Triumvirate (redirected from Second Triumvirate)

Triumvirate (trīŭm`vĭrĭt, –vĭrāt'), in ancient Rome, ruling board or commission of three men. Triumvirates were common in the Roman republic. The

First Triumvirate was the alliance of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marcus Licinius Crassus formed in 60 B.C. This was not strictly a triumvirate, since the alliance had no official sanction. The three men were able to control Rome, and the alliance aided Caesar's rise to power by giving him the opportunity to pursue the Gallic Wars. The

Second Triumvirate was legally established as the tresviri rei publicae constituendae [triumvirate for reestablishing the public welfare] in 43 B.C. for five years; it was renewed in 37 B.C. The members were Octavian (Augustus), Marc Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (d. 13 B.C.). This group was granted enormous power by the senate. Lepidus was deposed in 36 B.C., and Antony was defeated at Actium in 31 B.C., leaving Octavian at the head of the Roman Empire.

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triumvirate

In ancient Rome, usually a board of three officials who assisted higher magistrates in judicial functions, oversaw festival banquets, or ran the mint. The First Triumvirate (60 BC) of Pompey, Julius Caesar, and Crassus was an informal group of three strong leaders with no sanctioned powers. The Second Triumvirate (43 BC), consisting of Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian (later Augustus)—formally tresviri rei publicae constituendae (“triumvirate for organizing the state”)—held absolute dictatorial power.

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triumvirate

1. in ancient Rome

a. a board of three officials jointly responsible for some task

b. the political alliance of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, formed in 60 bc (First Triumvirate)

c. the coalition and joint rule of the Roman Empire by Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian, begun in 43 bc (Second Triumvirate)

2. any joint rule by three men

3. the office of a triumvir

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Triumvirate 

in ancient Rome:

(1) A board of three persons appointed or elected for a specific purpose, for example, the triumvirate created to administer the agrarian reforms of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 B.C.

(2) During the civil wars of the first century B.C., an alliance formed by influential political figures and generals with a view to seizing power. The First Triumvirate (60 or 59 B.C.) was an alliance between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, in which Caesar played the leading role and support came from the legions. Having assumed the powers of government, the members of the First Triumvirate distributed governmental posts in Rome and the provinces among themselves and their supporters and instituted laws in their own behalf. The death of Crassus in 53 B.C. and strained relations between Pompey and Caesar brought about the dissolution of the First Triumvirate, which Varro had called “the three-headed monster.”

The Second Triumvirate was an alliance lasting from 43 to 36 B.C. and existing in name until 31 B.C. The Caesarians Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus joined together against Caesar’s murderers—Brutus and Cassius—as well as other republicans and the Senate. Unlike the First Triumvirate, the second had the support of the comitia, which granted the triumvirs extraordinary powers to “settle the Constitution.” The triumvirs used this power to divide the provinces among themselves and to publish proscriptiones against political adversaries. The Second Triumvirate was dissolved because of internal dissension, primarily between Octavian and Antony.

REFERENCES

Mashkin, N. A. Printsipat Avgusta. Moscow, 1949.
Utchenko, S. L. Krizis ipadenie rimskoi respubliki. Moscow, 1965.
Mommsen, T. Istoriia Rima, vol. 3. Moscow, 1941. (Translated from German.)