Talk:Senatus consultum ultimum

SCU???
Why not just use the full term, Senatus consultum ultimum? I'm assuming it's just laziness on AC's part. Doktor Waterhouse 13:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Excuse my ignorance, but who is AC? Do you mean "anonymous contributor"? &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 13:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Heh, I meant 'Article creator'. Makes me a bit of a hypocrite, eh? Doktor Waterhouse 13:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

This page lists the SCU of the time of the Gracchi brothers as first. What about the SCU of 186 prohibiting the Bacchic rites? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.198.151.122 (talk) 01:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Senatus consultum ultimum, Direct word for word translation is.... Senate Consutlation/consulted (can't remember which), Ultimatum.

senatus consultum de re publica defendenda, Doesn't say a thing about the state, or the republic.

"Senate consulted of concerning public defence".... is the direct english translation of those words. Also used in English / Commonwealth law. In modern english (vulgar?), The Senate has Consulted on the defence of the public / public defence and issued an Ultimatum.

re = concerning. re = the thing concerning. re in modern terms is sometimes spelt res.

("Decree of the Senate on defending the Republic") quote end. Ulitmatum noun, Ulitmata pl. There is no decree, it is an ultimatum, it says ultimatum. A decree is what absolute rulers hand down, or the courts, otherwise known as an order, ie: court order is a decree. More correctly, An ultimatum is an order without limitation, with threat. "a final demand or statement of terms, the rejection of which will result in retaliation, or a breakdown in relations: Oxford concise Dictonary.

Decree: an official order that has the force of law. a judgement or decision of certain law courts, especially in matrimonial cases: Oxford concise Dictonary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.149.76.47 (talk) 03:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

SCU contra Ti Gracchus
Re section in current article on Ti Gracchus, in part titled First SCU against Tiberius Gracchus, multiple sources say there was no SCU.


 * Finley, Politics in the Ancient World (1983) 4 ("the Senate had not issued a 'final decree'") (emphasis in original).
 * Arnaldo Momigliano and Andrew Lintott, "senatus consultum ultimum" in Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th ed, 2012) URL ("The decree was first both passed and accepted by the consul in 121 BCE, against C. *Sempronius Gracchus").
 * Drogula, "Imperium, Potestas, and the Pomerium in the Roman Republic" (2007) 56 Historia 448 ("the first SCU (used against C. Gracchus)")
 * Ernst Badian, "Gaius Gracchus" in Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th ed, 2012) URL:

"In 121, with his legislation under attack, Gracchus, supported by Flaccus, resorted to armed insurrection. It was suppressed after the first use of the so-called senatus consultum ultimum."


 * Ernst Badian, "Opimius, Lucius" in Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th ed, 2012) URL ("When Gracchus and M. Fulvius Flaccus took to violence, he obtained the first ‘senatus consultum ultimum’ from the senate").

Among others. The given citation to Plutarch Ti Gracch 19 also is not dispositive. Beyond being a primary source that cannot be so easily trusted, it has no mention whatsoever of a senatus consultum ultimum or anything akin to it (dealing with the fact that the term is a semi-modern one). It says, in relevant part:

"Nasica demanded that the consul should come to the rescue of the state and put down the tyrant. The consul replied with mildness that he would resort to no violence and would put no citizen to death without a trial; if, however, the people, under persuasion or compulsion from Tiberius, should vote anything that was unlawful, he would not regard this vote as binding. Thereupon Nasica sprang to his feet and said: "Since, then, the chief magistrate betrays the state, do ye who wish to succour the laws follow me.""

This statement, which is derived from an archaic way to raise a levy, was not any senatus consultum ultimum insofar as no single member of the senate can just declare "we're going a'killing". Ifly6 (talk) 02:39, 23 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, if 133 was a SCU or not is disputed. But that dispute is explained in the article, citing both standpoints. So I do not really understand the problem here. Zwerg Nase (talk) 08:49, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm saying it's not disputed: there was no SCU. The closest thing is Val Max 3.2.17, which I happen to own relatively modern copy of. There are a few issues with the passage being used to support an SCU. First is the same issue as with Plutarch Ti Gracch 19. Second is that there are clear indications of a "hostile tradition" related there which "greatly overstates" Ti Gracchus' actual aims.


 * Looking at the specific sources cited, there is similar consensus. The Kafeng article is available absolutely nowhere, the website which claims to publish that journal is dead and the journal has an impact factor so low it's just unlisted. I'm willing to keep it around as a minority view if that article could be produced.


 * The other citation, Ungern-Sternberg (1970), says no SCU was given, rather than "even if there were one", which is the characterisation of the article's current text. On page 9 (rather than 8, which is what is pinpointed in the article and also gives no mention of the SCU at all), translated by Google translate because I don't read German at all fluently:


 * "Hatte die Afforderung Scipio Nasicas einen entsprechenden Senatsbeschluss zue Folge gehabt, so kann kein Zweifel bestehen, dass dieser einem SCU zumindest sehr nahe gekommen ware: War der Hauptinhalt des letzteren, dass in einer Notlage des staats die alte magistratische Kapitalkoerzition ohne Rucksicht auf das Provokationsrechrt der romischen Burger wiederhergestellt wurde, so lag dies auch in der Konsequenz des Aufrufes Naicas. (hand transcribed)"


 * "If Scipio Nasica's request had resulted in a corresponding Senate resolution, there can be no doubt that this would at least have come very close to an SCU: Was the main content of the latter that in an emergency of the state the old magistrate's capital coercion without regard to the provocation right of the Roman burger [citizen?] was restored, this was also a consequence of Naica's appeal."


 * Ungern-Sternberg also asserts in "The Crisis of the Republic" in Flower (ed), Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (2014) p 83: "Opimius induced the senate to declare a state of emergency by implementing the first suspension of the constitution (senatus consultum ultimum)". An SCU cannot have been moved against Ti Gracchus if the "first" instance of doing that was in the year of Opimius and Allobrogicus (121 BC).


 * More generally, the article as a whole takes a overwhelmingly discredited dyadic factionalist approach to Roman politics which, in Gruen's words, obscures rather than enlightens. That approach really should be abandoned in text. Ifly6 (talk) 13:03, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Rooting around the sources a bit further, I found one source which asserts an SCU was used. The BMCR review then notes "particularly noteworthy errors... [including] p. 124 (the so-called senatus consultum ultimum was not first used in 133, as claimed, but rather in 121...)". Given Drogula also wrote the opposite, quoted earlier, this is not a meaningful defence. Ifly6 (talk) 18:10, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your extensive work on this article, it has certainly improved a lot from my attempt a couple of years ago. Do you plan to nominate it for GA? Zwerg Nase (talk) 07:52, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't intend to. Now having both done a GA review and done a nomination, I don't think the time investment is worth the benefit. Ifly6 (talk) 09:09, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Too bad! I would like to see some more history content going to GA and FA, eventually Featured Article of the Day. All those battleships are getting a bit boring... Zwerg Nase (talk) 14:02, 5 June 2023 (UTC)