From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68

by H. H. Scullard

  2. THE FIRST SETTLEMENT (27 B.C.)4

  Although he was now probably ready for a settlement, Octavian was perhaps hurried to a decision by the sudden realization that time might otherwise confront him with rivals in the military field; at all cost this must be avoided. M. Licinius Crassus, the triumvir’s grandson, had as proconsul of Macedonia pacified Thrace and defeated the Bastarnae: he required a triumph and the exceptional honour of the spolia opima, granted to only two Romans since Romulus, for having killed the enemy leader in single combat. Octavian demurred: Crassus was granted his triumph, but not the spolia opima, nor even the title of imperator which other proconsuls had received since Actium. Again C. Cornelius Gallus, the ambitious prefect of Egypt, lost Octavian’s favour; recalled, perhaps in 28, he was prosecuted for high treason and committed suicide (27). His precise offence is not known, but he had set up at Philae a grandiloquent trilingual inscription, claiming to have led his victorious troops farther south in Egypt than any other Roman or ruler of Egypt.

  After Octavian had doubtless consulted his friends and thus paved his way, in a meeting of the Senate on 13 January 27 B.C. he suddenly renounced all his powers and provinces and placed them at the free disposal of the Senate and Roman People. When this statement was greeted with cries of protest, he agreed with apparent reluctance to undertake the administration of a large provincia, comprising Spain, Gaul and Syria, for a period of ten years, possibly with proconsular authority.5 He was also, and continued to be, consul in Rome, but that need cause no difficulty, since Pompey had been in a similar position in 52 (p. 103). The rest of the provinces would be governed by promagistrates, responsible to the Senate, as earlier. Three days later a grateful Senate voted him further honours. His doorposts were decorated with laurel and his door-lintel with oak because he had saved the lives of Roman citizens (‘ob cives servatos’, as the coins declared). A golden shield was set up in the Senate-house, commemorating his ‘valour, clemency, justice and piety’, and proclaiming the virtues of the ideal ruler, about which philosophers had long contended.6 More important still, he was given the name Augustus, and the month Sextilis was also so renamed. Thus, to all appearances, a plain settlement was reached on traditional lines: Octavian became Augustus, the first citizen (princeps) because of his services to his country, and he was given a large province with no more theoretical powers than any other consul or proconsul, in a restored Republic.7

  But was it all as simple as it seemed? What was the real meaning? The answer is by no means unambiguous. In the first place, however, it is clear that Augustus, though not made commander-in-chief of the armies, did in fact exercise a predominant military power and that the ultimate sanction of his authority was force, however much the fact was disguised. It is often said that in effect he and the Senate divided control of the provinces between them, Augustus taking the military ones where the armies were stationed, and the Senate retaining the more peaceful ones. As a general statement that may not be an unfair summary of the position later in his reign, but in 27 the situation was rather different. While he took over Spain, Gaul and Syria, three proconsuls with armies under their command still governed Illyricum, Macedonia and Africa; but he had under the settlement eliminated proconsuls from three large areas which he would administer through his own legati, who would be newer men loyal to himself. And whereas he commanded some twenty legions in his provincia, the three proconsuls had only some five or six. Thus, provided his officers remained loyal, his grip on the military position was secure: and that should mean peace in place of civil war.

  A further break with the revolutionary past is indicated by his new name and title; Octavian, the former triumvir, is forgotten in the presence of Augustus the Princeps. The use of Princeps (First Citizen), which was not an official constitutional term but rather a general form of address, was a happy choice. The word had been applied to outstanding statesmen in the Republic (e.g. Pompey), and it was not strictly limited to Augustus; Horace could hail him as ‘maxime principum’.8 His new name Augustus, which was preferred to that of Romulus for the new founder of Rome, had semi-religious connotations, and many men would recall that Ennius had described how Romulus himself had originally founded Rome ‘augusto augurio’. Another word that derived from the same root as augustus is auctoritas, and in a very famous passage of the Res Gestae Augustus claimed that ‘post id tempus [i.e. 27 B.C.] auctoriate omnibus praestiti’. The precise meaning of his auctoritas has been the subject of prolonged discussion. In all probability it had no strict constitutional significance and did not provide any legal basis for his power; rather, it only meant that he had more prestige, more moral authority, than any other individual in the State; the principes viri of the Republic had enjoyed auctoritas, and it was only the method by which men had secured the carrying out of their wishes without having to resort to direct orders or the use of their imperium. And few would dispute that Augustus enjoyed that kind of prestige.9

