Dictatorship in Ancient Rome

Genesis of Dictatorship

In 511 BC, more than two centuries after the founding of the Eternal City, King Tarquin the Proud was overthrown in Rome. The republican system replaced the monarchical one. Instead of a king, Rome was now governed by the Senate and the people, with the highest officials being the annually elected consuls. This is how the establishment of the Republic is described by Titus Livius in his "History of Rome from the Foundation of the City."

Livius also reveals the origin of the dictatorship. He claims that the dictatorial magistracy arose almost immediately after the overthrow of the monarchy. Tarquin the Proud, an Etruscan by origin, did not cease his attempts to regain power with the help of Etruscan troops, while the Roman plebeians actively opposed the absolute power of the patricians. In this situation, the fledgling republican system faced both internal turmoil and an external enemy. The Senate and the patricians reasoned that they needed, in modern terms, a "crisis manager" – a person capable of uniting society to resolve the crisis. This person was Titus Larcius Flavus – the first dictator of Rome. Livius's version is questioned by modern researchers, as the historian wrote more than four centuries after the events he described.

In Livius's account, the dictatorship was an integral part of the Republic's constitution, a legal institution intended to overcome acute crises. According to another version, the position of dictator had a Latin origin. By the beginning of the 5th century BC, Rome had subjugated the Latin tribes united in the Latin League. For more effective command of the allied armies, a person was appointed to whom both Roman and Latin troops were subordinate – this was the dictator.

Due to the poor preservation of sources from the first decades of the Republic, it is difficult to establish the specific circumstances of the introduction of the dictatorship. However, we can certainly assert that the Republic, from the very beginning of its existence, regularly faced external threats – the Roman polis, although playing a prominent role in the Latin League, was far from hegemony in Italy for a long time. Moreover, the conflict between the patricians and plebeians continued, also provoking internal turmoil.

In this situation, it seems logical that collegial governance in the form of the Senate and consuls could prove ineffective. Decisive and prompt measures were needed to overcome crises. It should be noted that Rome had both ordinary magistracies, operating under normal conditions (consuls, censors, praetors), and extraordinary ones, operating in exceptional cases (dictators, triumvirs, decemvirs, interreges). Slow collegial governance was replaced by sole governance in the person of the dictator – a person, as a rule, already known to the people and enjoying high authority among the nobility. Otherwise, he simply could not effectively perform his duties.

The first reliably known dictators of Rome date back to the 5th century BC. The order of their appointment is not entirely clear – apparently, it was a procedure not regulated by law. The nomination of a dictator could occur at the initiative of the consul, the Senate, or the popular assembly. The dictator was appointed for 6 months and became the highest official of the Republic: he was the commander-in-chief of the army, consuls were subordinate to him, he had immunity from prosecution, could freely determine punishments for criminals, and much more, but his main advantage over other magistracies was that the dictator acted alone.

In historiography, there is an opinion that initially the position of dictator was called "magister populi", which is translated as "master of the people" or "master of the infantry". The dictator also had a subordinate personally to him "magister equitum", that is, "master of the cavalry". The presence of the position of master of the cavalry as an assistant to the dictator indicates the military origin of the dictatorial magistracy. This version was particularly supported by Theodor Mommsen.

It should not be thought that the power of the dictator was absolute: he could not ride a horse within the walls of Rome (this was considered a royal honor), used the treasury only with the Senate's consent, and could not leave the borders of Italy. The struggle between the patricians and plebeians led to the emergence of the plebeian magistracy of the people's tribunes, who were supposed to protect the people from the arbitrariness of the patricians and veto any Senate decisions that did not suit the plebeians. The people's tribunes were the only magistrates who could not obey the will of the dictator.

The powers of the dictator were also limited by the purpose of the appointment. Completing the task before the formal end of the term, although it did not eliminate the action of the dictatorial "imperium", in practice deprived it of legitimacy in the eyes of the Romans. This is the reason why dictators so quickly relinquished their powers and rarely held this position for the full six months.

Researchers identify the following goals or "causa" for appointing dictators:

1. War;

2. Rebellion;

3. Judicial processes;

4. Elections or convening of popular assemblies in the absence of consuls;

5. Religious festivals, particularly the driving of a nail in the Temple of Jupiter or the Roman Games.

It would be appropriate to consider a number of the most remarkable early republican dictators to clearly show how this extraordinary magistracy worked in practice.

