The suffect consulship, an institution which had existed throughout the Roman Republic, changed dramatically during the triumviral age. This happened in the context of a period in which successive wars were fought by Roman armies across the Mediterranean under the command of imperatores who represented different political interests and, at the same time, struggled for power at Rome. Our surviving accounts narrate the wars in detail but devote little space to internal politics at Rome, making it difficult to reconstruct how republican institutions developed in the years before Octavian's victory at Actium. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the suffect consulship as an example of what was happening to republican magistracies under the triumvirs. In particular, it focuses on the reasons why suffect consuls were nominated, the procedure by which they were designated, who these suffecti were, and the nature of their political careers up to that point.Footnote 1
I THE SUFFECT CONSULSHIP DURING THE REPUBLIC
From 509 to 45 we know of twenty-nine suffect consuls.Footnote 2 Two suffect consuls had supposedly been elected in the presumed first year of the Republic, in 509, to replace L. Iunius Brutus, who had been slain in battle against the Etruscans, and L. Tarquinius Collatinus, who resigned from his office. We should obviously question the veracity of this information (as for most accounts of early Rome), but it is clear, at least according to tradition, that the practice of replacing a consul when necessary was in place from the very beginning of the Republic.
A consul suffectus replaced an ordinary consul in the vast majority of cases due to the death of a consul in office, either from natural causes or, more frequently, on the battlefield. In other cases the consuls in office resigned, or were obliged to do so because of legal irregularities.Footnote 3 At any rate, whether the cause was death, resignation or even expulsion,Footnote 4 the election of a consul suffectus took place only if an ordinary consul left a vacancy. The suffect consulship was therefore an emergency response in order to maintain the usual number of two consuls as the highest magistracy at the head of the Roman administration. This well-regulated procedure was applied throughout the Republic and was still in force in the first century. The last two known suffect consuls preceding the Caesarian period were elected in 86 and 68.Footnote 5 With respect to the political trajectory of suffect consuls before their election, some recurrent features emerge. Leaving aside the early Republic, when the information is uncertain and a fixed cursus honorum had not yet been determined, in the third century all seven known consules suffecti had previously held the consulship, in some cases even more than once.Footnote 6 In other words, all the suffect consuls of the third century were prestigious, well-known and experienced politicians.
The other known suffect consuls held the magistracy after the Hannibalic war, specifically after 180, when the Lex Villia annalis was promulgated and, consequently, the cursus honorum regulated. In contrast to the third century, in the second and first centuries no consul suffectus had previously been a regular consul. However, to the extent that we have evidence about their political careers, we can reasonably assume that they had followed the usual cursus honorum, holding junior magistracies in the first stages of their careers. All, or most, of them could have held the praetorship prior to being elected suffect consuls, but, given our fragmentary information, we do not have evidence for every individual.Footnote 7 The suffect consulship was for all of them the culmination of their political careers, and no one held the consulship — ordinarius or suffectus — a second time.
II THE REVIVAL OF THE SUFFECT CONSULSHIP BY CAESAR
The changes to the suffect consulship began with Caesar, when events took place that prefigured what would happen after his murder. The institution of the suffect consulship returned in 45 after some decades in which no suffect consul had been elected.Footnote 8 The suffect consulship had not been used since 68, and there had only been ten consules suffecti between 180 and 68. It is therefore striking that Caesar promoted the revival of an institution with such a long history — and also reformed it.
