celebration of games (Dio Cassius lvi. 46, lix. 20) that the tenure was progressively shortened. In the early principate the consuls hold office for six months, later for four to two months (Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. pp. 84-87). The consuls appointed for the 1st of January were called ordinarii, the others suffecti; and the whole year was dated by the names of the former.
This distinction continued in the Empire that was founded by Diocletian and Constantine. The ordinarii were nominated by the emperor, the suffecti were nominated by the senate, and their appointment was ratified by the emperor. The consulship was still the greatest dignity which the Empire had to bestow; and the pomp and ceremony of the office increased in proportion to the decline in its actual power. The entry of the consuls on office was celebrated by a great procession, by games given to the people, by a distribution of gifts, such as the ivory diptychs, a long series of which has been preserved. But the senate, over which they presided until the time of Justinian, was little more than the municipal council of the city of Rome; and the justice which they meted out had dwindled down to the formal and uncontested acts of manumission and the granting of guardians. Sometimes there was a consul of the West at Rome and a consul of the East at Constantinople; at other times both consuls might be found in either capital. The last consul born in a private station was Basilius in the East in A.D. 541. But the emperors continued to bear the title for some time longer.
Authorities.—Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, ii. pp. 74-140 (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1887); Herzog, Geschichte und System der römischen Staatsverfassung, i. p. 688 foll., 827 foll. (Leipzig, 1884, &c.), Lange, Römische Alterthümer, i. p. 524 foll. (Berlin, 1856, &c.); Schiller, Staats- und Rechtsaltertümer, p. 53 foll. (Munich, 1893, Handbuch der klassischen Altertums-Wissenschaft, von Dr Iwan von Müller); Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, i. 1455 foll. (1875, &c.); De Ruggiero, Dizionario epigrafico di antichità Romane, ii. 679 foll., 868 foll. (Rome, 1886, &c.); Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, iv. 1112 foll. (new edition, Stuttgart, 1893, &c.).
For the consular diptychs, cf. besides Daremberg-Saglio, l.c., Gori, Thesaurus veterum diptychorum (Florence, 1759), and Labarte, Histoire des arts industriels au moyen âge, i. p. 10 foll., 190 foll. (1st ed., Paris, 1864). (A. H. J. G.)
CONSUL, a public officer authorized by the state whose commission
he bears to manage the commercial affairs of its subjects
in a foreign country, and formally permitted by the government
of the country wherein he resides to perform the duties which
are specified in his commission, or lettre de provision. (For the
ancient magisterial office of consul see separate article above.)
A consul, as such, is not invested with any diplomatic character, and he cannot enter on his official duties until a rescript, termed an exequatur (sometimes a mere countersign endorsed on the commission), has been delivered to him by the authorities of the state to which his nomination has been communicated by his own government. This exequatur, called in Turkey a barat, may be revoked at any time at the discretion of the government where he resides. The status of consuls commissioned by the Christian powers to reside in Mahommedan countries, China, Korea, Siam, and, until 1899, in Japan, and to exercise judicial functions in civil and criminal matters between their own countrymen and strangers, is exceptional to the common law, and is founded on special conventions or capitulations (q.v.).
The title of consul, in the sense in which it is used in international law, is derived from that of certain magistrates, in the cities of medieval Italy, Provence and Languedoc, charged with the settlement of trade disputes whether by sea or land (consules mercatorum, consules artis maris, &c.).[1] With the growth of trade it early became convenient to appoint agents with similar powers in foreign parts, and these often, though not invariably, were styled consuls (consules in partibus ultramarinis).[2] The earliest foreign consuls were those established by Genoa, Pisa, Venice and Florence, between 1098 and 1196, in the Levant, at Constantinople, in Palestine, Syria and Egypt. Of these the Pisan agent at Constantinople bore the title of consul, the Venetian that of baylo (q.v.). In 1251 Louis IX. of France arranged a treaty with the sultan of Egypt under which French consuls were established at Tripoli and Alexandria, and Du Cange cites a charter of James of Aragon, dated 1268, granting to the city of Barcelona the right to elect consuls in partibus ultramarinis, &c. The free growth of the system was, however, hampered by commercial and dynastic rivalries. The system of French foreign consulships, for instance, all but died out after the crushing of the independent life of the south and the incorporation of Provence and Languedoc under the French crown; while, with the establishment of Venetian supremacy in the Levant, the baylo developed into a diplomatic agent of the first class at the expense of the consuls of rival states. The modern system of consulships actually dates only from the 16th century. Early in this century both England and Scotland had their “conservators” with “jurisdiction to do justice between merchant and merchant beyond the seas”; but France led the way. The alliance between Francis I. and Suleiman the Magnificent gave her special advantages in the Levant, of which she was not slow to take advantage. Her success culminated in the capitulations signed in 1604, under the terms of which her consuls were given precedence over all others and were endowed with diplomatic immunities (e.g. freedom from arrest and from domiciliary visits), while the traders of all other nations were put under the protection of the French flag. It was not till 1675 that, under the first capitulations signed with Turkey, English consuls were established in the Ottoman empire. Ten years earlier, under the commercial treaty between England and Spain, they had been established in Spain.
The frequent wars of the succeeding century hindered the development of the consular system. Thus, though the system of consuls was regularly established in France by the ordinance of 1661, in 1760 France had consuls only in the Levant, Barbary, Italy, Spain and Portugal, while she discouraged the establishment of foreign consuls in her own ports as tending to infringe her own jurisdiction. It was not till the 19th century that the system developed universally. Hitherto consuls had, for the most part, been business men with no special qualification as regards training; but the French system, under which the consular service had been long established as part of the general civil service of the country, a system that had survived the Revolution unchanged, was gradually adopted by other nations; though, as in France, consuls not belonging to the regular service, and having an inferior status, continued to be appointed. In Great Britain the consular service was organized in 1825 (see below); in France the series of ordinances and laws by which its modern constitution was fixed began in 1833. In Germany progress was hindered by the political conditions of the country under the old Confederation; for the Hanse cities, which practically monopolized the oversea trade, lacked the means to establish a consular system on the French model. The present magnificently organized consular system of Germany is, then, one of the most remarkable outcomes of the establishment of the united empire. It was initiated by an act of the parliament of the North German Confederation (Nov. 8, 1867), subsequently incorporated in the statutes of the Empire, which laid down the principle that the German consulates were to be under the immediate jurisdiction of the president of the Confederation (later the emperor). The functions, duties and privileges of French and German consuls do not differ materially from those of British consuls; but there is a great difference in the organization and personnel of the consular service. In France, apart from the consuls élus or consuls marchands, who are mere consular agents, selected by the government from among the traders of a
- ↑ The title of consul was borne by the chief municipal officers of several cities of the south of France during the middle ages and up to the Revolution. The name was not due to their being the successors of the chiefs of the Roman municipia. They were members of the governing body known as the consulat, and in Latin documents are sometimes styled consiliarii, i.e. councillors. The consulat itself is not traceable beyond the 12th century.
- ↑ Particular quarters of mercantile cities were assigned to foreign traders and were placed under the jurisdiction of their own magistrates, variously styled syndics, provosts (praepositi), échevins (scabini), &c., who had power to fine or to expel from the quarter. The Hanseatic League (q.v.), particularly, had numerous settlements of this kind, the earliest being the Steelyard at London, established in the 13th century.
