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Under the Republic, Rome was supposed to elect two consuls every year, with term limits that prevented the same person from being elected consecutively. Natura

Under the Republic, Rome was supposed to elect two consuls every year, with term limits that prevented the same person from being elected consecutively. Naturally, that system fell apart in practice, but remained in effect de jure. Publius Gnaeus Dipshitus may have been elected Consul during the era of Sulla or Marius or Pompey, but guess how much real power they executed.

stygiansonic 8y ago
Good points. This video, while a nice visualization and introduction to the topic, obviously had to simply things a bit. In addition to the aforementioned "two consuls per year" bit, the video usually only listed one of them. For example, in 216 BC the Roman leader is listed as "Terentius Varro", or Gaius Terentius Varro, who served as consul with Lucius Aemilius Paullus. During this year, the Romans (under command of the two consuls, as they were usually designated as commander-in-chiefs as well) suffered possibly their worst defeat ever at the Battle of Cannae against Hannibal. During this defeat, Rome lost perhaps 20% of its military-age male population. Both consuls apparently died in the battle as well. Presumably Varro is listed as the leader this year, because most of the blame for the defeat at Cannae was attributed to him. However, this may have been due to Paullus having a more influential family who was able to defend his legacy. If you're interested more about this, I highly recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvGqp2gpo3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvGqp2gpo3s The related channel is also great: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv_vLHiWVBh_FR9vbeuiY-A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv_vLHiWVBh_FR9vbeuiY-A