In 45, Caesar acted as consul sine collega — he was simultaneously dictator — until he stepped down on 1 October.Footnote 9 Then Q. Fabius Maximus and C. Trebonius were designated consules suffecti Footnote 10 — two suffecti replacing a sole consul ordinarius. Both seem previously to have followed the usual cursus honorum,Footnote 11 but they were outstanding for their loyalty towards Caesar. Trebonius had served as a legate under Caesar in Gaul (54–49), and, after his praetorship, he was sent by Caesar to Hispania Ulterior as proconsul in 47–46.Footnote 12 Trebonius was expelled by his troops, but returned to Hispania with Caesar and participated actively in the final episode of the civil war in 45. Fabius Maximus was one of the most devoted legates of Caesar in Hispania, and as reward he was authorised by Caesar to celebrate a triumph ex Hispania, despite not having commanded the army as imperator.Footnote 13 His consulship was another reward granted by Caesar. Trebonius and Fabius Maximus were not the only suffect consuls in 45, because Fabius Maximus died suddenly on the last day of the year. Under the circumstances, Caesar decided to appoint C. Caninius Rebilus consul suffectus for just a few hours.Footnote 14 According to Cicero, Caninius was elected in comitia, although he does not give any details of how a popular assembly was convoked and held in such a short timeframe.Footnote 15 In any case, there is no doubt that Caesar's choice prevailed. Again, as Tacitus makes clear,Footnote 16 the consulship of Caninius Rebilus must be seen as the prize for his loyalty in the civil war: he fought for Caesar as proconsul in 46 in Africa and as a legate in Hispania in 45 before becoming consul.Footnote 17
The suffect consulships of Fabius Maximus and Trebonius, as well as the brief consulship of C. Caninius Rebilus, continued the tradition of experienced politicians and soldiers being elected, but in a sense prefigured the political use later given to the suffect consulship by the triumvirs. In all three cases, the consulship was certainly the culmination of their cursus honorum and was endorsed by their military expertise, but it must be seen specifically as a reward for their loyalty: this was their principal merit, as would later be the case with the triumvirs’ choices. Caesar selected them as trustworthy men for the highest office of the Republic — after himself, of course. It was Caesar (as dictator) who ultimately held power. The consulship of Caninius Rebilus was certainly an object of mockery in antiquity. In a letter to Curio, Cicero amusingly asserted that Caninius had not done anything wrong and had been an extremely diligent consul — for he had not closed his eyes even a moment during his entire office!Footnote 18 Cassius Dio noted that Caninius was appointed consul, served as such and left the office all at the same time.Footnote 19
That said, the appointment of Caninius as suffect consul had a constitutional logic: one of the two consuls in office had died and, consequently, had to be replaced to restore collegiality in the highest magistracy.Footnote 20 Certainly Caesar could have had a personal interest in Caninius being designated consul, but, beyond the extraordinary brevity of Caninius’ consulship, his appointment did in fact have precedents in the republican constitutional tradition, as we have seen, and consequently Caesar (as Weinstock suggestedFootnote 21) could claim to have acted out of institutional scrupulousness according to legal tradition. The suffect consulships of Fabius Maximus and Trebonius, however, mark a new use of the office: they replaced a consul who was not dead nor incapacitated, but who had resigned the office voluntarily, without force majeure or any legal reason that obliged him to do so. Cassius Dio rightly pointed out this flagrant violation of tradition: ‘This was the first transgression of established custom at this time: that one and the same man did not hold that office for a year or even for the whole of the remainder of the same year, but while living he resigned from it without any compulsion of ancestral custom or accusation, and another took his place.’Footnote 22 When in 52 Pompey was — like Caesar in 45 — the sole consul for some months, he remained as consul for the whole year, and a second consul was elected at some point during the year to complete the dual magistracy. For the first time the procedure had changed: Caesar created a precedent with great significance for the future.Footnote 23
Caesar had anticipated a similar situation for 44. M. Antonius and Caesar himself were the consuls for that year, but Caesar was making arrangements for his campaign in the East against the Parthians. According to Cicero, Caesar had declared that before he departed he would order P. Cornelius Dolabella to be made consul to replace him.Footnote 24 Consequently, Caesar wanted to designate his substitute in advance, and again this suffect consul had to replace a consul ordinarius despite the fact that nothing prevented Caesar from continuing in office. In spite of the opposition shown by Antonius, Dolabella was elected in comitia, as Cicero testifies,Footnote 25 and after Caesar's assassination he became consul suffectus for the rest of 44, sharing the consulship with Antonius.
