Editing First Triumvirate (section)

== Naming ==
The term "First Triumvirate", while well-known, is a misleading one which is regularly avoided by modern scholars of the late republic. Boards of a certain number of men such as [[decemviri]] were a feature of Roman administration, but this alliance was not one of them. The term appears nowhere in any ancient source, refers to no official position, and is "completely and obviously erroneous".{{sfn|Ridley|1999|p=143}} In the ancient world, the triple alliance was referred to with varying terms: Cicero, contemporaneously, wrote of "three men" (''tris homines'')<ref>Cic. ''Att.'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0474.phi057.perseus-lat1:2.9.2 2.9.2], cited by {{harvnb|Russell|2015}}.</ref> exercising a ''regnum''; a satire by [[Marcus Terentius Varro]] called it a "three-headed monster"; later historians such as Suetonius and Livy referred to the three as a ''societas'' or ''conspiratio''; the allies themselves "would presumably have referred to it simply as ''amicitia''".{{sfn|Russell|2015}}

The usage of the term "triumvirate" to describe this political alliance was unattested during the [[Renaissance]]. First attested in 1681,{{sfn|Ridley|1999|p=135}} the term emerged into widespread use only during the 18th century; for some time, knowledge that the term was a modern coinage was unknown, "revealed" only in 1807. By the 19th century, usage was somewhat regular – mostly in English and French sources, though not in German ones, – usually prefaced with clarifications that the term did not refer to any official position.{{sfn|Ridley|1999|p=139}}

More recently, scholars have started to avoid the term in publications altogether.{{sfn|Russell|2015}} Harriet Flower in ''Roman Republics'' writes that "First Triumvirate" is "misleading in equating the position of the 50s with the [[Second Triumvirate|official triumvirate]] of Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian",{{sfn|Flower|2010|p=148}} preferring "alliance"{{sfn|Flower|2010|p=88}} and "Big Three".{{sfn|Flower|2010|p=149}} Books by [[Andrew Lintott]] and [[Richard Billows]] also have avoided invocation of "First Triumvirate".{{sfn|Russell|2015}} Others add more reasons to avoid its use, for example, Robert Morstein-Marx in the 2021 book ''Julius Caesar and the Roman People'', "it is almost impossible to use the phrase 'First Triumvirate' without adopting some version of the view that it was a kind of conspiracy against the republic... Nomenclature matters... I eschew the traditional 'First Triumvirate' altogether".{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|pp=119–20}} Classicists writing for more general audience also have shied away from use of the term "First Triumvirate". [[Mary Beard (classicist)|Mary Beard]], for example, uses "Gang of Three" in her 2015 book ''SPQR''.{{sfn|Beard|2015|p=278}} Yet others, such as [[Adrian Goldsworthy]], have not, staying with the traditional nomenclature while explaining that the term is inaccurate.<ref>See, eg, {{harvnb|Goldsworthy|2006|pp=164–65}}.</ref>

The fourth edition of the ''[[Oxford Classical Dictionary]]'', for example, similarly says "the coalition formed between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus in 60&nbsp;BCE was wholly unofficial and never described at the time as a triumvirate... 'First' and 'Second Triumvirate' are modern and misleading terms".{{sfn|Cadoux|Lintott|2012}}