Roman dictator

The reasons for which someone might be appointed dictator were varied. The purpose of the dictatorship was not to create some kind of unaccountable or extralegal government, but rather to move Rome back to the status quo before some threat emerged.^[2] The dictatorship existed "to eliminate whatever had arisen that was out of bounds and then eliminate themselves so that normal operation of the ordinary government" could resume.^[3]

Origin

The abolition of the Roman monarchy c. 509 BC, according to tradition, devolved the royal powers onto two annually elected consuls. The creation of the dictatorship is part of this tradition, which is somewhat confused.^[4] Its original title was magister populi, "master of the infantry"^[a].^[5] His lieutenant was the magister equitum, "master of the horse"^[b].^[5] The dictator may have also been called the praetor maximus, as mentioned by Livy, referring to an old law requiring the praetor maximus to put a nail into the wall of a temple on the ides of September.^[6]

It is not certain who the first dictator was or in what year he was appointed.^[7] In one account, the first dictator was Titus Larcius in 501 BC. An alternative tradition mentioned by Livy is that the first dictator was Manius Valerius Maximus, although Livy thought this improbable, as he had not previously been consul and, had a Valerius been desired, Manius' brother, Marcus, who was consul in 505 BC, could have been chosen instead.^[8] However, few modern scholars put much faith in these traditional accounts: by the time Roman history started being written down, the dictatorship as a military commander had already lapsed out of living memory.^[9]

The dictatorship seems to have been conceived as a way to bypass normal Roman politics and create a short-term magistrate with special powers,^[5] serving to defend the Republic in war, or otherwise to cow internal civil unrest,^[10] especially if such unrest imperilled the conduct of war.^[7] There are broadly two views on the dictatorship's origin: that it descends from the Latins, or that it was a uniquely Roman institution.^[9]

The Roman view stresses that the dictatorship is said to have existed from the earliest years of the Republic, created as "an integral part of the republican constitution".^[11] And while other Latin cities had dictatorships, they emerged from their abolished monarchies as ordinary magistrates rather than as an extraordinary magistrate only appointed in time of crisis.^[9] Others have argued that the dictatorship existed as a means to slip through the inefficiency of a new collegiate magistracy, arguing that the Romans would not have made it—with regal powers—an integral part of their constitution in the immediate aftermath of the monarchy's abolition, confining it therefore to a peripheral and extraordinary role.^[12] Other scholars have advanced theories that the consuls came after the dictatorship rather than before.^[13]

The Latin view argues that the dictatorship emerged from the need to rotate command between Latin states in the role of commanding the Latin League's united armies.^[14] While Rome was not a formal member of the League, it did require the Latins to serve in Rome's wars under a Roman commander, which could have been a dictator appointed for the occasion.^[15] One argument of this is the siege of Veii: for nine years of siege, Rome did not resort to a dictator, until the last year when Etruscan intervention compelled Rome to call in its Latin allies.^[16] Moreover, it is plausible that the dictatorship was borrowed from other Latin municipalities that had a dictator serving as a military commander.^[16] This view also stresses continuity between the Roman kingdom and the succeeding republic, with the dictatorship as a bridge between the two periods.^[17]

Depiction of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. Fabius was dictator in 217 BC.^[18]

Nomination

The dictator was the only important official in the Roman state that was appointed.^[c] The power to appoint a dictator vested in the consuls, one of whom could nominate a man to serve in the office; he did not need to consult his colleague, and no other magistrates had such authority. A dictator, however, could be created by comitial legislation at the proposal of other magistrates, as Sulla and Caesar later were.^[5][19]

Consular nomination occurred in a nocturnal ritual, usually preceded by advice from the Senate asking for a specific person to be appointed,^[d] but this was not strictly necessary.^[22][23] A vote of the people could be held, but this was unusual, perhaps except in cases with a non-consular nominator.^[5] In the case of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the people may have created him dictator directly by legislation.^[24] After c. 300 BC most attested dictators were ex-consuls; it does not appear, however, that this emerged from any kind of legislation, as implied in Livy, to that effect.^[25]

Dictatorial powers likely extended beyond the term of the nominating magistrate, and most dictators are recorded to have given up their powers as quickly as possible.^[26] Customary law may have required dictators to give up their powers immediately after completion of their assigned task.^[27]

A dictator could be nominated for different reasons, or causae. These causae were akin to provinciae, spheres of command assigned to a magistrate which bound their freedom of action.^[28] The various causae were:

• rei gerundae causa, "for the conduct of the matter", used for military emergencies,^[29]
• comitiorum habendorum causa, for holding the comitia, or elections, when the consuls were unable to do so;^[30]
• clavi figendi causa, to create a dictator for an important religious rite involving the driving of a nail into the wall of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, as a protection against pestilence;
• for quelling of sedition;^[31]
• for establishing a religious holiday;^[32]
• for holding the Roman games, an ancient religious festival;^[33]
• for investigating certain actions;^[34] and,
• in one extraordinary case, for appointment of senators, after the Battle of Cannae.^[35]

These reasons could be combined (e.g., seditionis sedandae et rei gerundae causa, for quelling sedition and for war).^[31] However, by the middle Republic the historical record clearly shows that dictators were appointed more as temporary extraordinary magistrates to do some very specifically defined action before resigning, acting as proxies or substitutes for the ordinary magistrates of that year; the historicity of the dictators appointed in the early period to quell sedition—who usually took the side of the protestors—is also debated.^[36]

The Romans were not consistent in classifying specific threats and then appointing a dictator if they met some criteria. Rather, they judged the matter subjectively such that a dictator in military matters would only be appointed if there were converging threats from multiple enemies, all-consuming ongoing wars, or extinction-level threats to the city which could be handled by a man "whose empowerment with the dictatorship offered more assurance of success than the incumbent magistrates".^[37] Alternatively, dictators might be appointed if another consul-like magistrate was needed.^[38]

Normally there was only one dictator at a time, although a new dictator could be appointed following the resignation of another.^[e] A dictator could be compelled to resign his office without accomplishing his task or serving out his term if there were found to be a fault in the auspices under which he had been nominated.^[39] After nomination, a dictator would have his imperium ratified by comitia curiata—bringing that matter before the Assembly himself—in a manner akin to that of the consuls.^[40]

Insignia

Like other curule magistrates, the dictator was entitled to the toga praetexta and the sella curulis. The dictator, however, was accompanied by twenty-four lictors rather than the normal twelve lictors of the consul. However, within the pomerium he may have displayed twelve.^[41]

In a notable exception to the Roman reluctance to reconstitute the symbols of the kings, the lictors of the dictator never removed the axes from their fasces, even within the pomerium, symbolising their power over life and death and setting the dictator apart from the ordinary magistrates.^[42] In an extraordinary sign of deference, the lictors of other magistrates could not bear fasces at all when appearing before the dictator.^[41]

The Latin theory of the dictatorship's origin has also suggested that the twenty-four lictors emerged from the uniting of "two governments".^[14] It may have also simply signalled that a dictator's imperium was superior to that of the consuls^[43] or that he was endowed with the power of both consuls.^[44] As the kings had been accustomed to appear on horseback, this right was forbidden to the dictator unless he first received permission from the comitia.^[5]

Powers and limitations

The full extent of the dictatorial power was considerable, but not unlimited. It was circumscribed by the conditions of a dictator's appointment, as well as by the evolving traditions of Roman law, and to a considerable degree depended on the dictator's ability to work together with other magistrates. The precise limitations of this power were not sharply defined, but subject to debate, contention, and speculation throughout Roman history.^[45]

In the pursuit of his causa, the dictator's authority was nearly absolute. However, as a rule he could not exceed the mandate for which he was appointed; a dictator nominated to hold the comitia could not then take up a military command against the wishes of the Senate.^[f][g] Dictators could carry out functions which fell outside the scope of their initial appointments, but only at the direction of the Senate; this included the drawing of funds from the public treasury, which a dictator could only do with the Senate's authorisation.^[28]

The imperium of the other magistrates was not vacated by the nomination of a dictator. They continued to perform the duties of their office, although subject to the dictator's authority, and continued in office until the expiration of their year, by which time the dictator had typically resigned.^[41] Dictatorial power also did not override that of the tribunes. While some sources assert there was no appeal to the tribunes from a dictator's actions, other sources document the extent of a dictator's powers within the pomerium, appeals against dictatorial action, and threats by tribunes to veto elections held by dictators.^[49]

Most authorities hold that a dictator could not be held to account for his actions after resigning his office. However, there are cases where this is asserted in the literary sources and the surviving text of the lex repetundarium implies the dictator and his magister equitum could be prosecuted after their terms ended.^[45][50] Rather, some modern scholars hold the position that unaccountability is a "legalistic illusion".^[51]

Some sources, both ancient and modern in summaries of the office, assert that the dictator was limited to a term for six months, but this is contradicted by recorded practice and Livy has a dictator object to a six-month limitation explicitly as objectionably unorthodox.^[52]