In 43 there were four suffect consuls, who were elected under different circumstances. C. Vibius Pansa and A. Hirtius, the two consules ordinarii, died in April as a result of the battles at Forum Gallorum and Mutina. According to tradition, two suffect consuls should immediately have been elected, but this election only took place in August, when Octavian and Q. Pedius became consuls.Footnote 26 The situation changed again three months later, when on 27 November the tribune of the plebs P. Titius sponsored the law which established the triumvirate. Octavian resigned the consulship and became one of the triumvirs.Footnote 27 P. Ventidius Bassus, who was at that moment a praetor, resigned and was elected consul in the place of Octavian for only a few weeks.Footnote 28 As for Pedius, he died shortly before the arrival of the triumvirs in Rome, and was replaced by C. Carrinas for the final part of the year.Footnote 29 The number of suffect consuls in 43 was unusual, but it was justified by the circumstances: following the usual procedure, in all cases the suffecti replaced consuls who had died or had resigned.Footnote 30
III THE TRIUMVIRATE AND THE SUFFECT CONSULSHIP
The creation of the triumvirate in November 43 marked a turning point. Thanks to their extraordinary office, Antonius, Lepidus and the young Caesar became the rulers of Rome above the Senate and the traditional magistracies. From November 43 until 31, the triumvirs legally ruled Rome over the consuls, who became in practice subsidiary magistrates, although Appian asserts that the triumvirs had consular power.Footnote 31 Additionally the practice was established, and later on in 39 institutionalised, that each year several consuls were appointed, two of them ordinarii, the others suffecti.Footnote 32 The suffect consuls were nominated in advance at the same time as the regular consuls, merely for political reasons and not out of necessity. Simultaneously, even though the consulship remained a dual and collegial magistracy, as it always had been throughout the Republic, in practice it lost its annual character, since it became usual during the triumviral period that a consul did not remain in office for the whole year.
Consuls from 45 to 31Footnote 33
In 42 and 41 only consules ordinarii were appointed, and they remained in office for the whole year. The four consuls were well-known politicians in Rome. Lepidus had already been consul in 46 and was designated triumvir just a few weeks earlier. Munatius Plancus was one of the praefecti urbi appointed by Caesar in 45 when he departed for Hispania.Footnote 34 Isauricus had been consul for the first time in 48. L. Antonius had perhaps a less prominent political career, but he had played a significant role at Rome in 44 as a tribune of the plebs, and, no less importantly, he was the brother of the triumvir M. Antonius.
From 40 onwards we find suffect consuls appointed in increasing numbers every year until the end of the triumviral period. Most of the consules suffecti who were designated in the first years were men of prestige and had undeniable political weight in Rome. L. Cornelius Balbus, one of the two suffect consuls of the year 40, is a good example. Balbus, a native of Gades in Hispania and one of the wealthiest men of his time,Footnote 35 was the first foreigner to reach the highest magistracy in Rome.Footnote 36 Throughout his life he stood out for having served Caesar faithfully and for being his trusted man in Rome. After Caesar was killed, Balbus provided significant services on behalf of Octavian. However, Balbus did not follow a normal cursus honorum. Indeed, the consulship is his only known magistracy, and very likely he only gained access to the Senate once he had been consul.Footnote 37 His consulship was therefore not the culmination of a previous political career, but a reward for services rendered to Caesar and Octavian. The other suffect consul in the year 40 was P. Canidius Crassus. He is the only Canidius who is recorded as having held an office throughout the Republic. Balbus and Canidius were therefore absolute homines novi in the broadest sense of the term. Like Balbus, we do not know whether Canidius had a political career prior to his consulship, which was primarily a consequence of his service under the command of M. Antonius in 41–40.Footnote 38 Canidius was above all a vir militaris, and he always remained a loyal follower of Antonius.Footnote 39
The suffect consulships of Balbus and Canidius Crassus were the result of the reconciliation between Antonius and Octavian at Brundisium. As a consequence of the new political situation, the consules ordinarii of the year stepped down and were replaced by the two suffecti. The two consuls had complementary expertise: Canidius was an experienced military man, while Balbus was a civilian of significance. Canidius and Balbus prefigured the sort of men the triumvirs wanted as consuls, and the characteristics they prioritised: above all, loyalty.
