The Roman consul was like Rome's chief executive. He was kind of like a king and
kind of like a president, and even a prime minister in a way, but all rolled
into one.
They were unquestionably at the top of Rome's political hierarchy.
The Senate was basically run by a group of ex-consuls. Roman consuls had, broadly
speaking, six areas of responsibility.
I will outline each of these in turn. The first, and I would say the most important,
was their legislative agenda. Consular elections were held a full six months
before the person ever took office.
This meant that incoming consuls arrived well prepared, and had a clear
mandate with a full legislative agenda
ready to go. Remember that consuls could call the Senate to meet and set the
agenda for that meeting.
This meant that they had the ability to proposed laws and open debate even if
the Senate was dragging its heels.
Also, they have the power to call the public assembly to meet, which was the
rubber stamp necessary to pass bills of law. But of course there are two consuls
elected every year. In practice, in order for the state to function,
the two consuls alternated on a monthly basis which one of them was in charge.
This just meant that one consul would kind of step out of the way and the
other one would be allowed to pursue their agenda.
They held a veto over each other, which meant that they could hold any action
that they found offensive, but they both knew that this was kind of a mutually
assured destruction situation.
They were just better off to let the other one have their way and wait for
their month in power to roll around again.
They called being in power "holding fasces". Fasces were the ceremonial sticks
held by Roman honor guards, which were called lictors.
I haven't really talked about lictors before, but most elected Roman officials
had some. Councils had the most, at 12 each. Holding fasces meant that you held
power. The other consul would not get in your way unless you did something
ideologically offensive. The consul that got the most votes when they were
elected held fasces first, and then they alternated for every month after that. It
was kind of a prestigious thing to hold facses first. People knew what it meant.
Julius Caesar provides us with a pretty colorful example of why it's so
important the hold facses.
He was elected consul alongside his old pal Bibulus, with whom he had served as
aedile.
Cesar and Bibulus hated each other. Bibulus was a conservative backed by
Cato, who thought that Caesar was a rabble-rouser, a dandy and a showboat.
Cesar, well, he was those things.
He really didn't appreciate somebody saying so. Cesar got the most votes,
so he held fasces in January. He was hell-bent on getting his signature land
reform bill into the Senate on the first or second of the month, because
bills apparently needed 24 days of debate before they could be voted into law.
Cesar needed his bill to sail through the Senate. The bill called for the
election of some people to oversee a massive land transfer scheme, which would
give public lands to military veterans. It was popular, and
of course Bibulus hated it.
But Caesar held fasces during these elections, that meant that he got to
oversee them and he could put his lieutenants on that Commission. If it
happened in February, Bibulus would oversee it.
He would get his men elected, and he could potentially kill the law from the
inside.
This was, by the way, the second area of responsibility for consuls.
He oversaw elections.
For small-scale stuff like the election of land commissioners, or for big stuff
like the election of next year's consuls, the sitting consuls ran the
show. If there was any intimidation or bribery or mob protests or political
deal trading going on during the voting,
it was under the noses of the sitting consuls. If they wanted to, they could do
a lot to make sure that their supporters were elected for next year.
It could even be the part of backroom deals. "You support me on this bill and
I'll make sure you win your election for praetor".
Now, the third area where the consuls wielded a lot of power, which I've already
touched on, was the veto. Only the other consul, or a tribune of the plebs, could
veto a sitting consul.
However, don't forget that the consul could veto any position. He could also veto
someone else's decision to call the Senate to meet. This was an immense power.
He could single-handedly shut down debate. Probably speaking, like I said,
both consuls realized that this was a mutually assured destruction kind of
situation,
so they would resist to just vetoing each other willingly.
They had the alternating monthly system of fasces developed, which gave each
other a little bit of breathing room. During Caesars consulship, though,
Bibulus kind of ignored this practice. Caesars land reform bill sailed through
the Senate as anticipated, but Bibulus vetoed it, as it was going before the
public assembly for a final vote.
This was pretty rude. It was widely popular, and Caesar still held fasces.
Apparently, as Bibulus vetoed it from a speaking platform, before the bill was to
be read before the public assembly,
the crowd went crazy. They screamed wildly drowning out what Bibulus had to
say. They surged forward, reaching the speaking platform, and the consul, and
pushing him off of it.
We're told that the angry mob dumped manure on Bibulus' head,
Biff Tanen style. Many people were injured during this incident, but nobody
seriously.