  In another well-known passage of the Res Gestae Augustus emphasized the link with the past: in his sixth and seventh consulships (28–27 B.C.) ‘rempublicam ex mea potestate in senatus populique Romani arbitrium transtuli’. This was in fact the official version of the settlement, and such phrases as ‘restituta republica’ occur in other writers. It appeared to be true: the Republican machinery of government was working again after the civil wars, with Augustus holding successive consulships, which in fact gave him civil control in Rome and Italy; if this imperium was limited to Italy, then he enjoyed a proconsular authority in a group of provinces. But there was little trace of autocracy, and none of dictatorship or tyranny. Yet when a phrase as ‘rem publicam restituit’ appears in an official document (such as the Fasti from Praeneste) it would be better to say that he restored ‘constitutional government’ rather than ‘the Republic’. Few men could doubt that they were overshadowed by a new master, who was in fact to develop into a constitutional monarch.

  3. THE SECOND SETTLEMENT (23 B.C.)

  For nearly three years Augustus absented himself from Rome, thinking perhaps that it would be wise to allow the New State time to settle down and adjust its outlook. About the middle of 27 he set off for his western provinces; from Gaul he passed to Spain where there was trouble in the north-west. In 26 he conducted a campaign against the Cantabrians, but was taken ill and had to leave others to finish it. His position at Rome in the meantime remained unshaken: he was duly elected consul again each year, and his colleagues in the city were loyal: his friend Agrippa in 27, and Statilius Taurus, who had supported him in many a campaign in the civil wars, in 26. Nevertheless, when he returned in 24, he soon ran into troubles and the following year proved of crucial importance. M. Primus, the governor of Macedonia and one of the independent proconsuls still left, was charged with having made war against Thrace without orders; Augustus denied in court that he had issued any such order and Primus was condemned for treason. More serious, a conspiracy was discovered, led by a Republican named Fannius Caepio; a Varro Murena, perhaps Augustus’ colleague in the consulship, was implicated and was among the conspirators that were condemned in their absence and killed on capture.10 This crisis was quickly followed by another: Augustus was taken seriously ill. He handed his signet-ring to Agrippa, and some state documents to his fellow-consul Piso, who had succeeded the unfortunate Murena: these gave little evidence of his hopes for the empire, which was not however to be left without his guidance. Thanks to some drastic cold-water treatment, prescribed by his doctor, he recovered.

  It was clearly time for Augustus to make a fresh start. He resigned his consulship on 1 July. Whether Murena’s plot or his own illness was the more important factor in this decision, the abandonment of the consulship had obvious advantages: it would relieve him of a certain amount of routine business; it would remove the opprobrium of keeping one of the nobles out of a consulship each year, and of holding an un-Republican series of consulships; at the same time it would increase the number of ex-consuls available for administration. By
way of compensation the Senate voted that his imperium should be enhanced in two important ways: it should not lapse when he entered the pomerium (the sacred boundary of the city) as did that of any other proconsul, and secondly it should be maius imperium proconsulare. The fact that it was made greater than that of any other proconsul meant that if Augustus disagreed with the governor of any senatorial province, he could exercise his own over-riding imperium there, or in other words he had a potential imperium over the whole empire and could issue orders to any army. In practice however he was most restrained and tactful, and interfered outside his own province very seldom and only when asked.11

