Consuls

AbstractActing in close collaboration with the Senate, the two consuls were the chief magistrates of the Roman state throughout the republican period. The republic's highest office, like the Roman “constitution” itself, should be regarded as a “work in progress,” and analyzed by taking into account the changing historical circumstances of Roman history. According to Roman tradition, two consuls replaced the king as highest magistrates in 509BCE, as shown by the list of consuls in theFasti. However, it is unlikely that the republic was governed from the beginning by two magistrates acting as equal partners in power. Only after the enactment of the Licinio‐Sextian laws (367–366) do we have definite knowledge of a double magistracy. From that moment onwards, the consulship certainly existed. Until then it is uncertain whether consuls orpraetor maximusand otherpraetores, ormagister populi‐magister equitum, or under certain circumstancestribuni militum consulari potestate, were the highest magistrates of the Roman Republic. According to the tradition, Plebeians reached the right to stand for the consulship only in 367, the office being until then an exclusive office for Patricians.