As stated in his Preface, Pina Polo’s new monograph builds on the articles of Martin Jehne and Catherine Steel to present a detailed account of what Roman aristocrats who had reached the consulship then did between the end of that magistracy and their death, from 218-31 BCE.[1] The book is organised into four chapters progressing chronologically: Chapter 1 covers the years 218-202 BCE, Chapter 2 201-82 BCE, Chapter 3 81-50 BCE, and Chapter 4 49-31 BCE.[2] It ends with References, an Index of Subjects and an Index of Persons. Overall, this work is detailed and well-presented, providing what will become the standard text for those wanting to explore the political dynamics of consulares. Each of the chapters follows a similar course, looking at the consulares’ activity in, for example, the military sphere, in embassies and commissions in both Italy and abroad, in politics at Rome, in the judicial system, and, in the later chapters, in the intellectual sphere.
Chapter 1 is set against the background of the huge mortality of senators in the first few years of the Hannibalic War, including the death of at least 26 ex-consuls according to Pina Polo. The Hannibalic War, because of the emergency faced by the state and obvious reliance on men with the most experience and previous success, was a period of both military and political domination for those few consulares who survived. Their re-election to multiple consulships and appointment as dictators was common between 217-207 and Pina Polo argues that there was a specific law passed in 217 which allowed and encouraged this (p. 4-6). Ex-consuls led senatorial discussions, and Pina Polo discusses the princeps senatus in detail, all individuals who held this role being ex-consuls. Turning to religion it is established that priesthoods were usually given to younger aristocrats from distinguished families who had a political career ahead of them rather than being used as a mark of distinction for ex-consuls. If an ex-consul was not a priest by the time of his consulship there was no guarantee he would be subsequently given a priesthood. The impression Pina Polo gives is of consular domination of the political sphere, but it would have been interesting to see some evaluation of this claim against the rise of younger elites. Pina Polo mentions the censors of 210/209, neither of whom were ex-consuls, and of course the second part of the war saw the rise of Publius Cornelius Scipio (later Africanus), but also notable is Publius Sulpicius Galba who became consul in 211 without having held any other previous office.
Chapter 2 covers the long 2nd century. Pina Polo’s primary argument is that the role of the ex-consuls changed significantly. Although they continued to dominate political discussions within the senate, they were still a minority. They could sometimes be ignored and outvoted even when acting together showing that debate and argumentation were still key features of senatorial politics. With the emergency of the Hannibalic War over, the era of repeated consulships closely following one another ended and the ten-year gap between consulships was maintained whilst the dictatorship was no longer used. Consuls could occasionally stay in command for a number of years with a pro-consulship. But perhaps the more interesting observation is that ex-consuls routinely served as either military tribunes or legati (an analysis of the distinction between the two would have been very useful, given the former was elected and the latter appointed) in serious wars where their expertise was wanted: the Second and Third Macedonian Wars, the war with Antiochus, the war with the Boii in 193, the Jugurthine War and the Social War. A further change was the number of embassies being sent as Roman power expanded into the eastern Mediterranean. Pina Polo shows how very often these would contain at least one ex-consul leading the embassy and that the importance of each embassy can be determined by the number of consulars sent. It might have been useful here to have some analysis of the number of consulars sent compared to their proportion in the senate: were they over-represented on embassies and commissions or do their numbers reflect their numbers in the senate? In other words, was their place on embassies any different to non-consular senators?
Chapter 3 looks at the changes that took place after the reforms of Sulla, the primary one impacting the consulars being that consuls now stayed in Rome before leaving for a province as a proconsul. Within the senate the princeps senatus disappeared and the censorship became irregular; consulars were also hardly appointed to agrarian commissions or embassies as they had been in the 2nd century. Of course, due to the Civil War of the 80s and proscriptions the senate was majorly reduced in size and only five consulars are still known to have been in the senate by its end. So, once Sulla refilled the senate with equestrians the consulars formed a much smaller group than previously. Pina Polo also points out that their influence within the senate diminished not only because of the presence of consuls in Rome but because the consules designati were elected in the summer and thus would be active in politics until they took up the consulship at the end of the year. They were given priority over consulars in the speaking order within the senate and could thus guide and influence debate in the ways the ex-consuls of the 3rd and 2nd centuries were able to do.[3] As well as sections on the courts, religion and intellectual life, in this chapter Pina Polo adds analysis of ‘Consulars and Wealth’ and ‘Letters of Recommendation’.