Decline and disappearance

Before the First Punic War starting in 264 BC, when Rome established hegemony over Italy, dictators were overwhelmingly appointed to conduct military campaigns and also appointed regularly.^[53] However, these dictators were not given the best commands—they rarely won triumphs: only five of some 75 triumphs between 363 and 264 BC—suggesting that they functioned as substitutes for the ordinary magistrates.^[54] The middle Republic also shows significant use of the dictatorship to hold elections in place of consuls: this occurred twelve times during the First Punic War and eight times during the following Second.^[55] Magistri equitum had a knack of winning elections when held by dictators, which may explain why this limited dictatorship also fell into abeyance.^[36]

In domestic affairs, the dictators were at times—according to tradition—appointed to resolve issue between the patricians and the plebeians during the so-called Conflict of the Orders.^[56] In this role, the dictators always took the side of the plebs, implying that the later tradition of the dictatorship as a tool of patrician tyranny is a post-Sullan anachronism.^[56] Their efforts may have been decisive in that legislation passed in the Assemblies called by dictators did not need the approval of the Senate, serving to break impasses between an obstinate patrician-heavy Senate and popular demands.^[57]

After the Second Punic War and the Third Macedonian War, all major wars were then conducted by promagistrates and usually lasted several years, making the short term of the dictatorship unsuitable.^[45] Moreover, the fact that these conflicts occurred far from Rome radically limited the possibility of panicked tumult that could result in a dictatorial appointment.^[58] The rise of prorogation also meant that the Romans had, by jettisoning the annual term, more generals in the field than they had in the past.^[58][59] These promagistrates resembled archaic dictators as well, being exempt from normal consular responsibilities while being assigned a limited task—provincia—to complete.^[60]

At the same time, the new promagistrates also meant the consuls could spend more time in Rome, meaning it became less necessary to appoint dictators to conduct elections.^[61] During the various wars of the 140s BC, the ability to have more commanders under praetorian or proconsular leadership meant it was possible to keep at least one consul in Rome while the other fought abroad.^[62] Even when the Senate wanted to act against men such as Tiberius Gracchus or Gaius Gracchus, dictators were not appointed: in the former, the consul refused to act, precluding a dictatorial nomination, and in the latter, the Senate authorised the consul to use force via the so-called senatus consultum ultimum.^[63]

The religious purpose of the dictatorship in undertaking rituals to appease the gods in cases of pestilence or other disasters also was replaced. Dictators appointed to appease the gods was highly reactive but, over time, the accumulation of precedent formalised a spiritual process.^[64] Instead of an ad hoc approach, the Senate would advise—in moments of need—consultation of the Sibylline Books and direct implementation of the Books' recommendations.^[65]

Discover more about Traditional dictatorship related topics

Overthrow of the Roman monarchy

Overthrow of the Roman monarchy

The overthrow of the Roman monarchy was an event in ancient Rome that took place between the 6th and 5th centuries BC where a political revolution replaced the then-existing Roman monarchy under Lucius Tarquinius Superbus with a republic. The details of the event were largely forgotten by the Romans a few centuries later; later Roman historians invented a narrative of the events, traditionally dated to c. 509 BC, but this narrative is largely believed to be fictitious by modern scholars.

Roman consul

Roman consul

A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic, and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the cursus honorum after that of the censor. Each year, the Centuriate Assembly elected two consuls to serve jointly for a one-year term. The consuls alternated in holding fasces – taking turns leading – each month when both were in Rome. A consul's imperium extended over Rome and all its provinces.

Magister equitum

Magister equitum

The magister equitum, in English Master of the Horse or Master of the Cavalry, was a Roman magistrate appointed as lieutenant to a dictator. His nominal function was to serve as commander of the Roman cavalry in time of war, but just as a dictator could be nominated to respond to other crises, so the magister equitum could operate independently of the cavalry; like the dictator, the appointment of a magister equitum served both military and political purposes.

Manius Valerius Maximus

Manius Valerius Maximus

Manius Valerius Maximus was Roman dictator in 494 BC during the first secession of the plebs. His brothers were Publius Valerius Publicola and Marcus Valerius Volusus. They were said to be the sons of Volesus Valerius.

Latin League

Latin League

The Latin League was an ancient confederation of about 30 villages and tribes in the region of Latium near the ancient city of Rome, organized for mutual defense. The term "Latin League" is one coined by modern historians with no precise Latin equivalent.

Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus

Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus

Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, surnamed Cunctator, was a Roman statesman and general of the third century BC. He was consul five times and was appointed dictator in 221 and 217 BC. He was censor in 230 BC. His agnomen, Cunctator, usually translated as "the delayer", refers to the strategy that he employed against Hannibal's forces during the Second Punic War. Facing an outstanding commander with superior numbers, he pursued a then-novel strategy of targeting the enemy's supply lines, and accepting only smaller engagements on favourable ground, rather than risking his entire army on direct confrontation with Hannibal himself. As a result, he is regarded as the originator of many tactics used in guerrilla warfare.

Ludi Romani

Ludi Romani

The Ludi Romani was a religious festival in ancient Rome. Usually including multiple ceremonies called ludi. They were held annually starting in 366 BC from September 12 to September 14, later extended to September 5 to September 19. In the last 1st century BC, an extra day was added in honor of the deified Julius Caesar on 4 September. The festival first introduced drama to Rome based on Greek drama.

Battle of Cannae

Battle of Cannae

The Battle of Cannae was a key engagement of the Second Punic War between the Roman Republic and Carthage, fought on 2 August 216 BC near the ancient village of Cannae in Apulia, southeast Italy. The Carthaginians and their allies, led by Hannibal, surrounded and practically annihilated a larger Roman and Italian army under the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. It is regarded as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history and one of the worst defeats in Roman history.

Augury

Augury

Augury is the practice from ancient Roman religion of interpreting omens from the observed behavior of birds. When the individual, known as the augur, interpreted these signs, it is referred to as "taking the auspices". "Auspices" literally means "looking at birds", and Latin auspex, another word for "augur", literally means "one who looks at birds". Depending upon the birds, the auspices from the gods could be favorable or unfavorable. Sometimes politically motivated augurs would fabricate unfavorable auspices in order to delay certain state functions, such as elections. Pliny the Elder attributes the invention of auspicy to Tiresias the seer of Thebes, the generic model of a seer in the Greco-Roman literary culture.

Pomerium

Pomerium

The pomerium or pomoerium was a religious boundary around the city of Rome and cities controlled by Rome. In legal terms, Rome existed only within its pomerium; everything beyond it was simply territory (ager) belonging to Rome.

Roman law

Roman law

Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables, to the Corpus Juris Civilis ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law forms the basic framework for civil law, the most widely used legal system today, and the terms are sometimes used synonymously. The historical importance of Roman law is reflected by the continued use of Latin legal terminology in many legal systems influenced by it, including common law.

First Punic War

First Punic War

The First Punic War was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and greatest naval war of antiquity, the two powers struggled for supremacy. The war was fought primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. After immense losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated.

Head presumed to be that of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Sulla was dictator from 82 to 79 BC.^[66]

The new dictatorships of Sulla and Caesar differed greatly from the traditional dictatorship. The long period of abeyance in which the dictatorship had lain meant that men like Sulla and Caesar were no longer bound by the chains of centuries of tradition requiring any man appointed to the dictatorship—traditionally a man trusted by all Romans—to act for all Romans, resolve the issue to which he was appointed, and then immediately resign.^[67]

Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Following Sulla's civil war, Lucius Cornelius Sulla had the dictatorship revived. In 82 BC the consuls were absent from the city, he induced the comitia centuriata, called by Lucius Valerius Flaccus as interrex, to pass a law directly appointing Sulla as dictator^[68] to write laws and reconstitute the state (Latin: legibus scribundis et rei publicae constituendae);^[69] he was also given immunity for all actions (including those past and future)^[70]

After significant changes to the laws and proscriptions, he completed this task on 1 January 79 BC and resigned to take up an ordinary consulship.^[71] This dictatorship aligned with one aspect of the archaic dictatorship—restoring stability—as the state was, in fact, in a shambles after the domination and proscriptions of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Gaius Marius, and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo.^[72] "Sulla never aimed at permanent tyranny";^[70] wishing his settlement to succeed, and conceiving of it in quasi-republican terms, he resigned the dictatorship in place of ordinary magistrates.^[73] Sulla's reforms and proscriptions did stabilize a republic—albeit on radically reformed grounds^[74] with Sulla as a "law-giver" who gave Rome "a new constitution that would put an end to political and social strife"^[75]—and restore somewhat free elections for the next few decades, at an enormous cost. But the precedent that he set by twice marching on Rome with his armies would prove an equally destabilizing influence.^[76]

Between Sulla and Caesar

After Sulla's dictatorship, there are a few cases where a dictatorship was supposedly considered as a means of effecting regime change.

