For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the authority of the senate and the annual magistrates, holding the power of ius intercessionis to intervene on behalf of the plebeians, and veto unfavourable legislation.
There were also military tribunes, who commanded portions of the Roman army, subordinate to higher magistrates, such as the consuls and praetors, promagistrates, and their legates.
Only one of the tribunes could preside over this assembly, which had the power to pass laws affecting only the plebeians, known as plebiscita, or plebiscites.
However, they were sacrosanct, and the whole body of the plebeians were pledged to protect the tribunes against any assault or interference with their persons during their terms of office.
[7] The tribunicia potestas, or tribunician power, was limited because it was derived from the people's oath to defend the tribunes.
Each tribune would be assigned to command a portion of the Roman army, subordinate to the magistrates and promagistrates appointed by the senate, and their legates.
From the use of tribunus to describe various military officers is derived the word tribunal, originally referring to a raised platform used to address the soldiers or administer justice.
Military tribunes are featured in notable works of historical fiction, including Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, by Lew Wallace, and The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas.
Both novels involve characters affected by the life and death of Jesus, and were turned into epic films during the 1950s.
The patricians' monopoly on power was finally broken by Gaius Licinius Calvus Stolo and Lucius Sextius Lateranus, tribunes of the people, who in 376 BC brought forward legislation demanding not merely that one of the consuls might be a plebeian, but that henceforth one must be chosen from their order.
In the end, and with the encouragement of the dictator Marcus Furius Camillus, the senate conceded the battle, and passed the Licinian Rogations.
Sextius was elected the first plebeian consul, followed by Licinius two years later; and with this settlement, the consular tribunes were abolished.[1]: xiv.
There exists the possibility that this tribune had commanded a unit of the Roman army which had disbanded after the break with Rome, and was now occupying a more locally-granted appointment to help manage his city's defences.
[10][11] In the early history of the Republic of Venice, during the tenure of the sixth Doge Domenico Monegario, Venice instituted a dual Tribunal modeled on the above Roman institution - two new Tribunes being elected each year, with the intention to oversee the Doge and prevent abuse of power (though this aim was not always successfully achieved).
The "Tribunat", the French word for tribunate, derived from the Latin term tribunatus, meaning the office or term of a Roman tribunus (see above), was a collective organ of the young revolutionary French Republic composed of members styled tribun (the French for tribune), which, despite the apparent reference to one of ancient Rome's prestigious magistratures, never held any real political power as an assembly, its individual members no role at all.
It was instituted by Napoleon I Bonaparte's Constitution of the Year VIII "in order to moderate the other powers" by discussing every legislative project, sending its orateurs ("orators", i.e. spokesmen) to defend or attack them in the Corps législatif, and asking the Senate to overturn "the lists of eligibles, the acts of the Legislative Body and those of the government" on account of unconstitutionality.