3 TRIBUNICIA POTESTAS. Dio Cassius appears to say (51. 19. 6) that Octavian received trib. pot. in 30 B.C.; he also says that he received it in 23 (53. 32. 5). As Octavian is not likely to have relinquished it during the interval, some scholars have thought that he may have received some of the functions of a tribune in 30 and the rest in 23, but it is perhaps more probable (as argued by H. Last, Rendiconti, Istituto Lombardo, 1951, 93 ff.) that Dio is mistaken and that Octavian did not accept such an offer in 30 but only in 23. [p. 177]
4 THE AUGUSTAN SETTLEMENT. On the powers that Augustus received in 27 and 23 B.C. there is an immense modern literature. It is possible here to mention only some of the more recent works written in English: M. Hammond The Augustan Principate (1933); M. Grant, From Imperium to Auctoritas (1946; cf. Greece and Rome, 1949, 97 ff.); H. Last, JRS, 1947, 157 ff., and 1950, 119 ff; R. Syme, JRS, 1946, 149 ff.; G. E. F. Chilver, Historia, 1950, 408 ff. (a review of the work done on this subject between 1939 and 1950); A. H. M. Jones, JRS, 1951, 112 ff. (= Studies in Roman Law and Government, 1960, ch. 1); M. I. Henderson, JRS, 1954, 123 ff.; E. T. Salmon, Historia, 1956, 456 ff. These works will indicate the non-English literature of recent years. See also P. Grenade, Essai sur les origines du Principat (1961; on this see P. A. Brunt, JRS, 1961, 236 ff.) and P. Sattler, Augustus und der Senat (1960) which discusses how Augustus built up his power in face of those senators who opposed him until 17 B.C. Cf. also F. de Martino, Storia della costituzione romana, IV, i (1962). P. Cartledge (Hermathena, 1975, 35 ff.) discusses Augustus’ approach to legitimizing his principate in 28–27. Recent work on Augustus is surveyed by B. Haller, Aufstieg II, ii, 55 ff. and by H. W. Benario, id., 75 ff. [p. 178]
5 THE IMPERIUM OF AUGUSTUS. On this matter Augustus was somewhat reticent in his Res Gestae (whether because he thought a mention of his first grant in 43 B.C. was enough, or in order to soft-pedal the military aspect of his rule, or because the matter did not concern the Senate and People directly but rather the provinces). Though Augustus himself did not mention it, there is general agreement that the imperium which he exercised in the provinces from 23 was proconsular. But on the thorny question as to the nature of his provincial imperium, whether consular or proconsular, from 27 to 23, no agreement has been reached. Those who maintain that the consulship was essentially a domestic magistracy since Sulla’s reforms, believe that Augustus’ command was proconsular (cf. e.g. Salmon, op. cit.). For the view that it was consular see H. Pelham, Essays (1911), 60 ff. or M. Hammond, op. cit. The important distinction lies between imperium militae and imperium domi, since the former is the same whether held by a consul or proconsul. R. Syme suggests (op. cit., 153) that Augustus governed his province ‘while consul’ rather than ‘as consul’. A. H. M. Jones believes (op. cit., p. 113) that in 27 the question did not arise: ‘Augustus was consul, and the Senate assigned him a provincia: no grant of imperium was required’. It may well be that the approach to the problem has often been too legalistic and academic. The view of Mommsen that the grant of imperium gave Augustus imperium maius over the provinces controlled by the Senate, though followed by Von Premerstein, is not usually accepted. Nor is Premerstein’s theory, based on Dio 53. 12. 1, that the Senate gave Augustus a general ‘cura rei publicae’, widely followed. It is probable that the grant of the provincia by the Senate in 27 was confirmed by a lex of the People. The view that Augustus’ imperium as exercised in the provinces from 27 to 23 derived from his consulship may receive support from a new inscription from Cyme: see H. W. Pleket, Greek Inscriptions in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden at Leyden (1958) 49. This is the Greek version of a decree of Augustus and Agrippa as joint consuls in 27, ordering the restitution of sacred property (specifically in Asia, or in all senatorial provinces, or throughout the Empire?); it is followed by a letter of the proconsul of Asia, Vinicius, to the local authorities of Cyme about a case arising from it; the proconsul refers to the decree as iussu Augusti Caesaris. Pleket regards this as Augustus interfering in a senatorial province by virtue of consular imperium maius, whereas K. M. T. Atkinson (Rev. intern. de droits de l’ant. 1960, 227 ff.) thinks that the iussum refers merely to a judicial ruling given by Augustus in person when in Asia (20–19) by virtue of his auctoritas and therefore not bearing upon his imperium (and that the decree was part of a senatusconsultum transmitted by Augustus and Agrippa; this does not seem very probable). J. Reynolds (JRS, 1960, 207) points out that if the actual case at Cyme did not arise until after 23 (the date is not given), then ‘the proconsul’s attitude to Augustus would be more conventionally explicable’. Cf. SEG, XVIII, n. 555, XX, 15, and J. A. Crook, Proc. Cambr. Philological Soc. 1962, 23 ff. Augustus later claimed that he was acclaimed as imperator twenty-one times (Res. Gestae, 4,1); fourteen of these military salutations were made after he had acquired the title of Augustus. On their dates and occasions see T. D. Barnes, JRS, 1974, 21 ff. [p. 178]