Heroic Dictators

One of the most famous dictators of the early Republic can be named Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who was elected to this position in 458 and 439 BC. Cincinnatus came from the aristocratic Quinctius family, tracing back to the Roman king Tullus Hostilius. He was born around 519 BC, that is, before the overthrow of Tarquin the Proud. However, Cincinnatus first appears in sources only in the 460s BC, when his son Caeso was accused of banditry. Caeso, being a young and noble patrician, gathered around him a group that exerted forceful pressure on plebeian leaders. The plebeian tribunes brought charges against the young man in court, and the father was forced to defend his son. Nevertheless, the son was exiled from Rome, and Cincinnatus became an enemy of the plebeian movement. After being elected consul in 460 BC, he pursued a decisive policy in favor of the patricians, in particular, hindering the codification of Roman law to preserve patrician privileges. Not gaining popularity, Cincinnatus voluntarily retired from politics and withdrew to his rural estate.

The dictatorship of 458 BC was associated with the war against the alliance of the Aequi and Sabines. One of the Roman armies was surrounded, and the Senate called upon Cincinnatus, who, although busy with his own farm, agreed to help his fellow citizens. He led a new army, dismissed one of the consuls for ineffective command, and himself defeated the Aequi and Sabines. After returning to Rome, Cincinnatus celebrated a triumph and relinquished his powers as dictator, having fulfilled the task. Cincinnatus's first dictatorship lasted only sixteen days.

The second dictatorship of 439 BC was already associated with the struggle between patricians and plebeians. The consuls, due to the limitations of their powers, were unable to suppress the plebeian grassroots movement. The elderly patrician had to confront its leader Spurius Maelius.

Cincinnatus ordered his master of the horse Servilius Ahala to bring Maelius to him for questioning. The plebeian leader, fearing the dictator's wrath, attempted to flee, whereupon Ahala caught up with him and stabbed him. This news shocked the people, and the dictator, to calm them, accused Maelius of plotting to restore royal power. Cincinnatus then declared that the execution of the troublemaker was lawful because he did not obey the order. After this, the elderly patrician finally relinquished his powers as dictator.

No less outstanding a dictator is considered Marcus Furius Camillus, who was born in 446 BC and came from the patrician Furius family. Camillus made a dazzling political career during his long life. Unlike Cincinnatus, he held the position of dictator five times, consular tribune (a position replacing consuls) six times, and once served as censor of the Senate.

In 396 BC, the Romans besieged the Etruscan city of Veii. The siege dragged on, and Camillus, already holding the position of consular tribune, was elected dictator before the decisive assault. The assault was successful, the Romans gained rich spoils, but Camillus was accused of its unfair distribution and voluntarily went into exile in the city of Ardea.

Camillus's main feat was accomplished in 390 BC during the invasion of the Gauls, who invaded Italy and defeated the Roman forces at the Allia. Then the Gallic leader Brennus besieged Rome and sent separate detachments to the surroundings for plundering. Incidentally, it is to these events that the legend of the sacred geese saving the Eternal City belongs.

One of the Gallic detachments reached Ardea, but Camillus, leading the local militia, defeated it. The exile began gathering an army to save Rome and demanded official appointment to the position of dictator. His messenger secretly made his way to the Capitoline Hill, where the besieged were holed up, delivered Camillus's message to the Senate, and it gave its consent.

Camillus gathered a large army and managed to approach Rome at the moment when the besieged were already negotiating capitulation and paying tribute. The dictator declared these negotiations illegal and defeated the Gauls in battle, after which he led the restoration of the city. Subsequently, Camillus held the position of dictator several more times, all with military objectives. For his feats and services to the Fatherland, he was honored as the "Third Founder of Rome," and Plutarch himself wrote his biography.

There are also examples of failed dictatorships. In 363 BC, Lucius Manlius Capitolinus Imperiosus was appointed dictator "for the driving of a nail" into the temple wall to rid the people of the plague. However, after the ritual, he attempted to start a war with the hostile Hernici tribe, which caused outrage among the people's tribunes, and the dictator was forced to relinquish his powers.

