The Roman Consulship
Authors: Pina Polo Francisco 
Published: February 2023

Two annual consuls with equal powers were the chief magistrates of the Roman state throughout the Republican period. According to tradition, the consulship was established in 509 bce when kingship was abolished in Rome, as shown by the list of consuls preserved in the Fasti. However, the consulship may have been the culmination of a longer process, and its origin (or final consolidation) could possibly be dated to 367–366 bce after the adoption of the tribunician Licinio-Sextian laws, when military tribunes with consular power were eliminated and the praetorship was created. Consuls were annually elected in the centuriate assembly (comitia centuriata) and were granted imperium, which implied supreme civil and military power. A series of external signs of power symbolized their imperium: twelve lictors with fasces, sella curulis (curule chair), and toga praetexta. Consulship was part of a structured career path (cursus honorum), and the age of forty-two to be elected consul was a requirement after the enactment of the lex Villia Annalis in 180 bce. Consuls carried out their functions under the principle of collegiality, and each consul had the power to veto his colleague. They were eponymous magistrates, as their names were used to establish the official chronology of Rome. Nevertheless, the day on which the consuls took office varied during the Republican period: the consular year started on the Ides of March from the beginning of the Hannibalic war and on 1 January from 153 onward. Until the first century bce, consuls were the chief commanders of the Roman army under the authority of the senate: as such, they spent most of the consular year commanding their legions and were the leading actors in the imperial expansion of Rome. Consuls also carried out important civil functions in the weeks or months they remained in Rome: they were the curatores of the pax deorum in the relation of the community with its gods; led Roman diplomacy as executors of senatorial decisions; had legislative capacity; promoted public works; convoked popular assemblies; appointed a dictator if needed; and presided over the annual elections. During the first century bce, the role played by consuls changed: they remained at Rome for most or even all of their term of office, and only some of them took command over their legions during their consular year. As a consequence, consuls no longer played the important military role they had in previous centuries, while their role in day-to-day politics substantially increased: throughout the late Republican period the consulship underwent a process of politicization, and the consuls were expected to be the most visible political leaders at the center stage of Roman politics. During the Triumviral period (43–30 bce), consuls kept their imperium but were in practice subordinate to the Triumvirs, and as a consequence the consulship suffered an institutional and political depreciation. The title of consul continued to exist throughout the Empire and into Late Antiquity, but after Augustus the office lost most of its significance: under the Principate the consuls were deprived of their military powers and of most of their civil tasks. The consulship, however, always remained a great honor and only lapsed in the sixth century under Justinian I.