CONSUL, the chief magistrate of the Roman commonwealth. They were two in number, chosen every year in the Campus Martius, by the people assembled in the comitia centuriata. In the first times of the commonwealth, no man could pretend to this dignity, but such as were of a patrician family; but afterwards the people obtained, that one of the consuls should be chosen from among them. A consul was commonly chosen at forty-three years of age, but this was not always observed: besides, it was requisite he should have exercised other offices, as that of quaestor, ædile, and prætor: and yet this condition was no better observed than the first; for Pompey had never been prætor nor quaestor when he obtained the consulship. Their authority and power was of very great extent, so long as the commonwealth subsisted. They were the
the head of the senate: they commanded the armies, and were supreme judges of the differences between the citizens; but as they had made some abuse of this power, it was allowed by the Valerian law for the party aggrieved to appeal from their tribunal to the people, especially in cases where the life of a citizen was concerned. Under the emperors, consul was little more than an honourable title, and at last it became absolutely extinct in the time of Justinian. From the establishment of the republic to the consulate of Basil, that is, from the year of Rome 244, to the year of Rome 1294, the years are accounted by the consuls; but after that period, the time was computed by the years of the emperors reigns and the indictions.