The Essence of Dictatorship

The historicity of Camillus and Cincinnatus is indisputable, but the complete reliability of the stories associated with them is questioned by modern researchers. In the beautiful myths about hero-dictators, researchers see the formation of a patriotic ideal and an instructive example for future Roman magistrates. The dictator in these stories appears as a "crisis manager," whose main interest is duty to the Fatherland. He does not seek power for personal gain but regards it as a tool for achieving good in the glory of Rome, after which he relinquishes his powers.

At the same time, these stories also reflect class interest. Dictators of the early Republic were appointed from the patrician class and acted in their interests. Typical are situations where the Senate appointed a dictator to suspend the powers of the people's tribunes or the plebeian right to "provocations," that is, the right to appeal to the popular assembly bypassing the Senate. Often, dictators were appointed to conduct elections in conditions where, for one reason or another, consuls were absent.

However, in most cases, dictators were still appointed for more effective military command. This issue was particularly acute at the turn of the 5th – 4th centuries BC, when the magistracy of two consuls was temporarily replaced by the magistracy of consular tribunes. There could be from three to nine of them, and this circumstance further disorganized the Roman army. In these conditions, the position of dictator, as a person to whom consular tribunes were subordinate, became increasingly important. Subsequently, with the expansion of the Republic, military operations were conducted further and further from the Eternal City, so situations where the dictatorial magistracy was considered necessary arose less frequently.

The turning point for the dictatorship was the period of the Punic Wars, as Rome, having already united Italy, faced Carthage, equal in strength. In the First Punic War, dictators were appointed eight times, during the Second – twelve. Conducting military operations outside Italy led to situations where consuls were away from Rome for a long time and could not effectively perform their administrative duties. Then dictators were appointed to conduct popular assemblies, organize Games, and in 249 BC even for military operations outside Italy, which was previously prohibited. Such a dictator was Aulus Atilius Calatinus, who led Roman troops in Sicily.

During the Second Punic War, Hannibal Barca's initial successes in 217 BC at Ticinus, Trebia, and Lake Trasimene greatly frightened the Romans – the Carthaginian commander invaded deep into Italy without much difficulty. At Lake Trasimene, one of the consuls died, and the other consul was outside Rome, so the election of a dictator took place at the popular assembly. Dictatorial power was given to Quintus Fabius Maximus, who had previously held the positions of consul and censor. Maximus understood the danger of a pitched battle against Hannibal and insisted on a strategy of "small war" – the legions under his command did not engage the Punic forces but disrupted their communications and attacked small detachments, betting on exhausting the enemy.

Among the Romans, there were many dissatisfied with this strategy – Roman plebeians, whose lands were being plundered by Hannibal, were furious. Plebeian leaders pushed through a decision to equalize the powers of the master of the horse Marcus Minucius with the dictator's, and Maximus was forced to give Minucius half the army. In the autumn of 217 BC, Minucius was almost defeated at Geronium, but Maximus managed to come to the rescue, and Hannibal retreated. After Maximus's term ended, the new consul Gaius Terentius Varro, spurred on by the plebs, wanted to immediately expel Hannibal from Italy. This resulted in the catastrophe at Cannae in 216 BC – of both consuls, only Varro survived, and most of the Roman army was destroyed.

At Cannae, a large number of senators also perished, and to replenish the Senate, a dictator was again appointed – former consul and censor Marcus Fabius Buteo, who appointed new senators in one day and relinquished his powers. Simultaneously with him, Marcus Junius Pera was appointed dictator for military actions, but he ultimately did not distinguish himself. Subsequently, dictators were appointed only to conduct elections in the absence of consuls.

After the war with Hannibal, the Romans ceased to resort to the dictatorial magistracy, as military operations were now mainly conducted far from Italy. The dictatorship as a tool for overcoming military crises had exhausted itself. The further expansion of the Senate's powers and the highest ordinary magistracies led to the dictatorship being completely excluded from republican practice. The military function of dictators was replaced by the system of promagistracies, where sole command of troops outside Italy was carried out by provincial governors – proconsuls. The new system was more flexible, and the need to appoint dictators disappeared. Such acute crises as the Social War and the Spartacus Rebellion were overcome without them.

Tyrant Dictators

During the 2nd century BC, significant changes occurred in Roman society, the most important of which for us is the military reform of Gaius Marius. To increase the army's size, Marius changed the system of legion recruitment – now the poor could be enlisted, equipped at the commander's expense, who promised his soldiers land after their service term. Thus, legionaries became loyal not to the Republic but to their commander.

