2. Tresviri epulones, a priestly body (open from its first institution to the plebeians), assisted at public banquets. Their number was subsequently increased to seven, and by Caesar to ten, although they continued to be called septemviri, a name which was still in use at the end of the 4th century A.D. They were first created in 196 B.C. to superintend the epulum Jovis on the Capitol, but their services were also requisitioned on the occasion of triumphs, imperial birthdays, the dedication of temples, games given by private individuals, and so forth, when entertainments were provided for the people, while the senate dined on the Capitol.
3. Tresviri monetales were superintendents of the mint. Up to the Social War they were nominated from time to time, but afterwards became permanent officials. Their number was increased by Caesar to four, but again reduced by Augustus. As they acted for the senate they only coined copper money under the empire, the gold and silver coinage being under the exclusive control of the emperor. The official title was “tresviri aere argento auro fiando feriundo.”
4. Tresviri reipublicae constituendae was the title bestowed upon Octavianus, Lepidus and Antony for five years by the lex Titia, 43 B.C. The coalition of Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus has also been wrongly called a “triumvirate,” but they never had the title tresviri, and held no office under that name.
See T. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht (1888), ii. 594-601, 638, 601, 718; J. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung (1885), iii. 347.
TREVELYAN, SIR GEORGE OTTO, Bart. (1838–),
British author and statesman, only son of Sir Charles Trevelyan,
was born on the 20th of July 1838 at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire. His mother was Lord Macaulay’s sister. He was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was second in the classical tripos. In 1861 he wrote his Horace at the University of Athens, a topical drama in verse, parts of which are said to have offended Whewell and lost Trevelyan a fellowship. The following year he went out as a civil servant to India, where he spent several years. During
his stay he contributed “Letters of a Competition Wallah” to Macmillan’s Magazine (republished 1864). Cawnpore, an account of that terrible tragedy, was published in 1865. During the same year he was elected to parliament for Tynemouth in the Liberal interest. In 1867 he wrote The Ladies in Parliament, a humorous political brochure in verse. At the general election of 1868 he was returned for the Hawick burghs, which he continued to represent until 1886. When the first Gladstone
ministry was formed, in December 1868, Trevelyan was appointed civil lord of the Admiralty, but resigned in July 1870 on a point of conscience connected with the government Education Bill. He advocated a sweeping reform of the army, including the abolition of the purchase of commissions, and both in and out of parliament he was the foremost supporter for many years of the extension of the county franchise. In
the session of 1874 he brought forward his Household Franchise
(Counties) Bill, which was lost on the second reading; it was not till ten years later that the agricultural labourer was enfranchized. Among other causes which he warmly supported were women’s suffrage, a thorough reform of metropolitan local government, and the drastic reform or abolition of the House of Lords. He was also in favour of the direct veto and other temperance legislation. In 1876 he published The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, one of the most admirable and
most delightful of modern biographies; and in 1880 he published The Early History of Charles James Fox. In the latter year he was appointed parliamentary secretary to the Admiralty. This office he held until May 1882, when, after the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish, he became for two years chief secretary for Ireland. From November 1884 to June 1885 he was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. In February 1886 he became secretary for Scotland, but resigned on the
26th of March on account of his disagreement with some of Mr Gladstone’s Irish Home Rule proposals. The same year he succeeded his father in the baronetcy. At the general election of 1886 Sir George Trevelyan lost his seat for Hawick. As a representative of the Unionist party he took part in the Round Table Conference, and, being satisfied with the modifications made by Mr Gladstone in his Home Rule scheme,
he formally rejoined the Liberal party. In August 1887 he re-entered the House of Commons as member for the Bridgeton division of Glasgow; and from 1892 to 1895 he was secretary for Scotland. Early in 1897 he resigned his seat in parliament and retired into private life. In 1899 he published the first volume of a History of the American Revolution, which was completed (3 vols.) in 1905; in the latter year, as Interludes in Prose and Verse, he republished his early classical jeux d'esprit and Indian pieces. He had married in 1869 Caroline Philips, whose father was M.P. for Bury. His eldest son, Charles Philips Trevelyan (b. 1870), became Liberal M.P. for the Elland division of Yorkshire in 1899, and in 1908 was appointed parliamentary secretary to the Board of Education. The third son, George Macaulay Trevelyan (b. 1876), became well known as a brilliant historical writer, notably with two books on Garibaldi (1907 and 1909).
TREVET (or Trivet), NICHOLAS (c. 1258–c. 1328), English chronicler, was the son of Sir Thomas Trevet (d. 1283), a judge, and became a Dominican friar. After studying at Oxford and in Paris, he spent most of his subsequent years in writing and teaching, and died about 1328. His chief work is his Annales sex regum Angliae, a chronicle of English history covering the period between 1135 and 1307; this is valuable for the later part of the reign of Henry III. and especially for that of Edward I., who was the author’s contemporary. A member of the same family was Sir Thomas Trivit (d. 1383), a soldier of repute, who saw a good deal of service in France, and died in October 1383.
The Annales were published in Paris in 1668, in Oxford in 1719, and were edited by Thomas Hog for the English Historical Society in 1845. Manuscripts are at Oxford and in the British Museum. Trevet’s other historical works are Catalogue regum anglo-saxonum durante heptarchia, and Les Cronicles qe frere N. Trevet escript a dame Marie (“Marie” was Edward I.’s daughter Mary). From the latter Chaucer is believed to have obtained his Man of Law’s Tale. Trevet also wrote a number of works of a theological and philological character.
TREVI (anc. Trebiae), a town of the province of Perugia, Italy, 30 m. S.E. of Perugia and 5 m. S. of Foligno by rail. Pop. (1901), 5708. The town stands on a steep hill 1355 ft. above sea-level. Several of its churches are architecturally interesting, especially the Madonna delle Lacrime (1487) outside the town, the elegant early Renaissance architecture of which resembles that of the Madonna del Calcinaio at Cortona, and most of them (and also the municipal picture gallery) contain paintings by artists of the Umbrian school—notably
Lo Spagna, a pupil of Perugino. S. Emiliano has a group of three altars decorated with fine sculptures by Rocco da Vicenza (1521). The ancient town is believed to have been situated 13 m. to the north-west, but little is known of it, and no remains save inscriptions exist.
TREVIGLIO, a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Bergamo, 14 m. by rail S. by W. of that town, 410 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 5899 (town); 14,897 (commune). It has a fine church (S. Martino) containing pictures by Butinone, and Zenale (1436–1526), both natives of the town, and having a lofty campanile of the 13th and 14th centuries. It has important silk works, wool-spinning, and other manufactories. It is a junction for Verona, Cremona and Bergamo, and steam tramways run to Monza, Lodi, &c.
TREVIRANUS, GOTTFRIED REINHOLD (1776–1837), German naturalist, was born at Bremen on the 4th of February 1776. He studied medicine at Göttingen, where he took his doctor’s degree in 1796, and a year later he was appointed professor of medicine and mathematics in the Bremen lyceum. He died at Bremen on the 16th of February 1837.
