[7] Modelled on the lex Valeria which established Sulla's dictatorship, the law also gave the triumvirs the power to divide up provinces by agreement or sortition, appoint magistrates, and award honours.
[12] The three men did not alternate fasces – rotate through full authority with the other members taking veto powers – rather, given the Livian and Dionysian narratives on the Decemvirate, refrained from interference with each other.
[13] There were two kinds of magistracies in the Roman republic: those with a fixed term and those created for certain causa which would elapse only with the abdication, death, or abrogation of the magistrate.
[14] While the law established the magistracy with a term of five years,[15] attaching a causa meant a triumvir's powers ceased only with their voluntary abdication, death, or abrogation.
It could be argued, however, that in Roman constitutional theory, the law's passage was simply an exercise of the sovereign people's legislative authority.
[citation needed] Eventually, over the next two decades and the intervening civil wars, Octavian would emerge triumphant and create the Principate.