Triumvirate
Triumvirate
The Rep
Category="Roman law"The term triumvirate (from trius 'three' plus the Latin noun vir 'man': hence '[rule] by three men') or troika in Russian, is commonly used to describe an alliance between three equally powerful political or military leaders. These alliances seldom hold very long. The term can also be used to describe a state with three different military leaders who all declare to be the sole leader of the state.
Roman Triumvirates
- twice in the late pre-Principate period of the Roman republic, political power shifted de facto from the formal magistrates and senate to three ambitious men (in each case one of them a sidekick to the rivaling pair of military heavyweights), who thus constituted a transitional government, known as triumviratus, each time only to break up again in civil war:
- in various municipalities, also under the Principate, the chief magistracy was a college of three, styled triumviri
- ?Byzantine Triumvirate
Modern Triumvirates
The title was revived a few times for (short-lived) three-headed political 'magistratures' in revolutionary France
modern Italy
- in the Roman Republic (1798-1850), the title of two sets of three joint chiefs of state in the year 1849:
29 March - 1 July 1849 Carlo Armellini (b. 1777 - d. 1863), Giuseppe Mazzini (b. 1805 - d. 1872) & Conte Aurelio Saffi (b. 1819 - d. 1890)1 till 4 July 1849 : Aurelio Saliceti (again), Alessandro Calandrelli (b. 1805 - d. 1888) & Livio Mariani (no dates available)
New World
- In the present Dominican Republic (eastern part of formerly Spanish Hispaniola island), twice (in a long list of styles, basically juntas, some also of three) :
29 May 1866 - 22 Aug 1866 - 1st Triumvirate (in rebellion from 1 May 1866) : Pedro Antonio Pimentel Chamorro (b. 1830 - d. 1874; formerly one of three 'Generals-in-Chief' 23 Jan 1865 - 24 Jan 1865 ), Gregorio Luperón (b. 1839 - d. 1897) PA & Federico de Jesús García26 Sep 1963 - 25 Apr 1965 - 2nd Triumvirate : Emilio de los Santos (b. 1903 - to 22 Dec 1963) (chairman; from 29 Dec 1963 succeeded by Donald Joseph Reid Cabral, b. 1923, UCN, new chairman), Manuel Enrique Tavares Espaillat (b. 1929) & Ramón Tapia Espinal (b. 1926 - d. 2002)
Other 'Triumvirates'
The word has been used as a term of convenience, though not an official title, for other groups of three in a similar position : in Fiction
See also
- Duumvirate - the equivalent term for two people
- Sevirate - the equivalent term for six people
- Septemvirate - the equivalent term for seven people
- Decemvirate - the equivalent term for ten people