The Principate was now running smoothly. The chief remaining problem was to secure that it so continued when Augustus died. To this he gave much thought, but in his plans for a succession, he suffered grievous setbacks. In 2 B.C. he was forced to banish his own daughter Julia because her scandalous conduct contrasted too sharply with his attempts to improve family life; thus she could no longer be used in the furtherance of dynastic plans. Two further blows followed in quick succession: Lucius Caesar died in A.D. 2 and his brother Gaius, who in 1 B.C. had received proconsular imperium in the East, died in Lycia in A.D. 4. Reluctantly Augustus turned to Tiberius, who had come back to Rome in A.D. 2; in A.D. 4 he adopted him as his son (though he required Tiberius in turn to adopt his nephew Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus).17 Tiberius was again given tribunicia potestas for ten years and was sent off to the Rhine frontier with a special imperium. Defence problems soon caused increasing anxiety. In A.D. 6 a serious revolt broke out in Pannonia, and three years later when this was finally being crushed, Varus and three legions were destroyed in Germany. Augustus was badly shaken by this disaster and when in A.D. 13 he realized that his life was reaching its close, he elevated Tiberius to a position of virtual co-regency with himself: Tiberius’ tribunician power was renewed and by a special enactment he received equal rights in provincial administration and the command of armies, and the authority to hold a census with Augustus. The lustrum was concluded in the spring of A.D. 14, but Tiberius had no sooner started for Illyricum than he was recalled by news that Augustus was ill; they met for one day before Augustus died.
Augustus had achieved a unique position. He had received at the hands of the Senate and Roman People a great variety of powers, many of which had precedents in the Republic, but his accumulation and long tenure of these, together with his personal auctoritas, raised the First Citizen far above the level of a magistrate and made him in effect seem not unlike a constitutional monarch. His authority both at home and abroad was unparalleled. He commanded the armies, who took an oath of allegiance to him in person, and he made provision for their retirement. Since he had received the right to make treaties, he virtually controlled foreign policy. He governed a large part of the Empire directly through his deputies, and all new provinces added to the empire likewise came under his administration; if need arose, he could even intervene in the provinces that were still left under senatorial government. The Senate frequently transferred to him various tasks of administration in Rome and Italy which his agents then undertook. He took an increasing part in financial, legislative and judicial matters. And behind all his official authority lay his unequalled powers of patronage. How he used, and to what extent he shared, these wide-ranging powers, must now be considered in greater detail.
6. PRINCEPS AND SENATE
The Augustan system was regarded by the great German historian, Mommsen, as a Dyarchy, a joint rule of Princeps and Senate, under which in effect the Emperor undertook the administration of one part of the Empire, and the Senate that of the other. This conception is not now generally regarded as valid, since whatever the appearance Augustus designed to create, it is clear that power was not divided: he carefully kept in his own control the ultimate sanction that was the army. On the other hand there was a division, but what was divided was work. In building up the administrative machinery necessary to run the Empire, Augustus carefully preserved all that he could from the shipwreck of the Republic and leaned heavily upon the Senate: tradition, common sense, need and his own inclination, all united to commend this policy, and he will not have been unmindful of Julius Caesar’s cavalier attitude to Rome’s most venerable Council. In order to purge it of unworthy members who had crept in during the civil wars, he had gradually reduced its numbers to 600 (pp. 178, 183), and, as will be seen, he carefully regulated conditions of entry into the senatorial Order. The Senate, together with the People, remained the sole permanent legal source of authority, as becomes clear on the death of a Princeps, but in practice it could not enforce its wishes in the last resort because it lacked military power. Augustus, however, treated it with great respect, and we must now see how the various functions of government were shared between the two.
In the sphere of legislation both the Princeps and Senate could take action. This is well illustrated in a phrase of Augustus in his first edict to Cyrene in which he suggests that governors there should follow a certain method when impanelling jurors ‘until the Senate shall deliberate on this matter or I myself shall have found some better solution’. The Princeps could legislate in various ways: apart from presenting bills to the People by virtue of his tribunicia potestas (cf. the leges Iuliae, pp. 231), he could take more direct action by issuing legally-binding edicts (this right was specifically recognized about 19 B.C.), decreta (judicial decisions), mandata (instructions to officials) and epistolae or rescripts (replies to petitions). The Senate on the other hand ultimately gained the right to make law, i.e. its senatus-consulta became law, and although this right may not have been formally established before the reign of Antoninus Pius, even under Augustus the Senate’s advisory capacity was recognized and some of its resolutions became law (e.g. the S.C. Silanianum proposed by Silanus, consul in A.D. 10). But though in practice the Senate increasingly developed into an active legislative assembly, the initiative and advice behind its activity may often have come from the emperor.
