Triumvirate
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Triumvirate. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a coalition of three men in office or applied to two great coalitions of the authority; specifically three most powerful individuals in the Roman empire for the time being. The first of these was effected in the year 60 B. C., between Julius Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus, who pledged themselves to support each other with all their influence. This coalition was broken by the fall of Crassus at Carrhæ in Mesopotamia; soon after which the civil war which ended with the death of Pompey, broke out, and establishment of Julius Cæsar as perpetual dictator. After his murder, 44 B. C., the civil war again broke out; and after the battle of Mutina, 43 B. C., Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus coalesced, thus forming the second triumvirate. They divided the provinces of the empire; Octavius taking the West, Lepidus Italy, and Antony the East. military highroad. The trocha played an
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
in Roman history, an agreement or alliance formed between three men. The First Triumvirate was formed 60 B. C. between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. Caesar had command of the field forces in Gaul; Pompey was made commissioner of corn supplies; Crassus had command in the east, where he was killed in 53 B. C. The Triumvirate ended in the civil war of 49 B. C., by which Caesar became supreme. The Second Triumvirate was formed in 43, between Octavius, Mark Antony, and Lepidus. The conspirators, for we may call them that, met on an island near Bologna. Octavius received command of the west, Antony of the east, and Lepidus of Africa. Octavius, known in history as Augustus, used the armies for his own purposes. In 31 B. C. he became supreme. See Caesar ; Pompey ; Crassus; Antony ; Octavius
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The bare facts here are as secure now as when Aiton's set them down in 1910: the pact of 60 B.C. among Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, and the alliance of Antony, Octavian and Lepidus after Mutina in 43 B.C. What historians now stress is the difference between the two, which neither entry draws: the first was a private, informal understanding with no legal standing at all — many scholars write it as the "so-called First Triumvirate" — while the second was a formal magistracy created by the lex Titia of 43 B.C., its holders styled tresviri rei publicae constituendae, three men for settling the state. The two accounts also disagree on the division of provinces, and Aiton's is nearer the mark: at the meeting near Bononia, Lepidus took Spain and Narbonese Gaul, not Italy as Collier's has it, and only later held Africa before Octavian stripped him of power in 36 B.C. Otherwise both entries still read well, and the word has since become common shorthand for any ruling three, Roman or not.
Written for this edition, 2026.