tribunus plebis

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 3.12 §1 the same tribune of the plebs in office

  P. Clodius Pulcher, tribune of the plebs in 58 BC, whose bills exiled Cicero and who remained in office to block any recall.

• Ad Atticum 3.13 §1 tribunes designate

  The tribunes of the plebs elected for 57 BC, not yet in office; Cicero pins his last hope on them since they could bring his recall before the people. Several (Sestius, Milo, Fadius) did fight for it.

• Ad Atticum 3.23 §1 the law was promulgated by the eight tribunes of the plebs

  Eight of the ten tribunes of 58 BC drafted and posted the first bill for Cicero's recall; "promulgate" (promulgare) means to publish a bill's text and so begin the mandatory waiting period before a vote.

• Ad Atticum 4.17 §3 appealed to the tribunes

  The tribunes of the plebs could intercede (intercessio) on behalf of citizens; the jurors invoked this protection to refuse judging without an order of the people.

• Ad Atticum 5.2 §1 tribune of the people

  The tribuni plebis were ten annually elected magistrates who could veto official acts and convene the plebs; Cicero counts on Furnius, a tribune-designate for 50 BC, to block any extension of his Cilician command.

• Ad Atticum 7.3 §4 the ten tribunes of the plebs should propose a measure to allow his candidacy

  The law of the ten tribunes (52 BC) let Caesar stand for a second consulship in absentia without laying down his command; Cicero blames the Pompeians for the grant that made Caesar unstoppable.

• Ad Atticum 7.4 §2 lest by delivering my opinion I alienate some tribune

  A tribune of the plebs could veto the senatorial decree (supplicatio or triumph) Cicero hoped for; Pompey warns him to settle his triumph before speaking on policy and offending one.

• Ad Atticum 7.23 §1 Gaius Cassius, tribune of the plebs

  The plebeian tribunes held no imperium and no military command, but their persons were sacrosanct and their veto could block magistrates; C. Cassius's presence among the Pompeians lent the cause constitutional cover.

• Ad Atticum 11.9 §1 I came in before the entry of the new tribunate

  Cicero crossed to Italy before the tribunes of 47 BC took office on 10 December 48 BC, hoping to avoid being caught by hostile legislation. He found himself overborne all the same by Caesar's debt law.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.1 §1 tribune of the plebs designate

  A tribunus plebis designatus had been elected to office but had not yet entered it; in 43 BC tribunes-elect held a politically volatile position between the outgoing year's alliances and the power struggles ahead.

• Ad Familiares 1.4 §2 the most criminal banditry of tribunes

  Tribunes of the plebs could obstruct or force business by veto and, in 56 BC, by organised violence. Cicero accuses Lentulus's opponents of planning to act 'in the people's name' through such tribunician thuggery (latrocinium).

• Ad Familiares 2.7 §1 C. CVRIONI TR. PL.

  Tribune of the plebs (tribunus plebis), the office Curio held in 50 BC; tribunes had the power to veto acts of the Senate (intercessio) and to bring legislation before the plebeian assembly. Curio's tribunate of 50 BC proved momentous: he switched from the optimates to Caesar and used his veto to help block a settlement over Caesar's command.

• Ad Familiares 2.18 §2 tribunes of the plebs in succession over the next three years

  The tribunate of the plebs, an annually elected office carrying sacrosanctity and the power of veto (intercessio), was the premier instrument of political harassment; three brothers holding it in sequence could make three years of life in Rome very difficult for an enemy.

• Ad Familiares 7.27 §1 tribunate of the plebs

  The tribunes of the plebs were ten annually elected officers whose person was sacrosanct; their chief weapon was the veto (intercessio) by which one could block any magistrate's act or another tribune's measure. Gallus claims he sought the office to be able to defend Cicero's interests.

• Ad Familiares 8.5 §2 someone will interpose a veto

  The tribunician veto (intercessio): any tribune of the plebs could block a senatorial decree or motion by his single 'no,' the procedural lever that kept the provinces question deadlocked for years.

• Ad Familiares 8.8 §6 there interposed

  A tribune of the plebs could veto (intercessio) any senatorial decree, reducing it to a mere auctoritas (recorded resolution); C. Caelius and his colleagues blocked the moves against Caesar in just this way.

• Ad Familiares 10.16 §1 five tribunes of the plebs brought the matter forward

  Tribunes of the plebs could convoke the Senate and put motions; when the presiding praetor Cornutus stalled, five tribunes used their own right of referral (relatio) to lay Plancus's letter before the house.

• Ad Familiares 14.1 §2 all the tribunes of the plebs

  The ten tribunes of the plebs, magistrates with the power to propose legislation and to veto. Cicero's recall from exile would have to be carried by a tribunician bill, so a friendly board of tribunes was essential to his hopes.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 1.4 §3 Of the new tribunes of the plebs

  The tribunes designate for 57 BC, who would take office on 10 December 58; Cicero's recall depended on a friendly tribunate able to carry the bill, since Clodius's hostility could still block it.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 1.4 §3 an intercessor too will be procured

  Any single tribune could veto (intercessio) a fellow tribune's bill. Cicero fears Clodius will line up a tribune to interpose his veto against any motion for the recall.

• Laelius, On Friendship §2 tribune of the plebs

  An annually elected magistrate of the plebs, sacrosanct, with power to veto and to convene the plebeian assembly. The quarrel between the tribune Sulpicius and the consul Pompeius (88 BC) frames the dialogue's question of friendship turned to enmity.

• Second Philippic §50 the tribunate

  As tribune of the plebs in 49 BC Antony vetoed the Senate's decrees against Caesar and then fled to Caesar's camp, giving Caesar a pretext for war (cf. 2.51-55).

• For Publius Quinctius §29 tribunes

  Tribunes of the plebs (ten elected annually) had the power to forbid (intercessio) the proceedings of any other magistrate at the petition of a citizen; appeals to them are a recurring procedural recourse in Cicero's forensic speeches.