Even though Bibulus had vetoed the bill, Cesar got up and claimed that the crowd
was too loud, and that he hadn't heard him.
Cesar then put forward the bill, and it was approved by the public assembly.
After this incident, Bibulus retreated to his home, and did not speak publicly
again for the remainder of his consulship.
To be clear, this was illegal on Caesars part.
Bibulus did have the right to veto him, and he did, and Caesar just ignore him.
That wasn't the last time that happened, though. These next two areas of
responsibility both factored into this. Consuls were responsible for reading
omens and assigning public holidays.
This may seem minor, but it plays significantly into the Bibulus story.
Consuls were given the authority to set the date for public festivals and
holidays that did not necessarily have to be on a certain day every year.
Sometimes the Senate voted in favor of honoring a certain individual and just
let the consul set a day, for example. Bibulus took all of his festival days,
and schedule them for days when Caesar had big votes in the Senate.
Obviously this was extremely annoying, because Bibulus still wasn't leaving
his house.
Just like when Bibulus tried to veto him, Caesar just ignored him and people
generally went along with this. Consuls were kind of, like, part-time augers as
well. See, the Romans were highly superstitious, and they forbade the
Senate from meeting on unlucky days, which I won't really get into now. A
consul could unilaterally read the signs and decided that the omens looked
bad for this date, and cancel public business, but the Pontifex Maximus was
responsible for determining which days were lucky and unlucky.
Julius Caesar was the Pontifex Maximus, so when Bibulus issued edicts from his
house saying that he saw the parts flying in a certain direction,
Julius Caesar just said "I'm the Pontifex Maximus, it's my job to know these things,
and I say it's fine".
Cesar basically outranked Bibulus religiously.
Again, in a strict sense, this was illegal because Bibulus had the right to
assign his days, but the public went along with it.
And, finally, the consuls were responsible for Rome's military.
Although the Senate declared war and assigned them an army, they held ultimate
command. The consuls decided how wars would be fought and, oftentimes assumed
direct control over the armies. The consuls had a similar system to holding
fasces,
but instead of alternating on a monthly basis, they would alternate on a daily
basis.
In other words, if there were two consuls commanding one army, they would
swap back and forth on a daily basis who held ultimate command.
It was pretty rare for two consuls to be in the field at the same time, but this
system didn't serve them that well. The most famous example is the most famous
battle in Roman history, the battle of Cannae. To over simplify things,
one consul wanted to wait and one wanted to attack, so the one who wanted
to attack just waited until the next day and attacked. This turned out to be the
worst defeat in Roman history. Consuls had kind of a looser,
pseudo military role within the city. When they weren't commanding armies, they were
still responsible for public safety.
The Senate had the power to grant consoles something called "senatus
consultum ultimum", which you can translate as "the final act" or "the final decree", or
something like that.
This was basically martial law. This said that the consuls could take any action
necessary to protect the Republic. During Cicero´s consulship he had this power
bestowed on him.
A fellow senator, who had lost two successive elections to be consul,
planned to have Cicero, his consular colleague, and the entire Senate
assassinated on the same night. The plot was uncovered, and some of the would-be
assassins were arrested. One of this senators subordinates left the city to
raise troops in Italy, and the Senate, seeing what was happening, gave Cicero
the authority to do whatever was necessary to protect the Republic.
Cicero sensed a wider conspiracy within the city.
He didn't think that they had captured all the assassins. Plus, there was a
potential rebel army out there, somewhere.
So Cicero decided to publicly execute all of the prisoners without trial. If
they had gone to trial they would have lost, but Cicero didn't think he had any
time. After, this support for the conspiracy kind of went away and Cicero
was declared a hero.
Unfortunately, this kind of haunted Cicero for the rest of his life.
People came after him years later, saying that he had murdered fellow citizens. Of
course, he had the authority to do whatever he must to protect the Republic,
but it didn't stop people from questioning his actions afterwards.
So, generally speaking, those are the six areas where a console could wield power. To
be elected consul was the highest honor a Roman citizen could aspire for. Every
consul knew that they would be celebrated by unborn generations.
Oftentimes, young Romans could easily win lower level elections by simply saying
my father was a consul.
Now, this is not the end of the Cursus Honorum,
this is merely the most simplified version. For now, though,
this is enough to get a handle on Rome´s political life.
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