T R I 



1 R I 



Fruit with ten horizontal awl-fhaped tliorns. Style deci- 

 duous Native of Ceylon. The Jlems feem woody, and 



probably perennial. Whole plant, excepting that circum- 

 ftance, much like T. terrejlris hereafter defcribed, but the 

 leaves are more hairy, or filky. Each of the five combined 

 wrinkled capjules is armed with a pair of fharp, tapering, 

 prominent thorns, twice the length of the capfule ; but the 

 bafe is nearly, or quite, deilitute of fpines. The foiuers 

 feem to be yellow, the fi^e of the laft, witli a Ihort, thick, 

 deciduous_/?)'/c 



3. T. ternjlns. Small Caltrops. Linu. Sp. PI. 554. 

 WiUd. n. 3. Ait. n. 2. Sm. Fl. Graec. Sibth. t. 372, 

 unpubhdied. Camer. Epit. 714. Matth. Valgr. v. 2. 323. 

 Ger. Em. 1246. 



Leaflets fix pair, rather hairy, nearly equal. Fruit with 

 ten horizontal awl-lhaped thorns, and as many deflexed 

 fmaller ones. Style deciduous — Native of the louth of 

 Europe, by way fides, as well as in cultivated ground. 

 Dr. Sibthorp obferved this fpecies every where in Greece, 

 retaining its ancient name a little altered, TfigoXi. This is 

 doubtlefs the t;i^o?,o,- p^.-js-aio:, or Land Caltrop, of Diofco- 

 rides. The Turks call it Dirtiio Dikieni. We have an 

 Eaft Indian fpecimen from the late Dr. Roxburgli. The 

 annual root produces many long, reddifli, hairy, leafy, 

 flightly branched, proftrate Jlems. Leaflets fmaller, and 

 more numerous, than in our firft fpecies ; lefs hairy than in 

 the fecond ; all nearly of equal fize, the outer, or terminal, 

 ones being, if any thing, rather the fmalleft. Flowers 

 yellow, on fhortifh, fimple, folitary, axiUary ftalks. Style 

 thick, hardly fo long as the germen, deciduous. Stigma of 

 five prominent rays. Capfuks tuberculated, each with four 

 awl-fliaped thorns, of which the larger are fcarcely half fo 

 big as thofe of T. lanuginofus. Thofe at the bafe are fl:ill 

 fmaller, pointing diredly downwards, and ferve cliiefly to 

 diftinguiih the prefent fpecies from the laft. The herb has 

 been reputed coohng and emolhent, ever fince the time of 

 Diofcorides. He fays the Thracians, who inhabited the 

 banks of the Strymon, fed their horfes with the green plant, 

 and made bread for themfelves of its feeds. 



4. T. ciftoides. Ciftus-flowered Caltrops. Linn. Sp. 

 PI. 554. Willd. n.4. Ait. n. 3. Jacq. Hort. Schoenbr. 

 V. I. 54. t. 103. (T.terreftris major coraffavicus ; Herm. 

 Farad. 236. t. 236. T. terreftris americanus, argemones flore 

 flavo ; Pluk. Phyt. t. 67. f. 4.) — Leaflets about eight 

 pair, filky beneath, nearly equal. Petals twice as long as 

 the calyx. — Native of meadows in the Weft Indies. A 

 ftove-plant with us, flowering in June and July, but not 

 in general culture. The root is perennial, thick and woody, 

 though Hermann fays annual. Stems many, herbaceous, 

 diffufe, clothed with handfome leaves, whofe upper leaflets 

 are fmalleft. Flowers yellow, large and handfome, two 

 inches wide, their ftalks longer than the correfponding leaves. 

 Capfuks, according to Jacquin, each armed with four thorns 

 of nearly equal fize. 



Tjiibulus Mar'mus, the caltrop-Jhell, in Natural Hljlory, 

 the name of a peculiar fpecies of the purpura. It is of a 

 whitilh colour, and has three rows of fpines. 



TRIBUNAL, Judgment-Seat, the feat of a judge. 