  But this was not enough: he needed some compensation for the loss of the oversight of civilian affairs that the consulship had given him. In practice he might have found consuls and tribunes willing to implement his wishes (and many of his major laws were in fact sponsored by consuls), but he needed direct authority. This he obtained when he was given tribunicia potestas, probably for the first time, in 23 (p. 177). He made much display of this new power: he numbered the years of his reign by it, and Tacitus described it as ‘summi fastigii vocabulum’. It was popular and it gave him such rights as bringing measures before the People, and exercising a veto (intercessio), together with the iura of coercitio and auxilium. He could also summon and consult the Senate, but here consuls and other magistrates took precedence over tribunes; he was therefore given a special additional right, the ius primae relationis, by which he could bring forward the first motion at any meeting. Though the initiative in granting these honours came from the Senate, all his powers were probably sanctioned by the People, who will have passed a lex de imperio.12

  Thus the authority of Augustus was re-established on two foundations: tribunicia potestas which gave him civil authority in Rome itself, and proconsular imperium maius which gave him control of the armies and provinces. Of the two he discreetly kept the latter in the background (he did not even mention it in his Res Gestae), while he paraded the former before all men’s eyes. And these two powers remained the constitutional basis of the Principate throughout its history.

  4. CONSOLIDATION OF THE PRINCIPATE

  For further help Augustus turned to Agrippa, to whom he entrusted imperium, which is more likely to have comprised general authority over all the provinces (senatorial as well as imperial) in the East; Agrippa is unlikely to have received maius imperium.13 At any rate he was needed in the East and there he went before the end of 23. Since Augustus had recovered from his illness, there was less need to think of a successor: two possible ‘candidates’ were his nephew Marcellus or his friend Agrippa, but if there existed any tension between them, this was removed less by Agrippa’s departure than by the death of Marcellus during the autumn.

  The winter brought flood and famine. Rioting followed, and Augustus was urged to accept a dictatorship, an annual and perpetual consulship, or the censorship. He declined all these offers, but he did accept, like Pompey in 57, a cura annonae and helped to relieve the situation; he also secured the appointment of censors for 22, but they did little. Augustus then went to the East (22–19), while Agrippa, after a brief visit to Rome, went to Gaul and Spain where he ruthlessly established peace (20–19). While Augustus was away, the People wanted to elect him consul for 21 and when he refused they would not elect a second consul until Agrippa on his return finally induced them to do so. Even so at the elections for 19 they insisted on keeping a place vacant for Augustus. With the Princeps and Agrippa both away, the sole consul of 19, C. Sentius Saturninus, had to face a difficult situation when a certain Egnatius Rufus presented himself as a consular candidate, encouraged by the popularity that he had won a few years before when as aedile he had organized a private fire-brigade. Saturninus refused to accept Rufus’ candidature; rioting followed and envoys were sent to beg Augustus to return, but before he arrived in October, Rufus had been accused of treason and executed. Augustus, whose return was celebrated by the erection of an altar to Fortuna Redux, was granted the right to sit between the consuls of the year and to have twelve lictors. Whether he received other consular powers is uncertain: the historian Dio Cassius says that he was granted consular powers for life. This must certainly be an exaggeration: it is just possible that Augustus’ imperium was equated to that of the consuls and thus would be valid in Rome and Italy;14 alternatively he may have received some other specific rights enjoyed by a consul, as that of appointing a Prefect of the City. Then in 18 B.C. his ten-year grant of proconsular imperium was renewed for another five years.

  The needs of the provinces and frontiers had thus kept Augustus abroad for many years (27–24; 22–19; and again 16–13). The burden had to be shared, and he had turned to his friend Agrippa, who served in East (23–22) and West (20–19) and helped (though with what specific authority, if any, is unknown) to steady affairs in Rome in 21. Augustus then made him his son-in-law: Agrippa, who had to divorce his wife (Marcella the niece of Augustus), married Augustus’ daughter Julia, the widow of Marcellus. In 18 Agrippa’s imperium was enlarged: for five years he exercised proconsular imperium maius (like that of Augustus) and he received a grant of tribunicia potestas. Though he lacked some of the Princeps’ specific powers and his auctoritas, he nevertheless was approaching the position of a co-regent. If anything happened to Augustus, he might hope to secure power; for the moment he was needed in the East and he did not return to Rome until 13.

