Dictator, a Roman magistrate appointed at times either by one of the consuls or by the general of the army, according to Plutarch; at other times by either the Senate or by the people, in periods of crisis, to command as sovereign, and to ensure that the republic suffered no damage.

The Romans having deposed their kings, were obliged to appoint a dictator when the republic was in extreme peril, as, for example, when it was disturbed by dangerous sedition, or when it was attacked by formidable enemies. As soon as the dictator was named, he found himself vested with supreme power; he had the right of life and death, in Rome as in the armies, over the generals and over all citizens, whatever their rank. The authority and functions of other magistrates, [1] with the exception of those of the tribunes of the people, ceased, or were subordinated to him. He named the general of the cavalry who was under his orders, who served him as lieutenant, and, if we may put it this way, as head of his bodyguard. [2] Twenty-four lictors carried fasces and axes before him, and only 12 bore them before the consul. [3] He could raise troops, make war or peace according to when he judged it proper, without being obliged to justify his conduct, or to take the advice of the senate and of the people: in a word he enjoyed a power greater than any of the old kings of Rome ever had; but as he could abuse this vast power so suspect to republicans, precaution was always taken to not defer it to him for more than six months.

The first of the patricians to attain this supreme office, was Titus Lartius, in the 259th year of Rome. [4] The first consul Cloelius [Quintus Cloelius Siculus] appointed him, as compensation for the authority he lost through the creation of this eminent dignity. The first dictator who came from the order of the plebeians, was citizen Marcius Rutilus, in 399. Some citizens held this supreme magistracy twice. Camillus [Marcus Furius Camillus] was the only one who was named dictator five times; but Camillus was an incomparable citizen, the savior of his country, and the second founder of Rome; he completed his last dictatorship in 386, by reestablishing calm in the republic between the different orders of the state. Minucius having won several victories over Hannibal, which public rumor never failed to exaggerate, something was then done in Rome that had never been done there before, according to Polybius; in the hope that Minucius would soon end the war, he was named dictator in the 438th year of Rome, conjointly with Quintus Fabius Maximus, whose conduct was always judicious and constant, which was thought to outweigh the reckless abandon of the colleague with whom he was associated. There were thus two dictators at once, something previously unheard of among the Romans, and never repeated since.

The same Fabius Maximus of whom I just spoke, in whom greatness of spirit was joined with moral force, met the gravity of his charge, being the first to ask the senate to approve that he lead the army on horseback; for an old law reserved this right expressly forbade dictators from doing this, either because the Romans making the infantry their strongest forces, believed it necessary to ensure that the general remained at the head of his cohorts, without ever leaving them; or because the dictatorship being otherwise sovereign and very close to tyranny, it was desired at least that the dictator , during the exercise of his charge, depend in this upon the republic.

The institution of the dictatorship continued to remain useful and in conformity with the goal of its establishment, until the civil wars of Marius and Sylla. The latter, conqueror of his rival and the faction that supported him, entered Rome at the head of his troops, and visited there such cruelties, that none could expect to outlive the day. It was to authorize his crimes that he had himself declared perpetual dictator of Rome in 671, or, more accurately, that he usurped the dictatorship by force. Absolute sovereign, he altered at will the form of government; he abolished old laws, established new ones, made himself master of the public treasury, and disposed despotically of the property of his fellow citizens.

Nevertheless, this man who, to attain the dictatorship, had fought so many battles, satisfied with the blood he had spilled, was bold enough to divest himself of the sovereign power four years after he seized it. Of his own volition, he demoted himself, in 674, to the status of a simple citizen, without experiencing the resentment of so many illustrious families whose patriarchs he had imperiled through his cruel proscriptions. Many viewed such a surprising abdication as a final act of magnanimity; others attributed it to perpetual fear in which he lived that he would finally find some Roman generous enough to deprive him with one blow of life and empire. Whatever the case, his abdication from the dictatorship brought order to the state, and the murders he committed were almost forgotten, in favor of the liberty he brought to his country; but his example was understood by those who hoped to succeed him to mean that the people of Rome could suffer a master, which caused new and great revolutions.

