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For modern diplomatic consuls, see Consulate
general.
Consul (abbrev. cos.) was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic, which became an appointive office under the Empire.
Under the Republic the minimum age of election to consul for patricians was 40
years of age, for plebeians 42. Two consuls were elected each year, they served
together with veto power over each other's actions, and the year of their service was known by their names. For instance, the
year we commonly call 59 BC was called by the Romans "the consulship of Caesar and
Bibulus," since the two colleagues in the consulship were Julius Caesar
and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus (although Caesar
dominated the consulship so thoroughly that year that it was jokingly referred to as "the consulship of Julius and Caesar").
In Latin, "consules" means "those who walk together". If a consul died during his term
(not uncommon when consuls were in the forefront of battle), another would be elected, and be known as a suffect
consul (cos. suff.).
The office of consul was believed to date back to the traditional establishment of the Republic in 509 BC, although the early history is partly legendary, and the
succession of consuls is not continuous in the 5th century. Consuls
executed both religious and military duties; the reading of the auguries was an essential step before leading armies into the
field.
During times of war, the primary criterion for consul was military skill and reputation, but all times the selection was
politically charged. Initially only patricians could be consuls, and later the plebeians won the right to elect one of their own;
the first plebeian consul was Lucius Sextius, in 366 BC.
With the passage of time, the consulship became the normal endpoint of the cursus honorum, the sequence of offices pursued by the ambitious Roman.
When Augustus established the Empire, he changed the nature of the
office, stripping it of most, if not all, of its powers. While still a great honor and a requirement for other offices, many
consuls during their long rules would resign part way through the year, to allow other men to hold the fasces as suffects. Those who held the office on January 1, known as the consules
ordinarii, had the honor of associating their names with that year. As a result, about half of the men who held the rank
of praetor could also reach the consulship. Sometimes these suffect consuls would in
turn resign, and another suffect would be appointed. This reached its extreme under Commodus, when in 190 twenty-five men held the consulship.
Another change under the Empire was that Emperors frequently appointed themselves, protégés, or relatives without regard to
the age requirements. For example, Honorius was
conferred the consulship upon his birth.
Holding the consulate was apparently such an honor that the break-away Gallic Empire had its own pairs of consuls during its existence (260 -
274). The list of consuls for this state is incomplete, drawn from inscriptions and
coins.
One of the reforms Constantine
I made was to assign one of the consuls to the city of Rome, and the other to Constantinople. Therefore, when the Roman Empire was divided into two halves on
the death of Theodosius I, the emperor of each half acquired the right of
appointing one of the consuls— although one emperor did allow his colleague to appoint both consuls for various reasons. As
a result, after the formal end of the Roman Empire in the West, many years would be named for only a single consul. This rank was
finally allowed to lapse in the reign of Justinian: first with the consul of Rome
in 534, Decimus Theodorius Paulinus, then the consul of Constantinople in 541, Flavius Basilius Junior.
For a complete list of Roman consuls, see:
In 1799, revolutionary France enacted a
constitution that conferred supreme executive powers upon three officials that bore the title "consul". In reality, however, the
state was de facto under control of the First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte. Originally the consuls were to hold office for a
period of ten years, although in 1802 Bonaparte was declared First Consul for life (lifetime consulate was introduced for Second
and Third Consuls as well). The French consulate ceased to exist when Bonaparte was declared Emperor of France in 1804.
See also
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