Also 7 -ver. Pl. -virs, or in L. form -viri. [a. L. triumvir, usually in pl. triumvirī (also trēsvirī), back-formation from trium virōrum, gen. pl. of trēs virī three men.] Rom. Hist. One of three magistrates or public officers forming a committee charged with one of the departments of the administration; also, a member of the coalition of Pompey, Cæsar and Crassus, B.C. 60 (first triumvirate), or of the administration of Cæsar, Antony and Lepidus, B.C. 43 (second triumvirate).
1577. J. Bishop, Beautiful Blossomes, vi. 141. While he [Herod] was a priuate man,… was he in daunger of death, being accused by an honourable Embassage of an hundreth Iewes, before Antonius the Triumuir, for oppressing of the realme, and subiectes.
1579–80. North, Plutarch (1595), 940. M. Anthony the Triumuir.
1600. Holland, Livy, VI. xxi. 232. They created certaine Quinqueviri for the division of the Pomptine lands: and Triumviri for the planting of a colonie at Nepet.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, Notes 626. Virgil had … describ’d the Miseries which Rome had undergone betwixt the Triumvirs and the Common-wealth-Party.
1704. Hearne, Duct. Hist. (1714), I. 378. Three Men called Triumviri were yearly appointed to be Judges what Lands were Public and what Private.
1814. Byron, Corsair, II. xv. Yet be the soft triumvir’s fault forgiven.
1847. Tennyson, Princ., VII. 116. By axe and eagle sat, With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls … The fierce triumvirs.
b. transf. and fig. pl. Three persons (or things) associated in power or authority; cf. TRIUMVIRATE 2, 3; spec. in the French Revolution: see quot. 1895.
1619. Purchas, Microcosmus, v. 34. Those Triumviri, the Liver, Heart, and Braine.
1788. Gentl. Mag., Jan., 16/2. Those triumviri in the republick of letters, Lipsius, Casaubon, Scaliger.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. VI. vii. Saint-Just is standing motionless,… Couthon ejaculating, ‘Triumvir?’ … Robespierre is struggling to speak.
1894. Q. Rev., July, 98. Keble, Newman and Pusey have been called its Triumvirs.
1895. Edin. Rev., Oct., 388. The Triumvirs, as they were called,—that is, Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just.
Hence Triumvirship, triumvirate.
1597. Beard, Theatre God’s Judgem. (1612), 411. In the beginning of his triumuirship.
1870. Echo, 7 Nov. Everybody is surprised at the narrow escape we have had from another Reign of Terror, under the triumvirship of those arch-demagogues, MM. Flourens, Pyat, and Blanqui.
