Roman Dictator - A New Dictatorate and Abolition

A New Dictatorate and Abolition

In 82 BC, after a 120-year lapse, and the end of the civil war between the forces of Marius and Sulla, the latter was appointed by the Senate to an entirely new office, dictator legibus faciendis et rei publicae constituendae ("dictator for the making of laws and for the settling of the constitution"). This new office was functionally identical to the dictatorate rei gerundae causa except that it lacked any set time limit. Sulla held this office for about a year before he abdicated and retired from public life.

Gaius Julius Caesar subsequently resurrected the dictatorate rei gerundae causa in his first dictatorship, then modified it to a full year term. He was appointed dictator rei gerundae causa for a full year in 46 BC and then designated for nine consecutive one-year terms in that office thereafter, functionally becoming dictator for ten years. A year later, this pretense was discarded altogether and the Senate voted to make him Dictator perpetuo (usually rendered in English as "dictator for life", but properly meaning "dictator in perpetuity"). Neither the magistrate who nominated Sulla, nor the time for which he was appointed, nor the extent or the exercise of his power was in accordance with the ancient laws and precedents, as is the case with the dictatorship of Caesar.

After Caesar's murder on the Ides of March, his consular colleague Mark Antony introduced the lex Antonia which abolished the dictatorship. The office was later offered to Augustus, who declined it, and opted instead for tribunician power and consular imperium without holding any magisterial office other than imperator and princeps Senatus — a politic arrangement which left him as functional dictator without having to hold the controversial title. This novel - though not unconstitutional - arrangement of offices and powers would in time evolve into the office of Roman Emperor. Thus, dictatorship, as defined by the republican institution, was not a feature of the principate or dominate.