Triumvirate

Triumvirate (Lat., 'a union composed of three men') is the name given in Roman history to the private league entered into between Pompey, Crassus, and C��sar to carry out their own schemes of political aggrandisement, in spite of the opposition of the senate. The term is also applied to the division of government between Octavian (Augustus), Mark Antony, and Lepidus in the civil wars that followed the murder of C��sar—an arrangement sanctioned, and therefore legalised by the senate. The former is usually called the first, the latter the second triumvirate. See ROME, and the articles on C��sar, POMPEY, and AUGUSTUS.