The institution of the tribunate as a measure of defence by the plebeians, the raising of the numbers from five to ten and the chief powers of the office have already been described. By the time that the struggle between the orders was over the tribunes had been for so long part of Roman public life that there was no attempt to abolish them and they continued to exist throughout the republic and well into the empire. Strictly, they remained magistrates not of the whole populus, but of the plebs only; they continued to be elected in the concilium plebis; they must be plebeians, and they bore no outward sign of rank whatever; in effect however they ranked as magistrates and the office was one regularly held by plebeians in the cursus honorum or magisterial career. They also obtained the right not only of sitting in but also of convening the senate.
The three powers which gave to the tribunate its greatest political importance were the intercessio by which they continued to be able to bring the whole business of the state to a standstill, their legislative power as presidents of the concilium plebis and their general power of coercitio which continued to be used chiefly for dealing with political offences, and especially for the prosecution of magistrates after the expiration of their term of office. Where the punishment which the tribunes desired to inflict was so severe as to be beyond the jurisdiction of the concilium plebis, the consul was bound to summon the centuries for the tribune, so as to enable him to defend the sentence before them.
