| Livy portrays the tribunate as a disruptive force that undermines the stability of the Roman state. It has no redeeming qualities. This depiction emerges from the assumptions established by the narrative in Book 2 before the tribunate has been created. The negative characterization of the tribunes reaches its greatest extent in Books 3--6 as Livy narrates the conflicts between plebeians and patricians. Beginning with Book 7, the number of references to tribunes drops sharply. Despite the limited amount of attention paid to the tribunate in the rest of extant Livy, the initial, unflattering image persists.;This portrait differs from that offered by the Greek historians Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. All three value the tribunate as an integral part of the Roman state that defends the freedom of the people. Livy's distrust demonstrates the conservative attitude he absorbed from his milieu amid the turmoil of the Late Republic. His perspective, however, does not simply mimic what he found in his sources; the consistency of his negative depiction across his narrative precludes that. Nor does Livy's opinion of the tribunate parallel Cicero's or Sallust's. Cicero acknowledges the difficulties caused by tribunes but nonetheless considers them essential to the state, while Sallust implicates both the tribunes and the senate in the moral degradation of Rome. Livy's negative depiction of the tribunes shows, first, that his narrative provides a coherent interpretation of Roman history. Livy has thought about what he is writing. Second, the shift in the quantity but not the quality of references to the tribunate after Book 6 raises questions about the periodization of Roman history. Typically, tribunician agitation is said to persist until the lex Hortensia in 287, when the tribunes were integrated into the mechanisms of the state. Livy, however, reduces his attention to the tribunes after the Licinio-Sextian legislation of 367, yet his tribunes continue to act disruptively after 287. Finally, Livy's understanding of the tribunes coincides with the implications of Augustus' actions. The people need a defender, but the tribunate has failed. Augustus' adoption of tribunicia potestas solves the dilemma and redeems the tribunate. |
