Dicta'tor

Dicta'tor, in the earliest times, was the name of the highest magistrate of the Latin Confederation, and in some of the Latin towns the title was continued long after these towns were subjected to the dominion of Rome. In the Roman Republic the dictator was an extraordinary magistrate, irresponsible and endowed with absolute authority, whose original name was magister populi. The frequency of crises, or critical periods, in the quick, aggressive growth of the Roman state, necessitated such an office. The first dictator (T. Larcius or M. Valerius) was appointed 501 B.C., nine years after the expulsion of the Tarquins. According to Livy, the immediate cause of this dictatorship was a formidable war with the Latins. In general, no one could be appointed dictator who had not been previously consul, and this condition was very rarely dispensed with. Niebuhr is of opinion that the dictator was originally created or elected by the curia, like the kings, but it is more probable that the senate passed a decree ordering one of the consuls to name or proclaim (dicere) a dictator. Originally, of course, the dictator was a patrician; the first plebeian who filled the office being C. Marcius Rutilus, 356 B.C., who was nominated by the plebeian consul M. Popillius Lænas. The dictatorship could not lawfully be held longer than six months, nor was it ever so, except in the cases of Sulla and Cæsar, which were altogether peculiar. It must not be supposed that during a dictatorship the functions of the other magistrates were positively suspended. The consuls and other regular authorities continued to discharge their proper duties, but in subordination to the dictator; being for the time simply his officers. The superiority of his power, when compared with that of the consuls, appears chiefly in these three points: he was far more independent of the senate; he had a more extensive power of punishment, without any appeal; and he could not be called to account after his abdication of the dictatorship for anything he had done during the period of his office. The limits of his power were as follows: he could not touch the treasury; he could not leave Italy; and he could not ride through Rome on horseback without previously obtaining the permission of the people. While the consuls had only twelve lictors, the dictator was preceded by twenty-four, bearing the secures and fasces. To him also belonged the sella curulis and the toga prætexta. The last legally elected dictator was M. Junius Pera, who entered on his office 216 B.C. From this time nominal dictators were frequently appointed for the purpose of holding the elections, but even these finally disappeared, 202 B.C.