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Updated: May 27, 2025
The persons elected were, Caius Sulpicius Peticus himself, who first resigned the office of interrex, and Titus Quinctius Pennus. Some attach the name of Kæso, others that of Caius to Quinctius.
When the plebeian tribunes did not suffer the decree of the senate to pass, and when they also protested against the election of consuls, the affair was brought to an interregnum. The victory was then on the side of the patricians. Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, interrex, presiding in the assembly, Aulus Cornelius Cossus, Lucius Furius Medullinus were elected consuls.
Another measure, more severe in appearance, which ordered the patricians to assemble to nominate an interrex, in reality had much less force; for by this motion the mover gave expression to a decided opinion that those persons were magistrates of some kind or other who might hold a meeting of the senate, while he who recommended that no decree of the senate should be passed, had thereby declared them private citizens.
The ordinary presidents of the community were bound not to remain in office longer than a year reckoned from the day of their entering on their functions; and they ceased -de jure- to be magistrates upon the expiry of the year, just as the interrex on the expiry of the five days.
The consul conducting the election was by no means a mere returning officer; he could still, e. g. by virtue of his old royal prerogative reject particular candidates and disregard the votes tendered for them; at first he might even limit the choice to a list of candidates proposed by himself; and what was of still more consequence when the collegiate consulship was to be supplemented by the dictator, of whom we shall speak immediately, in so supplementing it the community was not consulted, but on the contrary the consul in that case appointed his colleague with the same freedom, wherewith the interrex had once appointed the king.
The consul conducting the election was by no means a mere returning officer; he could still, e. g. by virtue of his old royal prerogative reject particular candidates and disregard the votes tendered for them; at first he might even limit the choice to a list of candidates proposed by himself; and what was of still more consequence when the collegiate consulship was to be supplemented by the dictator, of whom we shall speak immediately, in so supplementing it the community was not consulted, but on the contrary the consul in that case appointed his colleague with the same freedom, wherewith the interrex had once appointed the king.
When the year began, no Consuls had been chosen, and an interrex became necessary one interrex after another to make the election of Consuls possible in accordance with the forms of the constitution. These men remained in office each for five days, and it was customary that an election which had been delayed should be completed within the days of the second or third interrex.
Then the interrex, having summoned an assembly of the people, addressed them as follows: "Do you, Quirites, choose yourselves a king, and may this choice prove fortunate, happy, and auspicious; such is the will of the fathers. Then, if you shall choose a prince worthy to be reckoned next after Romulus, the fathers will ratify your choice."
The duration of the office of -interrex- was fixed for the individual holders at not more than five days; it circulated accordingly among the senators on the footing that, until the royal office was again permanently filled up, the temporary holder at the expiry of that term nominated a successor to himself, likewise for five days, agreeably to the order of succession fixed by lot.
In the second interregnum a dispute arose, because two patrician consuls were elected: and the tribunes protesting, Fabius the interrex said, that "it was a law in the twelve tables, that whatever the people ordered last should be law and in force; that the suffrages of the people were their orders."
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