INTERREGNUM (Lat. inter, between, and regnum, reign)

This article appears in Volume V14, Page 711 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: I27-INV

INTERREGNUM (Lat. inter, between, and regnum, reign) , strictly a period during which the normal constituted authority is in abeyance, and government is carried on by a temporary authority specially appointed. Though originally and specific-ally confined to the sphere of sovereign authority, the

term

TERM

is commonly used by analogy in other connexions for any suspension of authority, during which affairs are carried on by specially appointed persons. The

term

TERM

originated in Rome during the regal period when an interrex was appointed (traditionally by the senate) to carry on the government between the death of one king and the election of his successor (see ROME: History, ad init.). It was subsequently used in Republican times of an officer appointed to hold the comitia for the election of the consuls when for some reason the retiring consuls had not done so. In the regal period when the senate, instead of appointing a king, decided to appoint interreges, it divided itself into ten decuries from each of which one senator was selected. Each of these tbu acted as king for five days, and if, at the end of fifty days, no king had been elected, the rotation was renewed. It was their duty to nominate a king, whose appointment was then ratified or refused by the curiae. Under the Republic similarly interreges acted for five days each. When the first consuls were elected (according to

Dionysius

DIONYSIUS
DIONYSIUS (c. 432–367 B.C.)

iv. 84 and Livy i. 6o), Spurius Lucretius held the comitia as interrex, and from that time down to the Second Punic War such

officers

OFFICERS

were from time to time appointed. Thenceforward there is no

record

RECORD (Lat. recordari, to recall to mind, from cor, heart or mind)

of the office till 82 B.C., when the senate appointed an interrex to hold the comitia which made
If the values of u occurring in (21) or (22) are u, up, uy, . . .
corresponding to values a, b, c, . . . 1 of x, the

formula

may be more symmetrically written
u = (xb) (xc). ..(xl)u +(xa) (xc)...(xl)up + . . (ab) (ac).. .(al) (ba) (bc)...(bl)
(xa) (xb) (xc)...
Sulla dictator (Appian, Bell. civ. 98). In 55, 53 and 52 interreges are again found, the last-mentioned being on the occasion when Pompey was elected sole

consul

.
The most noteworthy use of the term " Interregnum " in post-classical times is that of the

Great

GREAT

Interregnum in German history between the death of

Conrad

IV. (1254) and the election of Rudolf of

Habsburg

HABSBURG, or HAPSBURG

(1273). See GERMANY: History.

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