TRIUMVIRATE
triumvirate Definition of triumvirate noun from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary
a group of three powerful people or groups who control something together They appointed a triumvirate of directors.
A triumvirate (Latin: triumvirātus) or a triarchy is a political institution ruled or dominated by three individuals, known as triumvirs (Latin: triumviri).
The arrangement can be formal or informal.
Though the three leaders in a triumvirate are notionally equal, the actual distribution of power may vary. The term can also be used to describe a state with three different military leaders who all claim to be the sole leader.
Pre-modern triumvirates
Biblical
In the Bible triumvirates occurred at some notable events in both the Old Testament and New Testament.
In the Book of Exodus
Moses, his brother
Aaron and,
according to some views their nephew or brother-in-law, Hur
acted this way during the Battle of Rephidim against the Amalekites.[1][2]
Later, when Moses was away on the Mount Sinai Aaron and Hur were left in charge of all the Israelites.[3]
In the Gospels as a leading trio among the Twelve Apostles at three particular occasions during public ministry of Jesus
acted Peter, James, son of Zebedee and his brother John.
They were the only apostles present at:
the Raising of Jairus' daughter,[4]
Transfiguration of Jesus[5] and
Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.[6]
Later, at the time of the Early Christian Church this triumvirate of the leading apostles changed slightly after the former James's death, as it became composed of Peter, John and James, brother of Jesus, known collectively also as the three Pillars of the Church.[7][8]
MODERN TRIUMVIRATES:
Ottoman Empire
The Three Pashas
Talaat Pasha (left), Enver Pasha (middle), Djemal Pasha (right)
The Three Pashas also known as Ottoman Triumvirate effectively ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I:
Mehmed Talaat Pasha (1874–1921), the Grand Vizier (prime minister) and
Ismail Enver Pasha (1881–1922), the Minister of War; and
Ahmed Djemal Pasha (1872–1922), the Minister of the Navy.
Modern Bosnia and Herzegovina
Post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina is ruled by a three-member Presidency.
Early modern and modern France
Triumvirate of (L-R) Saint-Just, Robespierre, and Couthon
While French Huguenots had derisively bestowed the name Triumvirate on the alliance formed in 1561 between Catholic Francis, Duke of Guise, Anne de Montmorency, and Jacques d'Albon during the French Wars of Religion, in later years the term would be used to describe other arrangements within France.
At the end of the 1700s, when the French revolutionaries turned to several Roman magistrature names for their newly created institutions, the three-headed collective head of state was named the Consulat (1799–1804), a term in use for two-headed magistratures since Antiquity; furthermore it included an office of First Consul who was not an equal, but the de facto solo head of state and government – a position Napoleon Bonaparte chose to convert openly into the First French Empire in 1804.
Prior to Napoleon and during the Terror from 1793 to 1794 Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, and Georges Couthon, as members of the governing Committee of Public Safety, were accused by their political opponents of forming an unofficial triumvirate, pointing out the first triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus which led to the end of the Roman Republic.
Although officially all members of the committee shared equal power the three men's friendship and close ideological base led their detractors to declaim them as triumvirs which was used against them in the coup of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794).[15]