was pleasant in manner and generally agreeable, and able by the
abundance of his accomplishments to cast into shade his faults
of avarice” (Pers. i. 24, 25). In the Anecdota Procopius adds as
an illustration of Justinian’s vanity the story that he took in good
faith an observation made to him by Tribonian, while sitting as
assessor, that he (Tribonian) greatly feared that the emperor might
some day, on account of his piety, be suddenly carried up into heaven.
This agrees with the character for flattery which the minister seems
to have enjoyed. The charge of heathenism we find in Suidas is
probable enough; that is to say, Tribonian may well have been a
crypto-pagan, like many other eminent courtiers and litterateurs
of the time (including Procopius himself), a person who, while
professing Christianity, was at least indifferent to its dogmas and
rites, cherishing a sentimental recollection of the older and more
glorious days of the empire.
In modern times Tribonian has been, as the master workman of Justinian’s codification and legislation, charged with three offences—bad Latinity, a defective arrangement of the legal matter in the Code and Digest, and a too free handling of the extracts from the older jurists included in the latter compilation. The first of these charges cannot be denied; but it is hard to see why a lawyer of the 6th century, himself born in a Greek-speaking part of the empire, should be expected to write Latin as pure as that of the age of Cicero, or even of the age of Gaius and the Antonines. To the second charge also a plea of guilty must be entered. The Code and Digest are badly arranged according to our notions of scientific arrangement. These, however, are modern notions. The ancients generally cared but little for what we call a philosophic distribution of topics, and Tribonian seems to have merely followed the order of the Perpetual Edict which custom had already established, and from which custom would perhaps have refused to permit him to depart. He may more fairly be blamed for not having arranged the extracts in each title of the Digest according to some rational principle; for this would have been easy, and would have spared much trouble to students and practitioners ever since. As to the third complaint, that the compilers of the Digest altered the extracts they collected, cutting out and inserting words and sentences at their own pleasure, this was a process absolutely necessary according to the instructions given them, which were to prepare a compilation representing the existing law, and to be used for the actual administration of justice in the tribunals. The so-called Emblemata (insertions) of Tribonian were therefore indispensable, though, of course, we cannot say whether they were always made in the best way. Upon the whole subject of the codification and legislation in which Tribonian bore a part, see Justinian.
Tribonian, from the little we know of him, would seem to have been a remarkable man, and in the front rank of the great ones of his time. There is nothing to show that he was a profound and philosophical jurist, like Papinian or Ulpian. But he was an energetic, clear-headed man, of great practical force and skill, cultivated, accomplished, agreeable, flexible, possibly unscrupulous, just the sort of person whom a restless despot like Justinian finds useful. His interest in legal learning is proved by the fact that he had collected a vast legal library, which the compilers of the Digest found valuable (see const. Tanta).
The usual criticisms on Tribonian may be found in the Anti-Tribonianus (1567) of Francis Hotman, the aim of which is shown by its alternative title, Sive discursus in quo jurisprudentiae Tribonianeae sterilitas et legum patriarum excellentia exhibetur; and an answer to them in J. P. von Ludewig, Vita Justiniani et Theodorae, nec non Triboniani. (J. Br)
TRIBUNE (Lat. tribunus, connected with tribus, tribe), a name assigned to officers of several different descriptions in the constitution of ancient Rome. The original tribunes were no doubt the commanders of the several contingents of cavalry and infantry which were supplied to the Roman army by the early gentilician tribes—the Tities, the Ramnes and the Luceres. In the historical period the infantry in each legion were commanded by six tribunes, and the number six is probably to be traced to the doubling of the three tribes by the incorporation of the new elements which received the names of Tities secundi, Ramnes secundi, Luceres secundi. The tribuni celerum or commanders of the horsemen no longer existed in the later times of the republic, having died out with the decay of the genuine Roman cavalry.[1] So long as the monarchy lasted these tribunes were doubtless nominated by the commander-in-chief, the king; and the nomination passed over on the establishment of the republic to his successors, the consuls. But, as the army increased, the popular assembly insisted on having a voice in the appointments, and from 362 B.C. six tribunes were annually nominated by popular vote, while in 311 the number was raised to sixteen, and in 207 to twenty-four, at which figure it remained. The tribunes thus elected sufficed for four legions and ranked as magistrates of the Roman people, and were designated tribuni militum a populo, while those who owed their office to the consuls bore the curious title of tribuni rufuli. The name was traced to a commander Rutilius Rufus (Liv. 7, 5; and Fest. Ep. 260), but was more probably derived from the dress (Mommsen, Staatsrecht, 1, 434). The rights of the assembly passed on to the emperors, and “the military tribunes of Augustus” were still contrasted with those nominated in the camp by the actual commanders. The obscure designation tribunus aerarius (tribune of the treasury) had also, in all probability, a connexion with the early organization of the army. The officer thus designated may have been the levier of the tributum, the original property tax, and was at any rate the paymaster of the troops. The soldier who was defrauded of his pay was allowed to exact it from this tribune by a very summary process. There was still another and important class of tribunes who owed their existence to the army. In the long struggle between the patrician and plebeian sections of the population, the first distinctions in the public service to which the plebeians forced their way were military, and the contest for admission to the consulate was, in large part, a contest for admission to the supreme command of the national forces. In 445 B.C., the year in which mixed marriages of patricians and plebeians were for the first time permitted, power was given to the senate (then wholly patrician) of determining from year to year whether consuls or military tribunes with consular authority (tribuni militares consulari potestate or imperio) should be appointed. But, even when the senate decided in favour of electing tribunes, no election was valid without the express sanction of the senate superadded to the vote of the centuriate assembly. If it happened to be too invidious for the senate openly to cancel the election, it was possible for the patricians to obtain a decision from the sacred authorities to the effect that some religious practice had not been duly observed, and that in consequence the appointment was invalid. According to tradition, recourse was had to this device at the first election, a plebeian having been successful. Forty-five years elapsed after the creation of the office before any plebeian was permitted to fill it, and it was held by very few down to the time at which it was abolished (367 B.C.) and the plebeians were fully admitted to the consulate. The number of consular tribunes elected on each occasion varied from three to six; there was no year without a patrician, and to the patrician members were probably confined the most highly esteemed duties, those relating to the administration of the law and to religion.
But by far the most important tribunes who ever existed in the Roman community were the tribunes of the commons (tribuni plebis). These were the most characteristic outcome of the long struggle between the two orders, the patrician and the plebeian. When in 494 B.C. the plebeian legionaries met on the Sacred Mount and bound themselves to stand by each other to the end, it was determined that the plebeians should by themselves annually appoint executive officers to stand over against the patrician officers—two tribunes (the very name commemorated the military nature of the revolt) to confront the two consuls, and two helpers called aediles to balance the two patrician helpers, the quaestors. The ancient traditions concerning the revolution are extremely confused and contradictory, and have caused endless discussions. The commonest story is that the masses assembled on the Sacred Mount bound themselves by a solemn oath to regard the persons of their tribunes and aediles as inviolable, and to treat as forfeited to Diana and Ceres, the plebeian divinities, the lives and property of those who offered them insult. That this purely plebeian oath was the real ultimate basis of the sanctity which attached to the tribunate during the whole time of its existence can hardly be believed. The revolution must have ended in something which was deemed by both the contending bodies to be a binding compact, although the lapse of time has blotted out its terms. The historian Dionysius may have been only technically wrong in supposing
- ↑ In the legends of the foundation of the republic Brutus is represented as having exercised authority, when the king was banished, merely by virtue of holding the office of tribunus celerum.