The creation in 39, just a few months later, of a permanent system of suffect consuls every year, which implied the designation in advance of consules ordinarii and consules suffecti for several years ahead, was an understandable development: the triumvirs wanted to have the highest republican office under their control, and at the same time had many loyal followers to be rewarded.Footnote 40 According to Cassius Dio, the triumvirs appointed the consuls eight years in advance, and they designated not two annual consuls, as had been the custom, but several.Footnote 41 Cassius Dio asserts that the novelty lay in the fact that these consuls were not chosen to be in office for the whole year but just for a portion of it — something that happened for the first time and represented a break with tradition. The information provided by Cassius Dio is substantially accurate with respect to the institutionalisation of the suffect consulship for the following years, but the eight-year period for which the consuls were appointed in advance seems dubious.Footnote 42 Be that as it may, it is the case that suffect consuls were appointed by the triumvirs, and not elected by the people in comitia, each year between 39 and 31.
In 39, the consules suffecti were C. Cocceius Balbus and P. Alfenus Varus.Footnote 43 Following the pattern established in 40, both were homines novi and belonged to families with no previous presence in Roman public life.Footnote 44 Neither Cocceius Balbus nor Alfenus Varus is known to have developed a political career prior to their consulship. They reached the consulship thanks to their achievements as viri militares in the service of the triumvirs: Cocceius was Antonius’ man, Alfenus Octavian's.Footnote 45 The consules suffecti of 38, however, offer some points of contrast. L. Cornelius Lentulus and L. Marcius Philippus belonged to prominent families and had, particularly for such a turbulent period, quite a traditional cursus honorum.Footnote 46 Fidelity and alliances in 38 continued to be of importance for Lentulus and Philippus in obtaining the consulship; their lineage seems also to have played a role as well.
T. Statilius Taurus was the only consul suffectus in 37, replacing on 1 July the ordinarius L. Caninius Gallus, while the other, Agrippa, remained in office for the whole year.Footnote 47 This shows that, amongst the consuls of the year, Agrippa had the greatest power and influence. By contrast, there is no substantial difference between the ordinary consul Caninius and the suffectus Statilius. Both are obscure individuals who at that moment, according to the evidence we have, seem barely to have developed a regular cursus honorum,Footnote 48 but had enough military merit to attain the highest magistracy. Likewise, both were homines novi whose families had no prior political presence in Rome. There was, however, an essential divergence in their careers after their consulship. Whereas Caninius seems to have disappeared from politics, Statilius gained increasing prominence both as proconsul in Africa — he celebrated a triumph ex Africa in 34 — and in the years following fighting for Octavian. As a result, Statilius held a second consulship in 26, but this time as consul ordinarius, which signalled his political promotion, having Augustus as his colleague in office. The case of Statilius is of great interest for showing the rise of a certain type of man in the triumviral period. His military abilities made him a suffect consul in 37, and his subsequent military successes allowed him to become an ordinary consul in 26, as well as praefectus urbi in 16. He was one of the most influential individuals in the inner circle of Augustus’ advisers. His suffect consulship was therefore not his highest achievement, but rather the point of departure for a distinguished political career.
From the year 36 onwards, the number of consules suffecti increased at the same time as the social and political prominence of many of them, even of most of them, progressively diminished. L. Nonius Asprenas and Q. Marcius were the two suffect consuls in 36.Footnote 49 Nonius belonged to a family with a secondary participation in Roman politics up to that moment. He is known to have served in 46 as proconsul in Africa under the command of Caesar, and again in Hispania the following year, but he disappears from our sources during the first years of the triumvirate until his re-emergence in 36 as consul.Footnote 50
Given the lack of information about them, it is appropriate to suggest that some suffect consuls who were appointed in the following years are merely phantoms. The only hint of their existence is the presence of their names in the fasti consulares, since we know nothing about their behaviour or actions as consuls. Nevertheless, it must be borne in mind that the ancient accounts focus on military events and on the triumvirs rather than on persons with a secondary role. Q. Marcius is certainly one of those suffect consuls who remain completely obscure. We only know that he replaced the consul ordinarius M. Cocceius Nerva during the rest of the year 36.Footnote 51 Marcius was merely the first of a series of unremarkable consuls in the following years for whom we have no information. In 35, a P. Cornelius was one of the two suffect consuls. He was long presumed to be a Cornelius Scipio,Footnote 52 but we are sure now that he was P. Cornelius Dolabella.Footnote 53 Despite all the speculation, nothing is known about him.Footnote 54 The other suffect consul in 35 was T. Peducaeus. As in other cases, Peducaeus was a consul suffectus without history who came from nowhere and disappeared without a trace.Footnote 55
This description of Peducaeus’ political ‘career’ — or rather of his lack of a political career, again according to our sources — can properly be applied to other suffect consuls. There were four consules suffecti in 34.Footnote 56 C. Memmius and M. Herennius were two of them, and both are strangers to us. Nothing is known about them before or after their consulships, no other office is recorded,Footnote 57 and their relationships to other individuals of the same name is merely speculative.Footnote 58 It is interesting to note that there seems to have been a negative progression throughout the year with respect to the prestige of the consuls, which apparently decreased as the year passed. The ordinary consuls in 34 were M. Antonius and L. Scribonius Libo, whose prominence, obviously on a different scale, is beyond doubt. Libo took part in the talks that led to the so-called Pact of Misenum in 39, an agreement which included the assurance that he would attain the consulship in the following years.Footnote 59 When the war between Octavian and Sextus Pompeius re-ignited in 36, Libo abandoned Pompeius, his son-in-law, and joined Antonius. This led to him finally being rewarded with the appointment to consul ordinarius in 34.Footnote 60 The irrelevant Memmius replaced Libo on 1 July, and he was subsequently replaced by the no less irrelevant Herennius for the last weeks of the year.