One version of the supposed First Catilinarian conspiracy c. 65 BC (which itself is now held in modern scholarship to be fictitious^[77]) related by Suetonius would have had the creation of a dictatorship led by Marcus Licinius Crassus with Julius Caesar as magister equitum.^[78] Suetonius' version of events may be anachronistic, with Crassus and Caesar's involvement being an embellishment. Regardless, the suggestion of a dictatorship "belongs, perhaps to a late-republican school of thought that saw the antiquated office of the consulship as an ineffective path to the mastery of Rome" with the dictatorship as an "obvious tool for republican regime change" informed by Sulla's proscriptions and reforms.^[79] The phraseology of how Crassus would supposedly have been elevated to the dictatorship also suggests it was seen as an available instrument for ambitious factional leaders to force through self-serving change.^[80]

The later consulship of Pompey in 52 BC also is reported to have been initially intended as a dictatorship; it was, however, aborted by his election as sole consul (without colleague) to restore order.^[81] Scholars disagree as to the reasons why Pompey was made sole consul: ancient sources (Appian, Dio, and Plutarch) all believed this occurred to deny him a dictatorship; "recent scholarship has emphasised Pompey’s consulship rather as a means of resolving a political impasse".^[82][h] If this were an abortive dictatorship, it would have been "a final echo of the archaic dictators" with the sole goal of restoring order to the city.^[82]

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar, during his civil war, also revived the dictatorship, first to hold elections (in which he was returned as consul for the next year) and eight later times between late October 48 BC and his eventual death in 44.^[84] It is greatly unclear which of Caesar's specific acts were undertaken under his overlapping dictatorial, proconsular, consular, or private authority.^[85] The dictatorship, however, offered Caesar a position—unlike the consulship which was constrained by hundreds of years of precedent—which gave him uncircumscribed powers by virtue of its "separat[ion] from its foundations by 120 years of disuse" and by way of Sulla's example.^[86] His dictatorship built on that of Sulla's as well—he too changed the number of magistracies and reformed the state^[87]—but his was administrative rather than one given up at the completion of a task.^[88] To that end, Caesar had himself appointed dictator perpetuo, i.e., in a dictatorship that automatically renewed every year, allowing Caesar to remove the need to renew the dictatorship.^[89] This new and transformed dictatorship, endowed with a kingly power, is where it fell into the dustbin of history.^[90]

Discover more about Late republican dictatorship related topics

Constitutional reforms of Sulla

Constitutional reforms of Sulla

The constitutional reforms of Sulla were a series of laws enacted by the Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla between 82 and 80 BC, reforming the Constitution of the Roman Republic in a revolutionary way.

Lucius Valerius Flaccus (consul 100 BC)

Lucius Valerius Flaccus (consul 100 BC)

Lucius Valerius Flaccus was a consul of the Roman Republic in 100 BC and princeps senatus during the civil wars of the 80s. He is noted for his peace initiatives, which failed, and for sponsoring the Lex Valeria that created the dictatorship of Sulla.

Proscription

Proscription

Proscription is, in current usage, a 'decree of condemnation to death or banishment' and can be used in a political context to refer to state-approved murder or banishment. The term originated in Ancient Rome, where it included public identification and official condemnation of declared enemies of the state and it often involved confiscation of property.

Lucius Cornelius Cinna

Lucius Cornelius Cinna

Lucius Cornelius Cinna was a four-time consul of the Roman republic. Opposing Sulla's march on Rome in 88 BC, he was elected to the consulship of 87 BC, during which he engaged in an armed conflict – the Bellum Octavianum – with his co-consul, Gnaeus Octavius. Emerging victorious, Cinna initiated with his ally, Gaius Marius, extrajudicial killings of their personal enemies. In the aftermath, he dominated the republic for the next three years, serving continuously as consul.

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbric and Jugurthine wars, he held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times. He was also noted for his important reforms of Roman armies. He set the precedent for the shift from the militia levies of the middle Republic to the professional soldiery of the late Republic; he also improved the pilum, a javelin, and made large-scale changes to the logistical structure of the Roman army.

Gnaeus Papirius Carbo (consul 85 BC)

Gnaeus Papirius Carbo (consul 85 BC)

Gnaeus Papirius Carbo was thrice consul of the Roman Republic in 85, 84, and 82 BC. He was the head of the Marianists after the death of Cinna in 84 and led the resistance to Sulla during the civil war. He was proscribed by Sulla and beheaded by Pompey in Sicily in late 82.

