Consul of Rome

A consul was the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic, and the consulship was considered the highest level of the cursus honorum (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politicians aspired).

Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. The consuls alternated in holding imperium each month, and a consul's imperium extended over Rome, Italy, and the provinces. However, after the establishment of the Empire (27 BC), the consuls became mere symbolic representatives of Rome’s republican heritage and held very little power and authority, with the Emperor acting as the supreme authority.

After the legendary expulsion of the last Etruscan King, Tarquin the Proud, a harsh ruler at the end of the Roman Kingdom, most of the powers and authority of the king were ostensibly given to the newly instituted consulship. Originally, consuls were called praetors ("leader"), referring to their duties as the chief military commanders. By at least 300 BC the title of Consul was being used. Ancient writers usually derive the title consul from the Latin verb consulere, "to take counsel", but this is most likely a later gloss of the term, which probably derives—in view of the joint nature of the office—from con- and sal-, "get together" or from con- and sell-/sedl-, "sit down together with" or "next to". In Greek, the title was originally rendered as στρατηγός ὕπατος, strategos hypatos ("the supreme general"), and later simply as ὕπατος.

The consul was believed by the Romans to date back to the traditional establishment of the Republic in 509 BC, but the succession of consuls was not continuous in the 5th century BC. During the 440s, the office was quite often replaced with the establishment of the Consular Tribunes, who were elected whenever the military needs of the state were significant enough to warrant the election of more than the two usual consuls. These remained in place until the office was abolished in 367/366 BC and the consulship was reintroduced.

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