  Meanwhile Augustus was busy initiating reforms in Rome. He probably refused a ‘cura legum morumque’ which was voted him, and using his tribunicia potestas he carried some important social legislation (which is discussed below). He also remodelled the criminal code (including laws against electoral bribery and violence), and his right of appellate jurisdiction, that is of judging cases when Roman citizens, condemned on criminal charges, ‘appealed to Caesar’, was put on a sounder footing. He also conducted in 18 B.C. another revision of the Senate, by which its numbers were reduced to six hundred.15 By 17 B.C. the general work of reconstruction, which is discussed in more detail below, had reached a point at which Augustus felt that the new age of peace and prosperity might be marked by a public ceremony. By a certain manipulation the staging of the Ludi Saeculares was arranged for 17 (a saeculum was fixed at 110 instead of 100 years). At this thanksgiving ceremony a chorus of youths and girls sang the carmen saeculare, which was composed by Horace, on the Capitol and Palatine to the older and newer gods of Rome, and Augustus and Agrippa offered sacrifice. ‘Grant, o gods,’ sang the choir, ‘grant to the young a spirit to learn and righteous conduct, grant to the old peace and calm, grant to the race of Romulus wealth and offspring and all glory.’16 This same year Julia bore Agrippa a second son, Lucius, who with his elder brother Gaius was adopted by Augustus, who had no son of his own. His stepsons, however, were advancing into public life: in 16 Tiberius held a praetorship and Drusus a quaestorship, after which they campaigned with success on the German front (see below). Meanwhile Augustus was away in the west for three years; this time he left Statilius Taurus, his old general and fellow-consul of 26, as Praefectus Urbi. On his return to Rome in 13, when Tiberius was consul, the only honour that he accepted was the erection on the Campus Martius of an Ara Pacis Augustae, one of the great monuments of the age. His proconsular imperium was renewed for another five years and Agrippa’s imperium and tribunicia potestas were also renewed. Augustus carried out a third lectio of the Senate (probably in 11 rather than 13).

  5. THE LAST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF AUGUSTUS’ PRINCIPATE

  In 12 B.C. Lepidus, the former triumvir, died; Augustus had allowed him to retain the position of Pontifex Maximus, but now he assumed it himself, thus becoming the official head of the priesthood. Another death had important consequences: Agrippa, who had been in Pannonia, returned to Italy and died before Augustus could reach him. The Princeps therefore had to adjust his thoughts about the future: no doubt he had anticipated that one of his grandsons would ultimately succeed to his position, but in the meantime A
grippa could have watched over their interests. Augustus therefore now turned to his stepsons, Tiberius and Drusus. Tiberius was compelled to divorce his wife Vipsania (daughter of Agrippa), whom he loved, and to marry the now widowed Julia. During the next two or three years the two brothers did good work on the northern frontier, but Drusus was killed in 9 B.C., so that Augustus had to rely more on Tiberius, for whom he had no great affection. In 8 B.C. Augustus received a renewal of his proconsular imperium, this time for ten years, and held a census ‘consulari cum potestate’; perhaps he used this power in order to levy troops which were needed for the German wars, which he himself directed this year. In 5 B.C. and again in 2 B.C. he reverted to an office that he had not held since 23 B.C., the consulship. His primary object was to introduce his grandsons, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, to public life on the occasion of their assuming the toga virilis (their ‘coming of age’). The young princes received the title of principes inventutis, and the Senate designated Gaius as consul for A.D. 1. Tiberius, who felt overshadowed, retired to Rhodes for the next seven years. Besides holding his thirteenth, and last, consulship in 2 B.C., Augustus that year received the title of Pater Patriae, which brought the long list of his titles to an end; it did not of course add to his powers, but he might now be regarded as the father of the State, and Romans would recall the authority, the patria potestas, that a father exercised within his own family. In a sense the settlement, which basically had reached its final shape in 23 B.C. and has been consolidated in detail in the years that had followed, now reached its culmination.