 The tribunal, in a court of juftice, is properly the feat or 

 bench on which the judge, and his aflbciates, are placed, for 

 the adminiftration of juftice, &c. 



The word is Latin, and takes its origin from a feat raifed 

 from the ground, on which the tribune of the Roman people 

 was placed to adminifter juftice. 



Tribunal, among the Ancients, was alfo a place from 

 whence the people were harangued. 



Among the Romans, it was an eminence in a temple, or 

 a 



a fonim, as that called pro rojlrts, where the people were 

 harangued in tribes. 



The French architecls likewife ufe the word tribune for 

 a gallery or eminence in a church, or any other place, in 

 which the mufic is placed for a fymphony or concert. 

 Tribune, or tribunal, is alfo ufed for a room or hall in 

 which juftice is adminiftered ; fuch, e. g. as the courts at 

 Weftminfter. 



TRIBUNE of the People, Tribunus Plebh, in Antiquity, 

 a Roman magiftrate, chofen out of the commons, to pro- 

 teft them againft the oppreftions of the great, and to defend 

 the liberty of the people againft the attempts of the fenate 

 and confuls. 



Tlie tribunes of tlie people were firft eftabliflied in the 

 year of Rome 260. The firft defign of the creation was 

 to flicker the people from the cruelties of ufurers, and to 

 engage them to quit the Aventine mount, whither they liad 

 retired in difpleafure. 



Their number, at firft, was but two ; and the next year, 

 under the confulate of A. Pofthumus Aruncius and 

 Caffius Vifcelliuus, there were three more added ; and this 

 number of five was afterwards increafed by L. Trebonius to 

 ten. 



The appellation tribune was given them, becaufe they 

 were at firft chofen out of the tribunes of the army. See: 

 the article following. 



The tribunes were, as it were, the heads and guardians 

 of the people. They called aflembhes of tlie people when 

 they pleafed ; and in thofe alTembhes tliey frequently an- 

 nulled the decrees of the fenate. Nothing could be con- 

 cluded without their confent, which they exprefted by fub- 

 fcribing the letter T at the bottom of the decree. They 

 had it alfo in their power to prevent the execution of any 

 decree, without giving any reafon for it, and merely by fub- 

 fcribing Veto. This interpofition was called intercejfio. 

 They fometimes even called the confuls and diftator to 

 account for their conduft before the people. The tribunes 

 of the people, by virtue of their office, claimed and exer- 

 cifed a power of fummoning the fenate at any time, when- 

 ever the affairs of the people required it, though the confuls 

 themfelves were in the city. It has been taken for granted, 

 on the authority of Valerius Maximus, tliat die tribunes of 

 the people, on their firft creation, were not admitted into 

 the fenate, but had feats placed for them before the door in 

 the veftibule. But we may reafonably conclude, that a ma- 

 giftrate fo ambitious and powerful, who could controul, by 

 his fingle negative, whatever pafled within doors, would not 

 long be content to fit without. Dionyf. Halic. x. 31, 

 Middlet. of Rom. Senat. p. 129. Val. Max. lib. ii. 

 cap. 27. 



A. Gellius fays that they were not made fenators be- 

 fore the law of Atinius, who is fuppofed to be C. Atinius 

 Labeo, tribune of the people, A.U. 623 ; but that cannot 

 poffibly be true, fince it is evident from the authority of 

 Dionyfius, that near four centuries before, the tribunes, by 

 the mere weight and great power of their office, had gained 

 an aftual admiffion into the fenate, within two years after 

 their firft creation ; in wliich we find them debating and en- 

 forcing, with great warmth, the demands of the commons, 

 for a liberty of intermarriages with the nobles, and tlie 

 choice of a plebeian conful. So that tlie intent of this 

 Atinian law could not be, as it is commonly underftood, fl 

 that the tribunes ftiould be fenators in virtue of their office, * 

 for that they had been from the beginning ; but that for the 

 future they (hould always be chofen out of the body of the 

 fenate, or, which is the fame thing, out of thofe who had 

 already borne the office of quxftor. A. Gell. xiv. 8. Vide 



Pigliil. 



