interrex

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 4.15 §4 interregnum

  When no consuls were in office, patrician senators held the auspices in succession as interreges (each five days) until elections could be held; the recurring interregna of the 50s BC signalled the breakdown of normal government.

• Ad Atticum 7.9 §2 the business is to be brought down to an interregnum

  If no consuls could be elected, the auspices reverted to the patrician senators, who appointed a series of interreges for five-day terms to hold the elections; the device had been used repeatedly during the electoral paralysis of the late 50s BC.

• Ad Atticum 10.4 §11 whether he is going to wait for an interregnum

  When both consulships fell vacant with no successors elected, the patrician senators appointed a series of interreges, each holding office five days, until elections could be held. Caesar weighed using this device, or having the consulship simply conferred on him, to legitimise his power.

• Ad Familiares 7.11 §1 interrex

  When both consulships fell vacant, the Senate appointed a series of interreges, each holding office for five days, to conduct elections. In 53 BC electoral violence produced a long string of these interregna, the basis of Cicero's joke that no one needs a jurist.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 3.2 §3 an interregnum

  When no consuls could be elected, patrician senators held office in turn as interrex (five days each) until valid elections could be held; the deadlock of 54 BC threatened exactly this.

• On the Laws §1.42 interrex

  A senator appointed for a five-day term to hold the auspices and conduct elections when both consulships were vacant. Cicero alludes to the interrex who carried the law authorising Sulla's dictatorship and its proscriptions.