Tribune of the plebs in the context of "Coriolanus"

Gaius Cassius Longinus (Classical Latin: [ˈɡaːi.ʊs ˈkassi.ʊs ˈlɔŋɡɪnʊs]; c. 86 BC – 3 October 42 BC) was a Roman senator and general best known as a leading instigator of the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BC. He was the brother-in-law of Brutus, another leader of the conspiracy. He commanded troops with Brutus during the Battle of Philippi against the combined forces of Mark Antony and Octavian, Caesar's former supporters, and committed suicide after being defeated by Mark Antony.

Cassius was elected as tribune of the plebs in 49 BC. He opposed Caesar, and eventually he commanded a fleet against him during Caesar's Civil War: after Caesar defeated Pompey in the Battle of Pharsalus, Caesar overtook Cassius and forced him to surrender. After Caesar's death, Cassius fled to the east to Syria, where he amassed an army of twelve legions. He was supported and made governor by the Senate. Later he and Brutus marched west against the allies of the Second Triumvirate.

Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla was a Roman politician. He served as consul in 127 BC and censor at the following lustrum in 125 BC.

His first recorded office was that of tribune of the plebs in 137 BC. As a tribune of the plebs, he successfully proposed in the concilium plebis a law to introduce secret ballot for all trials before the Assemblies except those related to perduellio (treason); the bill was supported by Scipio Aemilianus but opposed by the then-consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus Porcina and his tribunician colleague Marcus Antius Briso.

A military tribune (from Latin tribunus militum 'tribune of the soldiers') was an officer of the Roman army who ranked below the legate and above the praefectus castrorum (a centurion). Young men of Equestrian rank often served as military tribunes as a stepping stone to the Senate. The tribunus militum should not be confused with the elected political office of tribune of the people (tribunus plebis) nor with that of tribunus militum consulari potestate.

A Roman dictator was an extraordinary magistrate in the Roman Republic endowed with full authority to resolve some specific problem to which he had been assigned. He received the full powers of the state, subordinating the other magistrates, consuls included, for the specific purpose of resolving that issue, and that issue only, and then dispensing with those powers immediately.

A dictator was still controlled and accountable during his term in office: the Senate still exercised some oversight authority, and the rights of plebeian tribunes to veto his actions or of the people to appeal them were retained. The extent of a dictator's mandate strictly controlled the ends to which his powers could be directed. Dictators were also liable to prosecution after their terms completed.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (/əˈɡrɪpə/; c. 63 BC – 12 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who was a close friend, son-in-law and lieutenant to the Roman emperor Augustus. Agrippa is well known for his important military victories, notably the Battle of Actium in 31 BC against the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. He was also responsible for the construction of some of the most notable buildings of his era, including the original Pantheon.

Born to a plebeian family c. 63 BC, in an uncertain location in Roman Italy, he met the future emperor Augustus, then known as Octavian, at Apollonia, in Illyria. Following the assassination of Octavian's great-uncle Julius Caesar in 44 BC, Octavian returned to Italy. Around this time, Agrippa was elected tribune of the plebs. He served as a military commander, fighting alongside Octavian and Caesar's former general and right-hand man Mark Antony in the Battle of Philippi. In 40 BC, he was praetor urbanus and played a major role in the Perusine war against Lucius Antonius and Fulvia, respectively the brother and wife of Mark Antony. In 39 or 38 BC, Agrippa was appointed governor of Transalpine Gaul. In 38 BC, he put down a rising of the Aquitanians and fought the Germanic tribes. He was made consul for 37 BC, despite being well below the usual minimum age of 43, in order to oversee the preparations for war against Sextus Pompey, who had cut off grain shipments to Rome.

The Gracchi brothers were two brothers who lived during the beginning of the late Roman Republic: Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus. They served in the plebeian tribunates of 133 BC and 122–121 BC, respectively. They have been received as well-born and eloquent advocates for social reform who were both killed by a reactionary political system; their terms in the tribunate precipitated a series of domestic crises which are viewed as unsettling the Roman Republic and contributing to its collapse.

Tiberius Gracchus passed legislation which established a commission to survey Roman public land, reassert state claims to it, and redistribute it to poor rural farmers. These reforms were a reaction to a perceived decline in Italy's rural population. A decade later, Gaius Gracchus' reforms, among other things, attempted to buttress Tiberius' land commission and start Roman colonisation outside of Italy. They also were far more broad, touching on many topics such as assignment of provincial commands, composition of juries for the permanent courts, and letting of state tax farming contracts. Both brothers were killed during or shortly after the conclusion of their respective tribunician terms.

The March on Rome of 88 BC was a coup d'état by the consul of the Roman Republic Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who seized power against his enemies Marius and Sulpicius, after they had ousted him from Rome. It was the first time in Roman history that a general ordered his army to march against the Republic.

In 88 BC, Sulla was elected consul and given the command of the war against the king of Pontus Mithridates, who had recently invaded the Roman province of Asia. The same year, Sulla and his colleague Quintus Pompeius Rufus opposed the attempt of the tribune of the plebs Publius Sulpicius to enrol the Italians who received the Roman citizenship at the end of the Social War (91–87 BC). To bypass the consuls' opposition, Sulpicius sought the support of the popular Gaius Marius, who had already been consul six times. Marius demanded for his help that Sulpicius pass a law transferring Sulla's command to him. Using armed gangs to intimidate the tribal assembly, Sulpicius removed Pompeius' consulship and forced Sulla to flee from Rome, after which he enrolled the Italians and gave the Mithridatic command to Marius.

Gaius Marius (Latin: [ˈɡaːiʊs ˈmariʊs]; c. 157 BC – 13 January 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbric and Jugurthine wars, he held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times. Rising from a family of smallholders in a village called Ceraetae in the district of Arpinum, Marius acquired his initial military experience serving with Scipio Aemilianus at the Siege of Numantia in 134 BC. He won election as tribune of the plebs in 119 BC and passed a law limiting aristocratic interference in elections. Barely elected praetor in 115 BC, he next became the governor of Further Spain where he campaigned against bandits.

Marius attained his first consulship in 107 BC and became the commander of Roman forces in Numidia, where he brought an end to the Jugurthine War. By 105 BC Rome faced an invasion by the Cimbri and Teutones, and the comitia centuriata elected Marius consul for a second time to face this new threat. Marius was consul every year from 104 to 100 BC, and he defeated the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae and the Cimbri at Vercellae. However, Marius suffered political setbacks during his sixth consulship in 100 BC and afterwards entered a period of semi-retirement from public life.

Lucius Sextius Sextinus Lateranus was a Roman tribune of the plebs and is noted for having been one of two men (the other being Gaius Licinius Stolo) who passed the Leges Liciniae Sextiae of 368 BC and 367 BC. Originally, these were a set of three laws. One law provided that the interest already paid on debts should be deducted from the principal and that the payment of the rest of the principal should be in three equal annual installments. Another one provided restricted individual ownership of public land in excess of 500 iugeras (300 acres) and forbade the grazing of more than 100 cattle on public land. The most important law provided that one of the two consuls be a plebeian. Having been reelected nine times, Lucius Sextius Lateranus and Gaius Licinius Stolo held the plebeian tribunate for ten years. In 368 BC the laws regarding debt and land were passed, but the law regarding the consulship was rejected. In 367 BC this law was passed. In the same year the two tribunes of the plebs proposed a fourth law concerning the priests who were the custodians of the sacred Sibylline Books, and Lucius Sextius Lateranus was elected to serve as consul for the year 366 BC. Livy wrote that he was "the first of the plebeians to attain that honour."