During the later Republic capital jurisdiction had resided in the iudicia publica (the quaestiones which Sulla had organized); these courts alone could condemn a Roman citizen to death, since a magistrate’s imperium was limited by the right of provocatio which applied throughout Italy and the provinces, in war as in peace.18 These courts continued to function, but they were supplemented in a novel manner: cases of treason and of political importance and those that involved senators or men of high rank were now generally brought before one of two new courts, either the emperor in council or the consuls in the Senate. Thus both emperor and Senate gained a primary jurisdiction against which there was no appeal to the People. Such senatorial trials were being held before A.D. 8, and although our knowledge of trials before Augustus personally derives mainly from undated anecdotes, such trials were well established at the beginning of Tiberius’ reign. Further, as Roman citizenship spread more widely through the provinces, it became difficult to remit all criminal charges to Rome; as a result proconsuls, and perhaps all provincial governors, were granted limited criminal jurisdiction. But, by a grant in 30 B.C., Augustus was enabled to reverse a capital sentence passed by a magistrate using his imperium: thus provocatio ad populum was replaced by appellatio ad Caesarem, the most famous case of the latter being the appeal of St. Paul to Nero. Thus the judicial activities of both emperor and Senate increased, and in particular their two new high Courts of criminal justice emerged; these were quite independent, and there was no appeal from the verdict of one to the other.19
In the sphere of finance also both emperor and Senate were active, but the old view must be abandoned that there was a division on ‘dyarchic’ lines by which the emperor established a Fiscus at Rome for the revenues of the imperial provinces while those of the public provinces continued to be paid to the senatorial Aerarium. Rather, the Aerarium remained the chief Treasury, and its management was entrusted (from 23 B.C.) to two praetors in place of quaestors. Into it were paid the revenues of all the provinces and from it Augustus, like a Republican magistrate, was authorized by votes of the Senate to withdraw sums necessary for the discharge of his duties. In practice, however, it was unnecessary to move much of the actual cash to and from Rome, since the emperor kept departmental chests, fisci, in his provinces (as the governors of the public provinces also probably did); into these went the taxes of each province and from them the emperor would draw money for military and administrative purposes, so that in the main only accounts of balances would pass between each provincial fiscus and the Aerarium. As few provinces produced a surplus over local expenditure, not much money would go from them to
Rome. In fact the Aerarium was often in financial difficulties, and Augustus made grants to it from his private funds. This he could do because he had great wealth, which came from inheritance, the civil wars, the imperial estates, and legacies. From this patrimonium (sometimes called fiscus, which may cause confusion) he paid to the Aerarium, to the Roman plebs and to discharged veterans no less than 600 million sesterces: he was comparatively poor when he died.20
It was not desirable that the financial burden of providing for retired soldiers should seem to depend on the private generosity of the emperor. In A.D. 6 therefore Augustus created a special fund for this purpose, the Aerarium Militare; he started it off with a gift of 170 million sesterces and arranged that in the future it should receive the yield of two new taxes that he instituted, a sales-tax (centesima rerum venalium) and death-duties (vicesima hereditatum). This was a very wise move, since it cut the personal link between a general and his men who had been forced to look to him to make provision for their future; if such a public fund had been established a hundred years earlier, in the days of Marius, the history of the later Republic would have been very different. This new treasury was administered by three expraetors. Thus in general while the Senate and magistrates had a fair share in the work of financial administration, the emperor was probably able to direct policy. This is seen in the fact that he regularly published for information a general balance-sheet of the Empire (rationes imperii), a practice which his successors soon dropped.
