ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

through the authority of the senate.For the regular, annual magistracies, candidatespresented their names to the officer presiding over the election, and that officerdetermined if the candidate was acceptable with the tribunes of the plebs bearing the rightto challenge his ruling. 27Gargola suggests that the magistrate presiding over elections ofspecial commissions, such as those to found colonies, may have presented only enoughnames to fill the positions available or to allow a certain level of competition for some ofthe places on the commission.While Gargola's hypothesis seems to fit the election process for the colonialcommissions as a whole, I would suggest that sometimes the would-be commissionerscooperated among themselves to determine the composition of the boards of triumviri.Then, they presented their names as a group to the presiding magistrate, who offered thecomitia tributa the choice among one or more pre-formed commissions to perform thefoundation. This is only a hypothesis, but it seems a reasonable one based on themembership of the boards for the supplements of Narnia (199), the five maritime coloniesof 194, Potentia and Pisaurum (184), Parma and Mutina (183), Aquileia (183-181), andLuca (180). For these foundations, the composition of the commission was not alwaysdependent on the magistrate presiding over the election, but could have rested oncollaboration among the individual commissioners.Gargola (1995), p. 59, where he offers Livy 24.7.12-9.1 as an example of the power a magistrate couldhave over the election: Q. Fabius Maximus (cos. 215) ordered the centuries to vote again when he was notelected duovir to dedicate a temple he vowed.27 Gargola (1995), pp. 59-60.28 Ibid.104