Chapter 4 analyses the role of the consulars under the dictatorship of Caesar and the triumvirs. Apart from a sudden importance in politics between the death of Caesar and the formation of the triumvirate, reflected in Cicero’s return to politics from intellectual pursuits, the power and role of consulars significantly diminished as politics became controlled by a few men. Yet again many died during the Civil Wars, where there had been quite an even split of consulars between Caesar, Pompey and neutrality. Pina Polo sees the appointment of consules suffecti year after year under the triumvirate (so there were at least four consuls as year and sometimes as many as eight) as devaluing the consulship and the status of consular.[4] There were now so many consulars, and that status became dependent on political loyalty to the triumvirs, that it no longer had the dignitas that was so important to that position within Roman society.
Overall, Pina Polo’s detailed study of the consulars implies a few trends over the course of the period 218-31 BCE. In general, there seems to have been a decline first in the military role of the consulars which reached a height in the Hannibalic War and then in their political power during the 1st century with the successive Civil Wars, dictatorships of Sulla and Caesar, and finally the triumvirate. The expansion of the Roman empire created a significant increase in diplomatic work which consulars played a key role in, but as their significance lessened in the 1st century so did their role on embassies. One potential problem with trying to present the lives of consulares systematically is that the actual diachronic experiences of ex-consuls can be lost. Luckily, Pina Polo neatly deals with this by providing an appendix at the end of each chapter providing small biographies of representative individuals. Throughout, Pina Polo’s use of evidence and the level of detail provided in text and footnotes is excellent. Overall, the argumentation is solid, and it is hard to disagree with much of what Pina Polo collects. There are occasional points that do not hit home. For example, it is suggested that sending Marcus Aemilius Lepidus to meet Philip V at Abydus was meant to insult the Macedonian king because Lepidus was not only not a consular but had not held curule office (p. 67). Yet this ignores that Lepidus was distinguished in his own right, having won the civic crown (corona civica) at fifteen (and being, as Philip admitted, incredibly handsome!). More importantly, he had possibly undertaken to protect the Ptolemies from Philip as guardian (tutor) of Ptolemy V.
The work certainly adds to a growing literature on Roman political offices and hierarchies amongst the Roman elite, to which Pina Polo has been an important contributor. Indeed, this is a culmination of many years of detailed work by Pina Polo on these themes. At the beginning of the work Pina Polo sets out questions which he hopes the monograph will answer, for example: ‘what was the political career of a consularis?’, ‘what was their political role in the Senate?’ or ‘was consular status a privileged source of economic benefits?’ (p. ix-x). Marked against these questions the book is a success and for those interested in the life of consulares it will surely be invaluable. Pina Polo’s monograph also opens an interesting range of new questions. I was left wondering if there were significant systemic differences in the influence and role of different consulars based on their military achievements, family networks, wealth or other such distinguishers of rank in Roman public life? Or the extent to which consulars formed a distinct group within senatorial politics who worked together and had similar ideological tendencies or instead were hostile to one another and led differing familial or ideological groups within senatorial politics? It was noted that consulares were often sent as military tribunes, military and ambassadorial legati and on commissions. It would be interesting to discover whether their roles in this respect were simply proportional to their number in the senate and thus a product of being a senator rather than specifically a consularis. It would be interesting to think further about the source of the power of ex-consuls. It is often assumed that this was because of their auctoritas but what did this really mean and how did it manifest? Pina Polo’s monograph provides an excellent launchpad from which to address these questions and it will stimulate further research into the lives of ex-consuls.
Notes
[1] Jehne, M. (2011), ‘The Rise of the Consular as a Social Type in the Third and Second Centuries BC’, in H. Beck et al. (eds.), Consuls and Res Publica: High Office Holding in the Roman Republic (Cambridge): 211-231; Steel, C. (2022), ‘Consulars, Political Office, and Leadership in the Middle and Late Republic’, in R. Frolov and C. Burden-Stevens (eds), Leadership and Initiative in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome (Leiden): 133-148.
[2] Pina Polo, F. (2025), ‘The Political Careers of Consulars in the 4th and 3rd Centuries BCE’, in F. Pina Polo (ed.), Cursus Honorum: Pathways to Rank and Power in the Roman Republic (Sevilla): 79-102 covers the earlier period.
[3] See Pina Polo, F. (2013), ‘The Political Role of the Consules Designati at Rome’, Historia 62/4: 420-452 for earlier reflections.
[4] See Pina Polo, F. (2018), ‘Magistrates without Pedigree: The Consules Suffecti of the Triumviral Age’, JRS 108: 99-114 for his previous work on this.