Until the end of the third century it was common to appoint a dictator as an extraordinary magistrate, either as commander-in-chief of the Roman army in the case of an emergency or to perform a specific task for a certain period of time, such as presiding over elections. The designation of a dictator was always decided by the senate, although his official appointment had to be made by a consul, who was entrusted with the task by the senators, except in exceptional circumstances. The appointment had to follow a series of traditional rules: it had to be made at night, in silence, and in a place located within the limits of Roman soil (ager Romanus).

Livy makes it clear in a few cases during the Second Punic War that the appointment of a dictator was the exclusive right of the consuls. In 217, after the defeat at Trasimene, where consul C. Flaminius died, the senate decided to appoint a dictator. The practical problem was that the living consul, Cn. Servilius Geminus, the only person who could make the appointment, was away from Rome, and the military situation made it very difficult to contact him in order to demand his return. Due to this, Livy says, for the first time in the history of Rome the people elected a dictator by voting in comitia.

The central question in the second and shorter part of this monograph is the same as in the first: to determine exactly what the consuls did during their term of office. In order to try to answer this question we must discuss, as an initial step, the supposed existence of a lex Cornelia de provinciis ordinandis, which presumably would have modified, from Sulla's dictatorship onwards, the powers and functions of consuls. It was Mommsen who put forward the doctrine which was accepted for decades and which continues to be the starting point of the analysis carried out by many scholars. According to Mommsen, who took as his starting point the distinction he drew between imperium domi as an exclusively civil power within the Urbs, and imperium militiae as a military power beyond the pomerium, Sulla sponsored during his dictatorship a law on the government of provinces whereby the power to govern a province was removed from consuls and praetors and they were forced to remain in Rome. Only once their term of office had expired would they receive military command as proconsuls or propraetors in a province. Therefore, according to Mommsen, from Sulla onwards the consuls lost their military imperium, and there was a clear difference between the urban civil power and the extra-urban military power of higher magistrates.

It is indisputable that the higher magistrates, the consuls amongst them, had the capacity of legislative initiative. In fact, this is one of the functions that Polybius attributes to consuls: to present proposals before the popular assembly while in Rome before setting off for their provinces, a function which is unanimously accepted by all those who have worked on the lawmaking process of the Roman Republic.

An episode that occurred in 210 illustrates this fact. When the moment to hold consular elections arrived, the senate summoned the consul M. Valerius Laevinus to Rome by means of a letter written by the urban praetor. Valerius informed the senate of the latest events in Sicily. Not long before his arrival, the ambassadors of King Syphax had reported on the situation in Africa to the senators, who were alarmed by the news and considered it necessary for the consul to return immediately to his province without waiting for the elections over which he was to preside. The senate requested that before leaving the consul appoint a dictator to be in charge of the elections, a request which brought about a dispute between the consul and the senators. Valerius claimed that he wished to appoint as dictator M. Valerius Messalla, who was the head of the fleet at the time, and that he would make this appointment upon his arrival in Sicily. The senators opposed this, declaring that nobody who was outside of the ager Romanus could legally be appointed as dictator.

Paradoxically, Polybius does not mention religious duties amongst those performed by the consuls, despite the fact that some of these tasks were compulsory and according to Roman belief their fulfilment was of great importance to the welfare of the community. In fact, the religious duties conducted by the consuls during the first few weeks of office were amongst their most important functions. Roman religion was national and civic, and its practice was a political issue since it concerned the entire community. Most religious activities were performed in public following stringent rules, and their main purpose was to maintain or to restore the peace of the gods (pax deorum). Experts grouped into various priestly colleges served as essential, qualified advisers, but the management of religious affairs was in the hands of the senate, and the direct relationship between the community and the gods was assigned to the magistrates, especially to the consuls as supreme magistrates of the civitas.

The first public ceremony conducted by the consuls consisted of visiting the temple of Jupiter on the Capitolium, to make their prayers to the supreme divinity of the Roman pantheon for the welfare of the community. The vows taken by the consuls on the day they assumed their duties must be seen as public vows (vota publica). The exact content of the vows is not known, nor whether there was a fixed formula set out by the senate or by a priestly college, in particular by the pontiffs.

AUTHORISING THE PRODUCTION OF SMALL CHANGE

In previous chapters we emphasised the imperial control of the production and primary supply of gold and silver currencies in the Roman empire. The number of mints producing precious-metal coinages during the first two centuries was limited, while minting was mainly restricted to the cities of Rome, Caesarea Cappadociae, Antioch and Alexandria. Among them, the mint of Rome produced the bulk of silver coins that circulated in the eastern provinces. The emperor controlled these mints either directly or indirectly, since he needed these coins in order to pay for his military and administrative expenses. The mint of Rome did not restrict itself in the production of silver and gold currencies but it also produced large numbers of bronze coins. When Augustus reformed the monetary system, he introduced small change made of orichalcum (sestertius and dupondius) or copper (as and quadrans). These denominations may have been used, initially, for state payments; eventually, though, they facilitated minor commercial transactions in the markets.

With regard to the circulation of aes we may assume that originally, it was intended mainly for circulation in Rome and Italy; however, soon it was spread over the western provinces and especially in the Rhine army camps. The Roman aes was used extensively in the urbanised western provinces, especially in Iberian and Punic towns that had produced civic coinages for centuries.

