Multi-Year Roman Consulships

Would the Romans ever consider extending the term of a Consulship beyond one year? As the territory of the Republic grew, the unwieldy nature of the system made military campaigns difficult to conduct properly within the system. Consuls were expected to lead armies in campaign, but once campaigns were significantly outside of Italy, it was not as realistic to expect a campaign to be resolved within the term of a Consul. Further, as the ambitions of Rome's leaders began to be turned against its institutions, it became commonplace for them to disregard their term limits anyway and just get elected again, resulting in the same situation.

The only standard magistracy within the Republic that had a term longer than one year was the office of Censor, which served 5 years. The Pontifex Maximus held their office for life, as well. However, both of those options would almost certainly not work for the Republic. At the very least, it would produce a backlog of ambitious politicians vying for the top positions. But an extension of the term of office to 2-3 years would seem to be fairly practical.
 
I could see it, in the later times of the republic, as an alternative to dictatorship : wouldn't populares could favour that if dictatorship or other emergency features were even more overused by their political opponents, making them too tied to policies opposed to them?
 
I could see it, in the later times of the republic, as an alternative to dictatorship : wouldn't populares could favour that if dictatorship or other emergency features were even more overused by their political opponents, making them too tied to policies opposed to them?

Could you explain a little bit more? I'm not quite sure I follow the idea that it would likely to fall along the factional lines. Are you suggesting that there wouldn't be any populares that were able to dominate emergency magistracies?

Perhaps something like Marius being denies the opportunity to run for consecutive consulships, and a compromise being reached?
 
Would the Romans ever consider extending the term of a Consulship beyond one year? As the territory of the Republic grew, the unwieldy nature of the system made military campaigns difficult to conduct properly within the system. Consuls were expected to lead armies in campaign, but once campaigns were significantly outside of Italy, it was not as realistic to expect a campaign to be resolved within the term of a Consul. Further, as the ambitions of Rome's leaders began to be turned against its institutions, it became commonplace for them to disregard their term limits anyway and just get elected again, resulting in the same situation.

The only standard magistracy within the Republic that had a term longer than one year was the office of Censor, which served 5 years. The Pontifex Maximus held their office for life, as well. However, both of those options would almost certainly not work for the Republic. At the very least, it would produce a backlog of ambitious politicians vying for the top positions. But an extension of the term of office to 2-3 years would seem to be fairly practical.

Was this not solved by essentially turning the consulship into merely a civil office in the later republic, and instead giving their military commands and provincial governorships to pro-consuls and pro-praetors, the length determined by however long the Senate felt was needed? This seemed to be a logical development.
 
. Are you suggesting that there wouldn't be any populares that were able to dominate emergency magistracies?
No, I was thinking more about optimates abusing emergency powers and distinctions, dictatorship and consecutive mandates being associated by popular classes as something to be rejected.
I'm not sure how it could happen, to be honest, but someone as much military skilled as Sulla, but far less politically, over-abusing his power.

Populares, in order to comply with this feeling would try to bypass it, using larger mandate.

Perhaps something like Marius being denies the opportunity to run for consecutive consulships, and a compromise being reached?
I wasn't thinking about a political compromise, but it could work better than my idea, I think.
 
A related concept to which I'm particularly partial is staggered elections, which could work very well for a 2-year consulship, with one consul serving his second year while his counterpart serves his first, and then on down the line.
 
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