The political consequences of the reform were not long in coming. In the 80s BC, a civil war unfolded in the Republic between the popularis Marius and the optimas Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Sulla emerged victorious from this confrontation, becoming the first in history to take Rome with Roman troops. To pursue his enemies and implement necessary reforms, Sulla ensured that the popular assembly elected him as a perpetual dictator "for writing laws and bringing the Republic into order." If early dictators relied on law and tradition, Sulla was not bound by their constraints, as he relied on an army loyal personally to him.

First, he conducted a wide-ranging repressive campaign against the popularis opposition, which went down in history as the proscriptions. Those who displeased the dictator ended up on the proscription lists, and a real massacre of the populares and those suspected of sympathizing with them occurred in the Republic. After eliminating the opposition, the dictator set about strengthening the positions of the senatorial aristocracy. In 79 BC, Sulla relinquished his powers as dictator and retired to private life, declaring that he was ready to be held accountable for his actions before the law, but no one wished to punish the ex-dictator.

The populares took revenge in the 40s BC. In January 49 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his legions and unleashed another civil war against the optimates, in which he achieved complete victory. In his rule, Caesar also relied on the dictatorial magistracy – he was annually appointed dictator from 49 to 45 BC, until in 44 BC he was declared a lifelong dictator. Unlike Sulla, Caesar did not use his powers for a bloody suppression of the opposition, but used them to give his rule legality and legitimacy. The dictator acted in the interests of the broad layers of the Roman population at the expense of the senatorial aristocracy, for which Theodor Mommsen called him a "democratic monarch."

As is known, Caesar was assassinated in the Ides of March 44 BC, so he indeed exercised his powers as dictator for life. After Caesar's assassination, his supporter Mark Antony was forced to compromise with the republican conspirators and passed a law in the Senate abolishing the dictatorship as a legal magistracy. Thus, its history came to an end. After defeating Antony, Octavian Augustus refused the offered dictatorship and formally "restored the Republic," albeit under his full personal control.

Thus, in the final century of the Republic, the 1st century BC, the dictatorship in the eyes of the Romans took on entirely new colors. From a tool for overcoming crises, it turned into a tool for political struggle and suppression of opponents. Now party leaders, relying on legions, became dictators in the modern sense of the word. The dictatorship became a legal basis for the monopolization of power by one person, and the hero-dictator was replaced by the tyrant-dictator. It can be said that the dictatorship became a kind of bridge from the fall of the true Republic to its "restoration" already in the form of imperial power.

Literature

1. Appian of Alexandria. Roman History / [Translated from Ancient Greek by S. P. Kondratyev, S. A. Zhebelev]. – Moscow: Nauka, 1998. – 726 p.

2. Gaius Sallustius Crispus. Works / [Translated from Latin, article and comments by V. O. Gorenshtein]. – Moscow: Nauka, 1981. – 221 p.

3. Dementieva V. V. The Magistracy of the Dictator in the Early Roman Republic (5th - 3rd centuries BC) / V. V. Dementieva. – Yaroslavl: Publishing House of Yaroslavl State University, 1996. – 128 p.

4. Dementieva V. V. Exercise of Supreme Power in the Military Sphere by Dictators of the Early Roman Republic / V. V. Dementieva // Scholae. Philosophical Antiquity and Classical Tradition. – 2010. – No. 4. 1. – P. 42-63.

5. Ignatenko A. V. Ancient Rome: From Military Democracy to Military Dictatorship: (Historical and Legal Research) / A. V. Ignatenko. – Sverdlovsk: Publishing House of the Ural University, 1988. – 157 p.

6. Plutarch. Comparative Lives: [in 2 volumes] / [Translated from Ancient Greek by G. A. Strakanovsky]. – Moscow: Nauka, 1994. – 2 vols.

7. Titus Livius. History of Rome from the Foundation of the City: [in 3 volumes] / [Translated from Latin by V. M. Smirnov]. – Moscow: Nauka, 1989. – Volume I. – 576 p.

8. Chekanova N. V. The Roman Dictatorship of the Last Century of the Republic / N. V. Chekanova. – St. Petersburg: Humanitarian Academy, 2005. – 480 p.