Over the last few decades a lot of ink has been spent in order to decide what is the most efficient way to study ancient coins. In particular, several articles were dedicated to answering the following question: should we or should we not use statistics in the analysis of ancient material? Since statistical analysis is fundamental in economics, a response to this problem may change basic perceptions with regard to the study of the discipline. However, scholarly views range from the nihilistic approach that denies all value to statistics to the opposite side that promotes the use of advanced mathematical formulas. Such polarisation seems to be counterproductive and it inhibits rather than facilitates the reconstruction of the ancient economy. Instead, a combination of the opposing positions may give us some tangible results and at the same time further our knowledge on the subject. In my study I employ simple statistical practices, which could assist in the economic analysis of Roman coins, while I still believe strongly in the qualification of the available data. In this chapter I intend to reveal in more detail the methodology I followed throughout the entire book: a methodology based on the experience of several numismatists who have studied coins since the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition, I will attempt to explain the problems arising from the study of the ancient monetary economies as well as the possible solutions.

As we have seen in the previous chapters, once the consuls took office, they stayed on in Rome for a number of weeks before setting off for their provinces to take command of their armies. During this time they were required to attend to a series of civil functions, the multiplicity of which explains Polybius' assertion that during their presence in Rome, the consuls were the supreme magistrates of the administration of the Roman state, always subordinate to the senate. When the consuls left the Urbs to command their armies, supreme political responsibility in the city was transferred to the urban praetor, who dealt with most of the duties that would have fallen to the consuls had they been present in Rome.

On the very day they took office, after visiting the Capitol together, the two consuls attended a meeting with the senate at which all the topical political questions, and above all the military situation, were discussed. It was a genuine debate on the ‘state of the community’, which preceded the allocation of the annual provinces amongst the higher magistrates and the fixing by the senators of the number of soldiers to be levied, as well as their distribution amongst the magistrates with imperium.

In the religious field, it was compulsory for the consuls to pronounce the public vows (vota publica) on the Capitol on their first day as magistrates, and they also had to assign the date for the celebration of the feriae Latinae, see to the expiation of the prodigies that had occurred in the previous months both in Rome and in Italy, and preside over the Latin festival on the Mons Albanus.

In Republican Rome permanent diplomatic representation between states did not exist. Relations were occasional and temporary, depending on changing political circumstances. As a result, there were no ‘diplomats’ in the modern sense, nor experts in diplomacy. In Rome, it was understood that anyone wanting a political career, and therefore any senator, ought to have a sufficient knowledge of external affairs and should have an understanding of treaties, alliances, and international law in general.

The diplomatic relations of the Roman state were thus in the hands of the magistrates and the senate. In the list of civil functions assigned to consuls in Rome before they took command of their armies, Polybius alludes to the bringing of foreign embassies before the senate. According to the Greek author, the senate was in charge of sending legates to non-Italic states as well as deciding on the response to be given to foreign ambassadors and the treatment they ought to receive in each particular case. Consequently, it is clear that the senate had total control over diplomacy in the city of Rome and that only senators could receive embassies and appoint official legates, but also that when dealing with representatives of other states, the consuls acted as the agents in the diplomatic process.

Indeed, ancient sources frequently refer to the consuls acting on behalf of the Roman state in negotiations with representatives of other states, both in Rome and during the wars in which they were involved.

Acting in close collaboration with the senate, the consuls were the chief magistrates of the Roman state throughout the Republican period. The distinctive feature of the magistracy was the imperium with which consuls were invested. It was a unique imperium which granted them supreme command, in both the civil and the military sphere. This supreme command involved specific functions and tasks performed by consuls.

1. – On the one hand, the consuls were always the supreme commanders of the Roman army, in both the middle Republic and the late Republic, since the consuls did not lose their military imperium after Sulla's dictatorship, although from that moment onwards they attained prominence in the military field much less frequently.

2. – As the right hand of the senate, the consuls were the magistrates the senators relied upon most, those whom they called upon in cases of serious crisis. Thus it is reasonable that the consuls were those referred to initially in most instances in which the so-called ‘ultimate decree of the senate’ or senatus consultum ultimum was proclaimed. This put them in charge of the defence of the state, according to the formula videant consules ne quid res publica detrimenti capiat (‘let the consuls see to it that the Republic suffer no harm’). By doing this, their prominent position in the cursus honorum and their ultimate accountability for the restoration of the internal order of the community were underlined.

3. […]

Throughout the Republican period, public works were mostly at the initiative and under the control of the censors from the time when the censorship was established, and to a lesser extent in the hands of the aediles, who were in charge of the care of the city (cura urbis). To this end, the censors received from the quaestors the sums of money that the senate had allocated to the planned public works, and they were responsible for letting the corresponding contract (locatio). In fact, most of the known public works of the Republican period (aqueducts, buildings for public shows, basilicas, etc.) were promoted by the censors. However, the consuls – and other magistrates – were also involved in the promotion of public works, particularly with regard to the construction of temples and roads, as well as, to a lesser degree, commemorative buildings or other works which were promoted personally by certain consuls. One of the reasons why the consuls undertook public works was that the censors were elected every five years and had a term of office of eighteen months, which meant that, should this have been the exclusive authority of censors, it would have been impossible for a period of three and a half years to start any public works through the necessary locatio. Consequently, as in the case of the censors, the consuls also had the authority to let the contract and therefore to avail themselves of public money to finance the corresponding works.