Senatus consultum ultimum
First used against Gaius Gracchus in 121 BC to suppress a violent protest against repeal of a colonisation law and accepted thereafter, recourse to the decree accelerated over the course of the last century of the republic.
[1] The specific phraseology of the senatorial resolution was much longer: That the consuls, praetors, tribunes of the people, and proconsuls in the city, should take care that the state received no injury.
[12] Actual enforcement of the decree required "the authorities [to] count on a substantial number of followers in the citizen body" to employ repression: "thus, consensus within the citizenry was a necessary precondition for the implementation of emergency measures, with respect to the physical means of power as well as to the legitimacy [thereof]".
[14] The final decree may also have been the senate's instruction that the consuls ignore the laws and use their imperium (the power of military command) within the pomerium (the boundaries of the city), "overpower[ing] the normal potestas [civil magisterial authority[15]] of all other magistrates, including that of the tribunes".
[19] In the aftermath of the decree's usage, those responsible for the use of force were regularly prosecuted on grounds that citizens had been killed extrajudicially; the defence in the courts then was one of justification.
[20] There are multiple cases where magistrates or their followers taking actions armed with a senatus consultum ultimum were faced with the prospect of being hauled before the courts in later years: Lucius Opimius,[21] Gaius Rabirius,[22] and Cicero[23] being prime examples.
[30] Some scholars trace the senatus consultum ultimum to 133 BC with the killing of Tiberius Gracchus,[10] arguing that the instance meets the criteria of being a senatorial action calling upon the consuls to protect the republic.
[32] The first official use of the decree was in 121 BC, when the senate passed it against Gaius Sempronius Gracchus (Tiberius' younger brother) and Marcus Fulvius Flaccus.
[33][34] It was issued in response to a violent protest held by Gracchus and Flaccus against repeal of legislation to establish a colony at Carthage that they and allies had passed the previous year.
[35] The following year, Opimius was prosecuted by a tribune for killing citizens without trial,[36] but was acquitted after he justified his actions on the basis of the senatus consultum ultimum.
[35] While this set a precedent that actions taken under an senatus consultum ultimum were normally free from legal consequence and could be used to justify substantial repression,[37][38] the decree remained controversial and continued to be debated by contemporaries.
[2] Lepidus, who was governor of Transalpine Gaul, marched on Rome with an army after his reform programme was blocked by his co-consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus Capitolinus.
Catiline formed a conspiracy to overthrow the government and install himself as consul after being twice defeated in consular elections and having run out of money to finance a further campaign.
[51][52] Controversially, Cicero, with the backing of the senate, executed a number of the conspirators who were captured in Rome without trial,[53] partly because of his lack of confidence in the courts on which the Sullan republic was based.
[58] The senatus consultum ultimum was raised again in the following year against Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos, who was then tribune of plebs, and Julius Caesar to suppress their attempts to violently force through a proposal to give the command against the Catilinarians to Pompey.
[65] The senate moved the senatus consultum ultimum and instructed an interrex, with the support of Pompey and his troops, to restore order[66] and suppress the Clodian and Milonian mobs.
[67][68] Order was restored relatively quickly and there were no large-scale extrajudicial killings; Milo was then duly prosecuted for murder under the lex Pompeia de vi in 52 BC.
[69] One of the most famous usages of the senatus consultum ultimum was against Julius Caesar in 49 BC, after negotiations between him and senate broke down the first week of January that year.
[76][69] It was used again against civil disturbance instigated by Publius Cornelius Dolabella in 47 BC when he seized the Forum in an attempt to force through a law abolishing all debts.
[77] Mark Antony, then Caesar's dictatorial lieutenant, led troops to disperse Dolabella's encampment, which resulted in the slaughter of, reportedly, eight hundred citizens.
[88] Perspectives differ as to the extent to which this displayed senatorial weakness: while use of the senate's auctoritas in this manner itself implied its insufficiency to restrain seditious behaviour, targets (like Caesar) argued not against the decree's inherent invailidity, but rather its application to their circumstances, showing his at least ostensible need to respect the traditional political culture which placed the senate at the republic's heart.