Two famous citizens, one of whom wanted no peer, the other of whom could suffer no superior; both illustrious by their birth, their station and their achievements; both almost equally dangerous, both the first captains of their ages; in a word Pompey and Caesar, contested the fatal glory of serving their country. Pompey nevertheless aspired to the dictatorship less for power than for honors and prestige; moreover, he desired naturally to obtain it by the will of the people, which is why twice as conqueror he dismissed his armies upon setting foot in Rome. Caesar on the other hand, full of immoderate desires, wanted the sovereign power for himself, and saw nothing beyond his own ambition and the immense expanse of his designs; all of his actions centered on these, and his success at the battle of Pharsalus crowned them. Thus we see him entering Rome triumphantly in the 696th year of its foundation, all then bending to his authority. He had himself named consul for ten years, and perpetual dictator , with all the other titles of magistracy that he wished to arrogate to himself: master of republic as of the rest of the world, he was not assassinated until he sought the diadem.

Augustus capitalized on the faults of Caesar, and distanced himself from his conduct; he took only the quality of emperor, imperator , which soldiers in the days of the republic gave to their generals. Preferring this quality to that of dictator , he no longer had the title of dictatorship, the effects of it taking its place. All the actions of Octavius and all his policies would constitute monarchy. By this adroit conduct, says M. de Vertot, he accustomed free men to servitude, and made a new monarchy acceptable to erstwhile republicans. [5]

We can hardly avoid several reflections here arising from the various facts which we have just related.

The constitution of Rome when the republic was in peril, which demanded great and prompt remedies, had need of a magistracy able to provide them. It was necessary in times of trouble and calamity, in order to remedy them promptly, to fix the administration in the hands of a single citizen; it was necessary to unite in his person the honors and power of the magistracy, because they represented sovereignty; it was necessary that this magistracy be exercised with brilliance, since it entailed intimidating the public, the squabblers, and the enemies: it was necessary that the dictator was created for this affair alone, and only assumed authority related to the purpose of this affair, as it was created for an unforeseen circumstance; finally, it was necessary in such a magistracy, under which the sovereign bowed his head and popular laws were silenced, to compensate the grandeur of its power with the brevity of its duration. Six months was the fixed term; a shorter term would not have sufficed; a longer term would have been dangerous. Such was the institution of the dictatorship: nothing better and wiser being established, the republic long enjoyed its advantages.

But when Sylla, in the spoils of his successes, would have given the lands of the citizens to the soldiers, there was no longer a man of war who would not seek occasion to take advantage of this. When he would have established proscriptions, and put a price on the head of those who were not of his faction, it was impossible to attach oneself to the state, and to remain neutral between the two ambitious premiers who had elevated themselves to domination. From then on love of country reigned no more, no more union among citizens, no more virtues: the troops were no longer those of the republic, but of Sylla, Pompey, or Caesar. Ambition complemented arms, seizing power, responsibilities, and honors; annihilated the authority of magistrates, and, in a word, overthrew the republic. Its liberties and its remaining foibles of virtue quickly faded. Become increasingly a slave under Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Domitian, some of its coups overcame tyrants, none vanquished tyranny.

Such is the summary of what I know best on the matter; I have drawn principally on the history of revolutions of the Roman republic and on the spirit of the laws , and so I have preserved in my extract, insofar as I could, the language of these two writers: for could I, as Montaigne said, summon the eloquence to alter their prose? [6]

Notes

1. Magistrate, under the Roman constitution, referred to officials who held imperium (the power to command the military). It was more specific in meaning than in contemporary English.

2. Under the Roman constitution, the cavalry was an independent unit of the army that answered directly to the king (and, later, the dictator or another magistrate). Jaucourt appears to be treating this Roman cavalry as an analog for the cavalry in ancien régime France; the French cavalry also answered directly to the king, whereas the general of the cavalry was the title for the head of the French cavalry. It is not clear that an exact equivalent title existed in Rome.

3. A lictor was a bodyguard to Roman magistrates who held imperium . The number of a magistrate’s bodyguards corresponded to the importance of his position.

4. Roman years are roughly equivalent in length to contemporary international standards, and are dated from the founding of Rome (753 BCE); so Roman year 259 is roughly equivalent to 494 BCE, 399 roughly to 354 BCE, etc.

5. René-Aubert Vertot (1655-1735), a French clergyman and historian, the author of Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans le gouvernement de la République Romaine (1719).

6. The references are to Vertot, The History of the Revolutions that Happened in the Government of the Roman Republic; Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws; and Montaigne, Essays, bk. II, ch. xii.