TRIBVNVS MILITVM. Kariery senatorskie rzymskich trybunów wojskowych w epoce Sewerów

Abstract

Throughout 42 years of the Severan rule (193–235), approximately 588 tribuni laticlavii and at least five times more tribuni angusticlavii served in Roman military units. Out of these, we currently know 123 people who later became senators and performed various functions in the administration of the Empire. In this monograph, I present their cursus honorum and I determine the impact of holding the military tribunate on their subsequent careers – to what extent the military tribunate made it possible for them to attain magistracies and offices of praetorian rank and, in the future, the consulship and post-consular offices. Four chapters contain analyses of senatorial careers of tribuni militum (laticlavii and angusticlavii) presented in a problematic way, taking into account the chronology of the cursus honorum. For this purpose, I used my career typology, presented for the first time in 2017 in the second volume of the Album senatorum monograph. In Chapter One, I presented basic information about the tribunes: their number, nomenclature, appointment procedure, period of service and territorial and social origin. In Chapter Two, I discussed a group of individual distinctions (dona militaria, adlectio and commendatio Augusti) and their connection with attaining magistracies. I determined to what extent special distinctions were a result of merits from the period of military service, and to what extent they were due to social origins. I devoted Chapter Three to higher command positions: legatus legionis, praepositus, dux with an indication of the rules that governed their attainment (and exceptions to them). I answered questions about the qualifications of Roman senators to perform these functions and about the existence of the viri militares category. In Chapter Four, I included information on the structure of the governorship of Roman provinces, taking into account the proportions between praetorian and consular provinces, and imperial and senatorial provinces. I paid particular attention to provincial governorships with legions, to which people with military experience were predestined. I showed the order in which provincial governorships and a possible consulship and proconsulships of Asia and Africa appeared in the cursus honorum. In the Conclusion, I presented two career models: tribuni laticlavii and tribuni angusticlavii, highlighting their similarities and differences. In this monograph, I proved that the military tribunate held at a young age had a significant impact on a person’s further career.