On his side, the triumvir Antonius resigned on the first day of the year and was immediately replaced by L. Sempronius Atratinus, who was officially therefore a consul suffectus but in practice could be seen as an ordinarius for having taken office right at the beginning of the year.Footnote 61 Atratinus had been suffect praetor in 40, and he had stood out above all in the previous years serving loyally under the command of Antonius.Footnote 62 Atratinus was therefore designated suffect consul, and he held the office until 1 July.Footnote 63 For the rest of the year he was replaced by Paullus Aemilius Lepidus, a member of one of the most distinguished families of the Roman Republic.Footnote 64 All in all, he himself does not seem to have developed a remarkable career until that moment. Nonetheless, he certainly did so after his consulship, and even became censor under Augustus in 22.
Far from changing the background of many suffect consuls as the triumviral period progressed, obscurity and, presumably, lack of prominence remained the rule or even deepened. The year 33, in which six consules suffecti were appointed, is a good example. L. Autronius Paetus replaced the ordinary consul Octavian on the first day of the year.Footnote 65 His consulship is the first evidence of this individual. However, he was later proconsul in Africa and celebrated a triumph in 28.Footnote 66 L. Flavius and C. Fonteius Capito entered office on 1 May. Flavius was a follower of Antonius, but his consulship is virtually the only evidence of his career.Footnote 67 More is known about Fonteius, who was also a supporter of Antonius. Fonteius was a tribune of the plebs in 39 and a member of a priestly college, perhaps the augurs.Footnote 68 M. Acilius Glabrio entered office on 1 July and resigned on 1 September.Footnote 69 Nothing certain is known about him except his consulship.Footnote 70 L. Vinicius became consul on 1 September.Footnote 71 He is actually the only Vinicius known to have held an office during the Republic.Footnote 72 Finally, Q. Laronius entered office on 1 October. As in the case of Vinicius, he is the first Laronius recorded as a magistrate.Footnote 73
The year 32 shows clearly the contrast between the prominent political and military curricula of the ordinary consuls, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and C. Sosius, and the apparently irrelevant trajectories of the suffecti, L. Cornelius (Cinna?) and M. Valerius Messalla. Both Domitius and Sosius had been respected commanders in the years previous to their consulships.Footnote 74 On the contrary, the suffect consuls reached the highest magistracy without having left a record of their political or military activities.
Finally, the successive appointments of consuls for 31 allow us again to see clearly how the political weight of the magistrates decreased gradually throughout the year. The ordinary consuls designate for that year were the triumvirs Antonius and Octavian. The latter remained in office for the whole year. By contrast, Antonius was deprived of the consulship, and M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus was appointed in his place. Valerius Messalla obviously belonged to a well-known family which had provided some consuls in the first century. He also had an acknowledged cursus honorum, as he had been praetor in 40 and commander of the fleet in 36 in Agrippa's absence.Footnote 75 When Valerius Messalla resigned his consulship on 1 May, he became a promagistrate and held a command at the centre of Octavian's fleet at the Battle of Actium.Footnote 76 He continued to be a significant politician under Augustus and obtained a triumph in 27. There is no doubt that Valerius Messalla was in 31 a prominent man at Rome, and that his prestige was decisive in his becoming consul.