First Catilinarian conspiracy

First Catilinarian conspiracy

The so-called first Catilinarian conspiracy was an almost certainly fictitious conspiracy in the late Roman Republic. According to various ancient tellings, it involved Publius Autronius Paetus, Publius Cornelius Sulla, Lucius Sergius Catilina, and others. Ancient accounts of the alleged conspiracy differ in the participants; in some tellings, Catiline is nowhere mentioned. Autronius and Sulla had been elected consuls for 65 BC but were removed after convictions for bribery. New consuls were then elected. The supposed goal of the conspiracy was to murder the second set of consuls elected for 65 BC and, in their resulting absence, replace them.

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Marcus Licinius Crassus was a Roman general and statesman who played a key role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is often called "the richest man in Rome."

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

Pompey

Pompey

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of Rome from republic to empire. Early in his career, he was a partisan and protégé of the Roman general and dictator Sulla; later, he became the political ally, and finally the enemy, of Julius Caesar.

Caesar's civil war

Caesar's civil war

Caesar's civil war was one of the last politico-military conflicts of the Roman Republic before its reorganization into the Roman Empire. It began as a series of political and military confrontations between Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.

Dictator perpetuo

Dictator perpetuo

Dictator perpetuo, also called dictator in perpetuum, was the office held by Julius Caesar towards the end of his life. He was granted the title between 26 January and 15 February during the year 44 BCE. He would be killed shortly later on 15 March. By abandoning the time restrictions usually applied in the case of the Roman dictatorship, it elevated Caesar's dictatorship into the monarchical sphere.

Depiction of the Assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (mid 19th century).

After Caesar's death, it became unlawful to propose, vote for, or accept any dictatorship. Any person who became dictator also could be summarily executed. Essentially, the title was cursed and excised from the republican constitution. Curiously, the person who did this was not one of the liberatores but rather, Caesar's own former magister equitum, Mark Antony.^[91] Antony's supporters lionised him for having rid the Republic of this instrument of tyranny.^[92]

The need for the dictatorship—especially as an instrument of pseudo-royal power—was clearly already gone: in 22 BC, a senatorial delegation begged Augustus to accept the dictatorship, and Augustus refused, knowing that the title would bring only hatred, and that his own informal authority, "encumbered by neither ancient nor recent precedent", would be sufficient.^[92]

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Assassination of Julius Caesar

Assassination of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators on the Ides of March of 44 BC during a meeting of the Senate at the Curia of Pompey of the Theatre of Pompey in Rome where the senators stabbed Caesar 23 times. They claimed to be acting over fears that Caesar's unprecedented concentration of power during his dictatorship was undermining the Roman Republic. At least 60 to 70 senators were party to the conspiracy, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus. Despite the death of Caesar, the conspirators were unable to restore the institutions of the Republic. The ramifications of the assassination led to the Liberators' civil war and ultimately to the Principate period of the Roman Empire.

Constitution of the Roman Republic

Constitution of the Roman Republic

The constitution of the Roman Republic was a set of uncodified norms and customs which, together with various written laws, guided the procedural governance of the Roman Republic. The constitution emerged from that of the Roman kingdom, evolved substantively and significantly—almost to the point of unrecognisability—over the almost five hundred years of the republic. The collapse of republican government and norms from 133 BC would lead to the rise of Augustus and his principate.

Mark Antony

Mark Antony

Marcus Antonius, commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autocratic Roman Empire.

Augustus

Augustus

Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Principate, which is the first phase of the Roman Empire, and is considered one of the greatest leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult as well as an era associated with imperial peace, the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession.

The dictator's lieutenant was the magister equitum, or "master of the horse". The first act of a dictator was to choose this lieutenant, usually at his own discretion.^[93] It was customary for the dictator to nominate a magister equitum, even if he were appointed for a non-military reason.

The magister equitum was also a curule magistrate, with powers to summon the Senate and perhaps also powers to summon the Assembly; however, he had only six lictors,^[45] symbolizing his subordination to the dictator, and his expectation of quickly vacating office.^[93] The magister equitum was necessarily subordinate to the dictator, although this did not always prevent the two from disagreeing.^[45]

In theory, the magister equitum was commander of the cavalry, but he was not limited to that role. The dictator and magister equitum did not always take the field together; in some instances the magister equitum was assigned the defense of the city while the dictator took an army into the field, while on other occasions the dictator remained at Rome to see to some important duty, and entrusted the magister equitum with an army in the field.