being a seperate senatorial class. The equites had disparate interests, many of them neither desired or could ever achieve political power and office, senatorial families might perhaps be regarded as a seperate interest group within the order rather than as a different class. <a href="http://pub45.ezboard.com/fromanarmytalkfrm6.showMessage?topicID=53.topic" target="Rules For Posting">

09-01-2002, 06:03 PM

Would there be any difficulty during the rotating command with a Tribune od Patrician rank paried up with one of equestrian rank? What about when a pair of Equestrian Tribunes were in command, would there be a problem with Patrician tribunes being placed under their command? I'm referring to the period when the 6 tribunes of a legion rotated command by pairs.

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