INTERREX, the magistrate who governs during an interregnum. This magistrate was established in ancient Rome, and was almost as old as the city itself. After the death of Romulus there was an interregnum of a year, during which the senators were interreges in their turn, five days each.
After the establishment of consuls and of a commonwealth, though there were no kings, yet the name and function of interrex was still preserved; for, when the magistrates were absent, or there was any irregularity in their election, or they had abdicated, so that the comitia could not be held, provided they were unwilling to create a dictator, they made an interrex, whose office and authority lasted five days, and after this they appointed another. To the interrex was delegated all the regal and consular authority, and he performed all their functions. He assembled the senate, held comitia or courts, and took care that the election of magistrates was made according to rules. Indeed at first it was not the custom of the interrex to hold comitia, at least we meet with no instance of it in
the Roman history. The patricians alone had the right of electing an interrex; but this office fell with the republic, when the emperors made themselves masters of everything.