Western Civilization I / Unit 6 WC1 0526 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Classifying a Republican Office or Body
The idea
The exam describes a power and asks which office or body held it. The method is two questions: how many hold it, and for how long. Consul: two, one year, imperium. Dictator: one, a crisis, full imperium, expected to resign. Senate: hundreds, for life, finance and by one thirty-three the proposing and vetoing of law. Tribune: two then ten, one year, a veto on behalf of plebeians. Centuriate Assembly: all citizens in five wealth classes, electing consuls and declaring war. Plebeian Assembly: plebeians, whose plebiscites bound everyone after two eighty-seven.
In practice
Five cases. A man with twelve lictors who commands an army for a year: consul. A man who can block any magistrate's act by saying no and whose person is sacred: tribune. A body that decides whether a general's war will be funded: Senate. A body that votes by classes so the rich decide first: Centuriate Assembly. A man appointed with twenty-four lictors during Hannibal's invasion who lays down power afterward: dictator, Fabius Maximus in two seventeen.
Where people slip
Sulla and Caesar broke the dictator's pattern by keeping power, and the Senate's law-making role grew over time. Classify by the office's designed limits and expect the exam to ask which limit was broken and by whom.
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