User:Ifly6/Plebeian tribune



A tribune of the plebs (also called plebeian tribune; tribunus plebis) was a magistrate in the Roman Republic. According to the Roman annalistic tradition, the tribunes were created initially to protect the plebeians from abuse and advocate for plebeian interests with the patrician magistrates. By the late republic, they were one of the most powerful civil magistrates in the city and an integral part of the republican constitution, with power to veto laws and senatorial decrees, intercede against prosecutions, and summon the concilium plebis to vote on legislation binding all Romans.

The plebeian tribunate was, through its whole history, open only to plebeians: patricians could not be elected unless they became plebeian first. Ten served every year during the classical republic with the full extent of their powers exercisable within the sacred boundary of the city (pomerium).

Origins
The annalistic tradition dates the formation of the tribunate to c. 495 BC after a first secession of the plebs. There were initially two or five men elected; it places the establishment of the classical ten tribunes to the office's restoration in the aftermath of the Second Decemvirate (traditionally dated to 457 BC).

Modern sources

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