M. Titius replaced Valerius Messalla on 1 May, and remained in office for five months. Titius had a long military trajectory in the previous years, first under Antonius and then under Octavian, when he defected from Antonius. As suffect consul Titius participated in the Battle of Actium, defeating, together with T. Statilius Taurus, the cavalry of Antonius. Given his collaboration in Octavian's final victory, Titius would later, under Augustus, have a significant political role.Footnote 77 Finally, Cn. Pompeius was the last suffect consul of the year 31.Footnote 78 As was characteristic of a consul suffectus holding the office in the last months of the year, in his case only in November and December, Pompeius is one more of the undistinguished consuls of the period, and his consulship is actually his only known office.Footnote 79
IV CONCLUSIONS
Throughout the triumviral period the consulship continued officially to be the highest republican magistracy, but now under the supervision and control of the triumvirs. The office continued to be dual and collegial, since there were never more than two consuls simultaneously, but it became usual that several pairs of consuls held the office during the year, the pair starting the consular year being called consules ordinarii, the following magistrates being consules suffecti. Augustus put an end to this practice in 28, the year in which only a pair of consuls was once more elected for the whole year.Footnote 80 However, suffect consuls became regular again from 5 onwards.Footnote 81
Many of the consules suffecti of the triumviral age were obscure. This generalisation is substantially correct, especially if we make a comparison with consuls of prior periods, but it should not be forgotten that this obscurity could, at least partially, be a misleading perception arising from the gaps in our information. Nonetheless, not all of them were inconspicuous men. Some of them reached the consulship after a well-known career, and this allows us to understand how the suffecti were normally recruited during this period and which attributes qualified them for the office. However, a significant difference with regard to the traditional consulship was that many of the suffect consuls between 43 and 31 had no known previous political career: as a matter of fact most of them did not fulfil the legal requirements for holding the consulship. Most were military men under the command of Octavian or Antonius. Their military exploits catapulted them to momentary glory, in many cases apparently without further great political success. In some cases the consulship is their only known magistracy (which does not necessarily mean they did not hold any other public office). They disappear from the sources as silently as they make their appearance.
The consulship had never been completely closed to newcomers throughout the Republic,Footnote 82 but the triumviral period saw an unusually large emergence of homines novi propelled by the triumvirs to reach the highest magistracy, partly because of the casualties among the nobilitas during the endless civil wars.Footnote 83 Many of them belonged to previously unknown and insignificant Roman or Italian families — not known in Rome but clearly neither poor nor unimportant in their places of origin. This access to the consulship, and in particular to the suffect consulship, for such a large number of newcomers had as an incidental (or intended) consequence the sudden increase in representation of Italians in the higher Roman magistracies.Footnote 84 The fact that Italian cities were the origin of some of these newcomers — something that in itself did not undervalue the office — made the message even more evident: the elite in Rome was open to new people, but access was in the hands of the rulers, the decisive factor being a devoted attachment to the leader. In all cases the main merits that the consules suffecti could adduce were of a military rather than civil nature, and had been obtained while serving under the command of one or other triumvir. The consulship was therefore a prize in the hands of the triumvirs, a means to reward and promote loyalties. In practice, during the triumviral age the consulship, and in particular the suffect consulship, became a gift given by the triumvirs to whomever they considered worthy of it. The consulship was not an exception but rather the rule, and the triumvirs likewise designated senators, praetors, aediles and priests among their followers.Footnote 85
In this process the people played little part, given that the appointments were made in advance directly by the triumvirs according to their personal interests and considering their right to give the offices to whomsoever they pleased without taking into account the Senate and people.Footnote 86 The consular elections consequently lost all meaning. How did this procedure of consular designation affect the legitimacy of the consuls during the triumviral period? It is not easy to say, because we have very meagre information about what the consuls actually did while in office.Footnote 87 When Cassius Dio mentions the permanent institutionalisation of the suffect consulship in 39, he makes clear that, although all the consuls of a year bore the same title, the suffecti remained unknown to many citizens of the empire, and were consequently called ‘inferior consuls’.Footnote 88 Cassius Dio seems to refer to citizens living out of Rome, who could hardly be aware of the names of consuls following in such quick succession. It is reasonable to assume, nonetheless, that this lack of interest may also have been the case in Rome itself. Roman society within the city must have had the impression that the suffecti were ‘secondary consuls’ of poor social visibility. Certainly, during the triumviral period, many of these suffect consuls had barely been in Rome since they were almost permanently engaged fighting in one war or another. Ultimately their legitimacy did not come from the people, but from the imperatores under whose command they had fought, and who had graciously promoted them.