The issuing of coinage was also a joint responsibility of Princeps and Senate, but not on equal terms. During the civil war the rival military imperatores had minted what they needed. Octavian, the war-lord, and Augustus, the Princeps, had issued plentiful gold and silver in Asia, Spain and, perhaps after 23, at Rome. But in 15 B.C. he established an imperial mint at Lugdunum in Gaul, which from 12 B.C. became the sole source of gold and silver. The senatorial mint in Rome, in the charge of triumviri monetales, was thus restricted to the output of bronze and copper. The Senate doggedly continued to proclaim its control of the Aes coinage almost as long as the Empire lasted, by putting on all the coins the letters S.C. (Senatus-consulto), but in the choice of types the Princeps soon exercised as efficient a control over the ‘senatorial’ bronze as over the ‘imperial’ gold and silver. This was important because the types were a deliberate reflexion of official policy, designed to provide world opinion with a commentary on this policy; in the twenty-five years after Actium the silver issues displayed no less than 400 types. In this aspect the views of the Princeps must prevail.21
The administration of Rome and Italy was the concern of the Senate and ordinary magistrates, and Augustus may well have intended that this should continue. At first he interfered very little, but the failure of the Senate to provide adequate public services led him gradually to take action, with the result that by the end of his reign most departments had come under the control of prefects or curatores nominated by him (pp. 193 ff.). In the wider sphere of provincial administration, as has been seen, the Princeps and Senate shared the task. The original settlement of 27 B.C. was modified later when for instance the Senate took over Gallia Narbonensis in 22 B.C. and the Princeps took Illyricum c. 11 B.C., while all the new provinces created after 23 came under his administration. The division between the two parties, however, remained clear-cut, although his maius imperium gave Augustus a potential right to intervene anywhere.22
Thus in all spheres of government and administration, other than military, the Senate retained some of its traditional activities, and co-operated with Augustus in running the Empire. He showed it respect and often consulted it, and in order that it should take its duties seriously he increased fines for non-attendance in 17 B.C. and again in 9 B.C. when he also established the quorum necessary for transacting various kinds of business. How he influenced its composition and tried to increase its sense of responsibility is discussed in the next section. In one important way he made the Senate more efficient and at the same time more amenable to his own wishes: he established (probably between 27 and 18 B.C.) a senatorial standing committee, consisting of himself, one or both consuls, one of each of the other magistrates, and fifteen other senators chosen by lot; some of the members changed every six months, and the whole committee (apart from the Princeps) every year. Its function was probouleutic, to prepare business for the full Senate; its usefulness is obvious, both in enabling Augustus to test senatorial reactions more privately and in expediting the conduct of business in the larger body. Near the end of his reign in A.D. 13 he changed its composition and thereby its nature: consuls-designate replaced the other magistrates; the ordinary members, now twenty and annual in tenure, were not perhaps chosen by lot; three powerful men were made permanent members (Tiberius, his son Drusus and nephew Germanicus); the emperor could co-opt; and above all, its decisions were given the validity of senatus consulta. This re-organization no doubt helped to smooth the transmission of power from Augustus to Tiberius, but it killed the probouleutic committee. Alongside the latter Augustus had throughout his principate consulted his friends for everyday political and administrative advice, and in particular for judicial matters he had turned to a council of advisers. These amici principis did not develop into an official permanent consilium, but they were publicly recognized as the men whom the emperor summoned to meet him in council for judicial or other business. They were soldiers, jurists, diplomats, men like Agrippa and Maecenas and their less famous successors; and since many of them survived from one reign into the next, they helped to give continuity to policy. The immediate effect, however, of the drafting by Augustus of some of his amici into the senatorial committee in A.D. 13 was so to change its basis that it never revived in its earlier form (Tiberius’ consilium, though theoretically its continuation, consisted in fact of his amici, the principes viri) and thus the useful link between the Princeps and the average member of the Senate, which Augustus had originally designed, was destroyed.23
7. THE EXECUTIVE: MAGISTRATES AND OFFICIALS
The Senate as a whole was thus restored to a position of considerable prestige and influence, if not of power, but individual senators also were needed in large numbers for administrative duties, and they must be men of greater principle than many of the magistrates and provincial governors of the late Republic. Augustus therefore took steps to control entry into the Senate which was normally recruited from members of the Senatorial Order, that is men of senatorial birth, who wore a broad purple stripe on their tunics (the laticlave). He made membership of the Order, however, depend on more than birth: other necessary qualifications were normally the performance of a period of military service as a tribunus militum or praefectus alae, possession of a sum that was probably fixed at 1,000,000 sesterces, and above all personal integrity.23a But in practice entry to the Senate was not so restricted, since Augustus himself exercised the right to grant the latus clavus to young men of non-senatorial birth; by thus encouraging men of equestrian stock to turn to an official career, he infused some fresh blood into what was mainly a hereditary body. Men who were thus suitably qualified could then seek one of the minor offices known as the vigintivirate;24 after that when they were twenty-five they could, if elected, become quaestors (who numbered twenty) and thus enter the Senate. After this apprenticeship the more efficient could then ascend the higher rungs of a senatorial career. All, except patricians, must hold either the tribunate of the plebs or aedileship (six in number); then, if they had reached thirty, they could stand for the praetorship (normally twelve posts). Since the regular minimum age for holding the consulship was forty-two, an interval followed in which many ‘praetorian’ posts were open: a man might become commander (legatus) of a legion, legatus on the staff of a provincial governor, governor of a lesser imperial province (legatus Augusti pro praetore) or proconsul of a senatorial province. Then for the successful came the consulship, to be followed for some by the governorship of a more important imperial province (as legatus Augusti pro praetore), a curat
orship in Rome (e.g. operum publicorum) or even the Prefecture of the City or, if the appointment was senatorial rather than imperial, the proconsulship of Africa or Asia. The chances of a man reaching the consulship in fact slightly increased as Augustus’ reign progressed, because the custom had been growing for consuls to retire before the end of their year of office to make room for consules suffecti. This practice was regularized in 5 B.C., the year in which Augustus had himself resumed the holding of a consulship, and later (probably in 2 B.C.) the office was specifically limited to six months, and the suffects took over on 1 July each year. The reason for this was to increase the number of consulars available for public service.
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