Conflict of The Orders - The Patrician Era (494-367 BC)

The Patrician Era (494-367 BC)

In the year 494 BC, the city was at war with two neighboring tribes (the Aequi and the Volsci), but the Plebeian soldiers refused to march against the enemy, and instead seceded to the Aventine hill. The Patricians quickly became desperate to end what was, in effect, a labor strike, and thus they quickly agreed to the demands of the Plebeians, that they be given the right to elect their own officials. The Plebeians named these new officials Plebeian Tribunes (tribuni plebis), a name they probably took from the military officers ("Military Tribunes" or tribuni militum) who led them during their secession. The Tribunes were given two assistants, called Plebeian Aediles (aediles plebi).

During the early years of the republic, the Plebeians were not allowed to hold magisterial office. Neither Tribunes nor Aediles were technically magistrates, since they were both elected solely by the Plebeians, rather than by both the Plebeians and the Patricians. In 445 BC, the Plebeians demanded the right to stand for election as consul (the chief-magistrate of the Roman Republic), but the Roman senate refused to grant them this right. Ultimately, a compromise was reached, and while the Consulship remained closed to the Plebeians, Consular command authority (imperium) was granted to a select number of Military Tribunes. These individuals, the so-called Consular Tribunes ("Military Tribunes with Consular powers" or tribuni militares consulari potestate) were elected by the Century Assembly (the assembly of soldiers), and the senate had the power to veto any such election. This was the first of many attempts by the Plebeians to achieve political equality with the Patricians. Starting around the year 400 BC, a series of wars were fought against several neighboring tribes (in particular the Aequi, the Volsci, the Latins, and the Veii). The disenfranchised Plebeians fought in the army, while the Patrician aristocracy enjoyed the fruits of the resulting conquests. The Plebeians, by now exhausted and bitter, demanded real concessions, so the Tribunes C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius passed a law in 367 BC (the "Licinio-Sextian law"), which dealt with the economic plight of the Plebeians. However, the law also required the election of at least one Plebeian Consul each year. The opening of the Consulship to the Plebeians was probably the cause behind the concession of 366 BC, in which the Praetorship and Curule Aedileship were both created, but opened only to Patricians.

Shortly after the founding of the republic, the Century Assembly became the principal Roman assembly in which magistrates were elected, laws were passed, and trials occurred. Also around this time, the Plebeians assembled into an informal Plebeian Curiate Assembly, which was the original Plebeian Council. Since they were organized on the basis of the Curia (and thus by clan), they remained dependent on their Patrician patrons. In 471 BC, a law was passed due to the efforts of the Tribune Volero Publilius, which allowed the Plebeians to organize by Tribe, rather than by Curia. Thus, the Plebeian Curiate Assembly became the Plebeian Tribal Assembly, and the Plebeians became politically independent.

During the regal period, the king nominated two quaestors to serve as his assistants, and after the overthrow of the monarchy, the Consuls retained this authority. However, in 447 BC, Cicero tells us that the Quaestors began to be elected by a tribal assembly that was presided over by a magistrate. It seems as though this was the first instance of a joint Patricio-Plebeian Tribal Assembly, and thus was probably an enormous gain for the Plebeians. While Patricians were able to vote in a joint assembly, there were never very many Patricians in Rome. Thus, most of the electors were Plebeians, and yet any magistrate elected by a joint assembly had jurisdiction over both Plebeians and Patricians. Therefore, for the first time, the Plebeians seemed to have indirectly acquired authority over Patricians. Most contemporary accounts of an assembly of the Tribes refer specifically to the Plebeian Council. The distinction between the joint Tribal Assembly (composed of both Patricians and Plebeians) and the Plebeian Council (composed only of Plebeians) is not well defined in the contemporary accounts, and because of this, the very existence of a joint Tribal Assembly can only be assumed through indirect evidence. During the 4th century BC, a series of reforms were passed (the leges Valeriae Horatiae or the "laws of the Consul Publius Valerius Publicola and the Dictator Quintus Hortensius"), which ultimately required that any law passed by the Plebeian Council have the full force of law over both Plebeians and Patricians. This gave the Plebeian Tribunes, who presided over the Plebeian Council, a positive character for the first time. Before these laws were passed, Tribunes could only interpose the sacrosanctity of their person (intercessio) to veto acts of the senate, assemblies, or magistrates. It was a modification to the Valerian law in 449 BC which first allowed acts of the Plebeian Council to have the full force of law over both Plebeians and Patricians, but eventually the final law in the series was passed (the "Hortensian Law"), which removed the last check that the Patricians in the senate had over this power.