Government 2 Elected Officials

Question 1

Senate and people of Rome: Senatus Populusque Romanus (SPQR)

Answer 1

• voting assemblies (populus)
• elected officials (= magistrates), elected yearly
• senate

Question 2

Yearly elections for officials (magistrates)

Answer 2

• limit power that one person can hold

Question 3

2 yearly consuls

Answer 3

• power like a king
• year is named after them
• later republic: term starts Jan 1
• 12 lictors
• must be 42
• have imperium

Question 4

Imperium: power to command

Answer 4

• give commands
• lead in war
• imperium also comes to mean territory under Roman control
• gives us the word empire

Question 5

Imperium: symbolized by lictors and fasces

Answer 5

• lictor: bodyguard for officials
• fasces: bundles of rods and axes
• 12 lictors assigned to each consul

Question 6

Who has imperium

Answer 6

• consuls
• praetor
• curule chair is a folding seat that symbolizes judicial power
• curule aediles get the chair but not imperium

Question 7

Consuls continued

Answer 7

• elected by Comitia centuriata
• can summon senate and people (assemblies)
• propose laws to the people for voting
• laws take the name of the consul who proposed it
• lex hortensia, lex Julia

Question 8

Limitations on consular power

Answer 8

• there are 2 consuls
• office lasts one year only
• can veto each other
• only the people (assembly) can sentence someone to death

Question 9

Prorogation

Answer 9

• extend someone’s imperium after their year in office
• exercise imperium in a province
• proconsul, propraetor

Question 10

Praetors

Answer 10

• this office added 366 BCE
• imperium
• mostly judicial role, urban praetor, foreign praetor
• yearly edict about interpretation of laws
• can lead armies
• became propraetors
• 6 lictors
• min. age 39

Question 11

Quaestors: financial officials

Answer 11

• come to be 20 of them
• no imperium
• gateway to the senate (after Sulla)
• after being quaestor you are eligible to join the senate
• minimum age 30

Question 12

Aediles

Answer 12

• 2 plebeian, elected by concilium plebis
• 2 elected by tribal assembly
• minimum age 36
• infrastructure
• commerce
• put on games! (pay for most costs themselves)

Question 13

Tribunes of the plebs

Answer 13

• concilium plebis and tribunes created in 494 BC
• 10 tribunes
• elected by concilium plebis (only plebeians attend)
• sacrosanct

Question 14

Tribunes of the plebs

Answer 14

• right to bring aid to citizens
• propose plebiscites
• after 287 BCE - plebiscites apply to all Romans
• can veto eachother and laws from other tribunes

Augustus: tribunician power

Question 15

Censors

Answer 15

• elected every 5 years (by comitia centuriata)
• 18 months
• ex-consuls
• review citizen lists, senate
• give public contracts (roads, etc.)

Question 16

Dictator

Answer 16

• emergency measure
• appointed
• 6 months
• imperium (24 lictors)
• chooses a master of horse

Question 17

Curus honorum = sequence of offices

Answer 17

• 180 BC - a law sets minimum ages

Necessary ones are:
- quaestor
- praetor
- consul

Question 18

Yearly magistrates

Answer 18

• consuls
• praetors
• aediles
• quaestors
• tribunes of the plebs
• Romans refer to elected officials as magistrates

Question 19

Ways to make “laws” in the Roman republic

Answer 19

Lex (plural: leges)
- comitia tributa or comitia centuriata
- named after consuls who proposed it
Senatus consultum (plural: senatus consulta)
- decree of the senate
Plebiscites (called leges)
- concilium plebis
- only plebeian tribes vote on these

Question 20

List of assemblies

Answer 20

For all Roman citizens
- comitia centuriata
- comitia tributa
- comitia curiata (not important politically)
For plebeians only:
- concilium plebis