country_of_citizenship caecilia metella 
Tribunus , in English tribune , was the title of various elected officials in ___MASK42___ . The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes . For most of Roman history , a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the authority of the senate and the annual magistrates , holding the power of " ius intercessionis " to intervene on behalf of the plebeians , and veto unfavourable legislation . There were also military tribunes , who commanded portions of the Roman army , subordinate to the higher magistrates , such as the consuls and praetors , promagistrates , and their legates . Various officers within the Roman army were also known as tribunes . The title was also used for several other positions and classes in the course of Roman history . Gaius Julius Caesar ( 13 July 100 BC  15 March 44 BC ), known as Julius Caesar , was a Roman ___MASK57___ , general , and notable author of Latin prose . He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire . The Caecilii Metelli , one of the most important and wealthy families in the ___MASK17___ , came of noble ( although plebeian , not patrician ) stock . The Caecilii Metelli remained a political power within the state from the 3rd century BC to the end of the Republic in the 1st century BC , holding every office in the " cursus honorum " as well as several important military commands . Caecilia Metella was daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer by his wife , the notorious Clodia . In 53 BC , Metella Celer was married to Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther , a conservative ___MASK57___ , allied to her father ' s family . Like her mother , Metella did not content herself with a simple married life . Briefly after the wedding she started an affair with Publius Cornelius Dolabella , a man of the opposite political spectrum . Spinther divorced her in 45 BC in the midst of a huge scandal . Marcus Tullius Cicero bitterly discusses the affair in his letters , because at the time , his daughter Tullia was Dolabella ' s wife . Metella went back to her family in absolute disgrace . She was still in her twenties and very beautiful . Her cousins did not hesitate in using her for political conspiracies . Metella seduced several of Julius Caesar ' s intimate friends , in order to get the family name cleared after the defeat of the Optimates in the battles of Pharsalus and Munda . Amongst her non - political lovers is the poet Ticida , who wrote about Metella , giving her the name of Perilla . Her last known lover was one Aesopo , a wealthy member of the equites , who supported the Caecilii Metellii for a few years . Her date of death is unknown . Clodia ( born Claudia , c . 95 or 94 BC ), nicknamed Quadrantaria , and occasionally referred to in scholarship as Clodia Metelli (" Clodia the wife of Metellus "), was one of three known daughters of the ancient Roman patrician Appius Claudius Pulcher and either Caecilia Metella Balearica , or her cousin , Caecilia Metella daughter of Lucius Caecilius Metellus Diadematus . Lucius Caecilius Metellus Diadematus was the second son of Roman ___MASK57___ and general Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus . Publius Cornelius Lentulus , nicknamed Spinther because of his likeness to a popular actor of that name , came from an ancient Roman patrician family of the Cornelia gens . Although treated with great favour by Julius Caesar , Spinther eventually came to support the aristocratic senatorial cause of Caesar ' s great rival Pompeius Magnus and to align himself with the Optimates party . This proved an unwise move that would eventually lead to his political destruction and perhaps to his death . Publius Cornelius Dolabella ( c . 85  80 BC  43 BC ) was a Roman general , by far the most important of the Dolabellae . He arranged for himself to be adopted by a plebeian so that he could become a Tribune . He married Cicero ' s daughter , Tullia . Throughout his life he was an extreme profligate , something that Plutarch wrote reflected ill upon his patron Julius Caesar . Marcus Tullius Cicero ( " Kikern "; 3 January 106 BC  7 December 43 BC ) was a Roman philosopher , ___MASK57___ , lawyer , orator , political theorist , consul , and constitutionalist . He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order , and is considered one of Rome ' s greatest orators and prose stylists . In ___MASK42___ , a gens ( or ), plural gentes , was a family consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor . A branch of a gens was called a " stirps " ( plural " stirpes "). The " gens " was an important social structure at Rome and throughout ___MASK55___ during the period of the Roman Republic . Much of an individual ' s social standing depended on the gens to which he belonged . Certain gentes were considered patrician , others plebeian , while some had both patrician and plebeian branches . The importance of membership in a gens declined considerably in imperial times . The cursus honorum ( Latin : " course of offices ") was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in both the ___MASK17___ and the early Roman Empire . It was designed for men of senatorial rank . The cursus honorum comprised a mixture of military and political administration posts . Each office had a minimum age for election . There were minimum intervals between holding successive offices and laws forbade repeating an office . The optimts (" aristocrats ", singular ; also known as " bon ", " Good Men ") were the traditionalist Senatorial majority of the late ___MASK17___ . They wished to limit the power of the popular assemblies and the Tribunes of the Plebs , and to extend the power of the Senate , which was viewed as more dedicated to the interests of the aristocrats who held the reins of power . In particular , they were concerned with the rise of individual generals who , backed by the tribunate , the assemblies and their own soldiers , could shift power from the Senate and aristocracy . They were opposed by the populares . Dolabella was a " cognomen " used by a branch of the patrician Cornelia gens in ___MASK42___ . Notable individuals include :