Triumvirate (ancient Rome)

In the Roman Republic, triumviri or tresviri were special commissions of three men appointed for specific administrative tasks apart from the regular duties of Roman magistrates.

Most commonly when historians refer to Roman "triumvirs", they mean two political alliances during the crisis of the Roman Republic. The informal First Triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus was a loose political alliance arranged in 60 or 59 BC that lasted until the death of Crassus in the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC; they had no official capacity or function as actual triumviri, and the term is used as a nickname.

The Second Triumvirate or tresviri reipublicae constituendae of Octavian (later Augustus), Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was formed in 43 BC by passage of the lex Titia. Created for a five-year term and renewed for another five years, it officially lasted until the last day of 33 BC or possibly into 27 BC.


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