Throughout the period, even though a difference between the functions of consules ordinarii and consules suffecti did not exist, there was implicitly a difference of social and political prestige between the two categories of the same magistracy. It is obviously not by chance that the triumvirs themselves held the regular consulship some years (M. Antonius in 34 and Octavian in 33, and both had been designated consuls for 31, as Lepidus had been consul ordinarius in 42), but never became suffect consuls. Some of the great leaders of the moment held the ordinary consulship (M. Agrippa was consul ordinarius for the first time in 37, and Sextus Pompeius should have become regular consul in 35, the year of his death), even as a merely honorary magistracy (M. Antonius resigned his consulship on the first day of 34, immediately after taking office, and Octavian did the same on the first day of 33).Footnote 89 In any case, at the beginning of the period the ordinary consuls had a previous political career behind them. For example, in 40 the consul Cn. Domitius Calvinus had already been consul in 53, whereas his colleague Cn. Asinius Pollio had been praetor in 45. Throughout the period, however, the situation was changing. Increasingly, many ordinary consuls were obscure individuals, such as L. Caninius Gallus in 37, the colleague of Agrippa,Footnote 90 equalling the unimportant social and political origin that apparently characterised many suffect consuls. This convergence of ordinary and suffect consuls in the social and political insignificance of their holders implicitly emphasised the secondary character of the consulship with respect to the triumvirate — the office that really mattered.
Nevertheless, the consulship was formally still the highest republican magistracy, and therefore the triumvirs could still present this means of rewarding loyal followers as a gesture of respect towards the republican forms, with an appearance of continuity in the traditional offices. But it is quite possible that many people in Rome saw the appointment of consules suffecti every year as irregular, as a deviation from republican tradition.Footnote 91 This complaintFootnote 92 would explain why Augustus considered it appropriate to eliminate the suffect consulship in 28. Aware of the exceptional situation of the consulship during the triumvirate, Augustus wanted to return to the old republican tradition and to give a sense of the restoration of lawfulness after years of continuous civil wars. In addition, consular elections were returned to the comitia centuriata and so the people were once again able to elect the consuls annually, under the supervision of the Princeps. It is in any case significant that the restoration of the consulship in 28 was the symbol of the return to the normal order of things.Footnote 93 When years later the suffect consulship was reintroduced as a regular office Augustus had reaffirmed his dominant position, but he still had loyal individuals to reward.Footnote 94
To summarise. The triumvirs openly made use of the suffect consulship to reward loyalties and consolidate their support. The implicit consequence was the gradual depreciation of the consulship. It is no coincidence that Antonius and Octavian were consules ordinarii for just a few hours in 34 and 33, and that both preferred to resign and to go on taking decisions as triumvirs. The message was clear: the triumvirs had the real power, not just the extraordinary legal power provided by the Lex Titia in 43. The consuls, ordinarii and suffecti, were no longer elected by the people but designated in advance by the triumvirs: making the designation of consuls depend on the will of the triumvirs clearly emphasised the inferiority of the consulship. Multiplying the number of consuls each year eliminated de facto the traditional annuality of the office and reduced its authority. The suffect consulship was therefore a powerful tool in the hands of the triumvirs for strengthening their social and political position, weakening the old aristocracy and giving birth to a new elite on the basis of loyal personal relationships. The suffect consulship was a significant step in the path to the subsequent Principate under Augustus.
ABBREVIATIONS
- Broughton MRR
= T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (3 vols), Atlanta, 1951–2, 1986.
- Crawford RRC
= M. H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge, 1974.
