Talk:Cursus honorum

Untitled
I believe the graphic is inaccurate. curule Aediles did not possess imperium (according to Roman Historians Christopher Mackay and Mary T. Boatwright), though they did have the sella curulis. The poster has confused curule offices with offices that hold imperium.

In fact, looking at the diagram at the bottom of the page, it is definitely inaccurate.--CaesarGJ 06:31, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, this article focuses way too much on the Republic. In the Principate (but also in the anarchy of the late Republic), the Cursus Honorum was fairly different from the cursus honorum in the 2nd century BC. For example, only few served ten years before becoming quaestor: the minimum age to become quaestor in the early Principate was 24, most people only served three years as tribune before entering the Senate. Wikipedia articles on Roman politics and such often focus too much on the 'glorious' Republic.

The Latin translation of corsus honorum is not "word for word." Does this matter? Clarkseth 05:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Redirection
Would anyone mind adding a redirection for "course of honour/honor" to this page? I think that would be helpful for anyone who might not know the Latin term. Thanks!

cursus honorum -- is constantly translated as "course of/to honor". No No No. cursus is course or path but honorum is NOT honor. It originally meant hones-office especially high political office within the Roman Republican framework. ONLY LATER did the hones/office transliterate into honor as the OFFICE implied family honor (virtutes) as to the political system. Romans were notorius for ancestor worship and used the hones/offices that their bloodline had possessed in the past to transpose such HONOR to themselves. So the word means OFFICE (high office) and morphed into honor. Latin for honor was virtutes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.101.93.2 (talk) 03:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Formatting
There's currently quite a bit of inconsistency in the formatting of this article. I just went through and added main to the sections missing it. However, the main problem is formatting the titles of the offices, we currently have a mix of praetor, Praetor and praetor etc. Personally, I think the first mention of each office should be italicised, and the rest presented in normal lowercase lettering, any opinions? Modest Genius talk 03:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

military tribune
Although the section headed Military Tribune recognizes (sort of) that military service and in particular election as military tribune was not an official step on the cursus honorum, it seems wrong in other ways.

The cavalry alae are non-Roman; perhaps the small cavalry units attached to the legions are meant?

I wonder whether the 10 years of military service was ever "mandatory", or in what sense; I'd like to see a good source for that. Putting the military tribune here (as "more prestigious" than what?) causes undue confusion; the quaestorship was the first lap of the cursus: implied here by Gruen; Imperial career here; good discussion of the cursus in T. Corey Brennan's necessary The Praetorship in the Roman Republic. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The primary ancient source for the ten years of mandatory military service is Polybius (6.19.1-5). However, there is evidence that this provision wasn't always strictly enforced by the late second century (if it was at any point). See Evans, R.J. 1994. Gaius Marius: A Political Biography. Pretoria: University of South Africa, 26. I agree that listing the military tribunate is misleading. However, it is also untrue to state that the quaestorship was always the first office in the cursus; this was absolutely true after the leges Corneliae (lex Cornelia de XX quaestoribus) in 82/81, but the cursus before Sulla was much more flexible than is generally recognized. For instance, we know of pre-Sullan magistrates (even some who reached the consulship) who were never quaestor - C. Coelius Caldus (cos. 94) comes immediately to mind (Cic. Planc. 52), and others are possible (M. Aemilius Scaurus, P. Decius Subulo, T. Didius, M. Livius Drusus). I agree that Brennan's two volumes are excellent, but his discussion of the cursus is actually rather shallow. The article focuses too much on the "classic" cursus of the late Republic, ignores the very real differences between the cursus of the early and middle Republic and the late Republic and also slights the Principate and beyond... 75.25.140.49 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:12, 29 November 2009 (UTC).


 * Yes, very good — especially the point about the pre-Sullan cursus. And quite right: several articles suffer from collapsing various time periods into one "this is the way it was" overview. (I'm entirely prey to regarding everything through the late Republic, because that's where my interest lies.) The only point I'd raise is whether the notion that a cursus existed — that is, that a career was a matter of progressing step-by-step — results from the formalizing of the prerequisites. Earlier you ran for whatever magistracies seemed right at the time? (To exaggerate.) That would be a question of when the Romans themselves began to think of the magistracies as a step-by-step progression. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:22, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Cicerone consule
The ablative absolute using a consulship to date a year is not translated "Cicero being consul," which (no offense) only a second-year Latin student would write. In English, ablative absolutes need to be 'unpacked' as clauses with a finite verb, or dealt with in some other way. The standard translation is "in the consulship of Caesar", as noted in the grammars of Hale & Buck and Allen & Grenough. The phrase might be translated into idiomatic English along the lines of "the year Cicero was consul" or "when Cicero was consul", depending on context.

But shouldn't the example support the statement, and give two consuls? Cynwolfe (talk) 14:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * There are examples of events during the the early Republic where a year is dated by only one consul. However, the issues surrounding consular dating is more complex than could be relevantly explained here, so for this article you are correct. -- llywrch (talk) 13:43, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Sullan 10-year requirement
This statement cannot be true:

"The reforms of Lucius Cornelius Sulla required a ten year period between holding offices or before another term in the same office."

Even if a man went the quaestor-praetor-consul route, and skipped the expensive office of aedile, he would not have been quaestor at 30, praetor at 40, and consul only at 50. I believe this requirement — which affected Julius Caesar's career and his tenure in Gaul — was that you couldn't hold the consulship again for a decade, which seems to be the only office that people worried very much about holding again, though multiple praetorships are also recorded. Hence Caesar, in securing his two five-year terms in Gaul immediately after his consulship in 59 BC, was complying by waiting 10 years before seeking another. I believe there was a 15-year gap between the first joint consulship of Pompey and Crassus, and their second together in 55 BC.

This again points to the need for the article to be more thoroughly supported with references. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:29, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

If you think about it the ten year wait is not so far fetched. Though I believe it'd be more appropiately a 5 year wait or something smaller. Being a quaestor has you serving under someone, possibly for 500 years as we know. The romans were vampires after all and drank carthage's blood. Anyways if there was a 10 year wait then doesn't it stand to reason that Caesar would've died in 400 bc instead of 45 ad?


 * When was the Sullan reform? The article doesn't have a date and I think it would be good there. RJFJR (talk) 05:29, 15 January 2021 (UTC)


 * It began with the “leges Corneliae” to restore Senate rule in 82 BC (lex Valeria de Sulla dictatore). Regulations were made until 79 BC. Various matters. These included the proscriptions, the reform of the magistrate, the new formation of the Senate, the reform of the judiciary, the reorganization of the provincial administrations and, finally, the change in the electoral procedures for priests. Stephan Klage (talk) 07:00, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Era
This reversion to the BC/AD era style appears to be appropriate. The style was rather surreptitiously changed back in July of this year with this edit, without 'fessing up in the edit summary.

This is, of course, the most important thing we could possibly be worrying about in this article, given the number of tags. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:43, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

This article is Shamefully presented and generally riddled with 'citation needed' (etc. spam.)
I am not much of an editor, but whoever is working on this page you should be ashamed of the state of it. It's not like this is a fast moving event where you might need to warn people of the temporary nature of the information. If there is a debate over the role of Military Tribune, and it is worth putting up that 'This section's factual accuracy is disputed' sign, then I think we will need to go ahead and put that sign over everything ever forever. I mean, the last time someone held the Roman post of Military tribune was idunno like TWOTHOUSANDandFORTYONE (MMXLI) years ago! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.41.45.127 (talk) 08:57, 29 October 2014 (UTC)