6 CLUPEUS VIRTUTIS. Augustus records with pride this honour granted in 27 (Res Gestae, 34). A replica has been found at Arles, dated 26; copies of this new symbol must have been set up widely in the provinces. See W. Seston, Comptes Rend. Ac. Inscr. 1954, 286. See also M. P. Charlesworth, ‘The Virtues of a Roman Emperor’ (Proc. Br. Acad., 1937). On two other attributes which were increasingly associated with the emperor during the first two centuries, see Charlesworth, ‘Providentia et Aeternitas’ (Harvard Theol. Rev., 1936, 107 ff.). [p. 179]
7 AUGUSTUS’ NAME AND POTESTAS. On the name Augustus see P.A. Brunt and J. M. Moore, Res Gestae (1967), 77 f. In R.G. 34, after saying that he excelled all men in auctoritas (see below, n. 9), Augustus added ‘potestatis autem nihilo amplius habui quam ceteri qui mihi quoque in magistratu conlegae fuerunt’. That is, in each magistracy of his (reading qu-que, not qu-que, which would mean that Augustus was saying that ‘he too had colleagues’: see F. E. Adcock, JRS, 1952, 10 ff.), Augustus claims that his power was no greater than that of any of his colleagues in office. The interpretation is uncertain, but he is probably referring to the consulship and saying that he would not misuse the powers inherent in this office in the future: it should become normal again. This view can be used to support the belief that his provincial command was pro-consular: use of the consulship would be restricted to Italy. See further Brunt and Moore, Res Gestae, 78 f. [p. 179]
8 PRINCEPS. This use of the word should of course be sharply separated from the position of Princeps Senatus which Augustus also held (p. 179). Though it had Republican associations, there is no good reason to believe that he took it over from Cicero’s political writings (cf. p. 135 and ch. VIII n. 6). The view of Ed. Meyer (Caesars Monarchie und das Principat des Pompejus, 3rd ed., 1922) that Cicero’s De Republica suggested the creation of a Principate of Pompey and foreshadowed the ideal state created later by Augustus’ Principate, is not now widely held. [p. 180]
9 AUCTORITAS. For recent discussions of its meaning see G. E. F. Chilver, Historia, 1950, 420 ff. The title of M. Grant’s book, From Imperium to Auctoritas (1946), indicates its thesis that Augustus gradually shifted the basis of his power from military imperium to civilian auctoritas; but this is not acceptable because it gives to auctoritas a constitutional meaning that it can hardly have had. Attempts to endow it with a semi-mystic, or ‘charismatic’ significance, are equally suspect. It was a personal attribute which could not be given or transferred from one man to another by law. [p. 180]
10 VARRO MURENA. K. M. T. Atkinson (Historia, 1960, 440 ff.) dates the trials of both Primus and Varro Murena to 22 (as Dio) and argues that the conspirator Varro was not A. Terentius Varro Murena the consul of 23 (who will have died during his year of office) but his cousin L. Murena who had probably been governor of Syria in 25. If this dating is accepted the plot cannot then have affected the constitutional settlement of 23. D. Stockton, Historia, 1965, 18 ff., defends the more conventional position against Mrs. Atkinson: he puts the trial of Primus in the first half of 23 and believes that it was Aulus Murena who defended him and who was involved in the conspiracy. M. Swan, Harva
rd Stud. Class. Phil., 1966, 235 ff., argues for L. Murena and 22, as also does R. A. Bauman, Historia, 1965, 420 ff., who believes in two separate trials. S. Jameson, Historia, 1969, 204 ff., examines the events of 23 and 22 B.C. and places both trials in 23. According to B. Levick, Gr. and R., 1975, 156 ff., Primus was prosecuted in 23 and defended by A. Varro Murena. [p. 180]
11 IMPERIUM MAIUS. This grant, attested by Dio Cassius (53. 32. 5), has in the past been doubted, but since the discovery of the five edicts from Cyrene (Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, n. 311, translated in Lewis and Reinhold, Rn. Civ. ii, 36 ff.) which confirm it, the matter must surely be regarded as settled. On the edicts see further, J. G. C. Anderson, JRS, 1927, 33 ff.; F. de Visscher, Les édits d’Auguste découverts à Cyrene (1940); H. Last, JRS, 1945, 93. [p. 181]
12 TRIBUNICIA POTESTAS AND LEX DE IMPERIO. On the varying emphases that Augustus placed on his tribuncian power from 23 B.C. to A.D. 14 see A. K. Lacey, JRS, 1979, 28 ff. There survives part of a comprehensive enactment which conferred his various powers on the emperor Vespasian, the lex de imperio Vespasiani (Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, n. 364). It is a law of the People and probably embodies a decree of the Senate; it quotes the precedents of grants made to Augustus and others. For a translation see Lewis and Reinhold, Rn. Civ. ii, 89 f. For a full discussion of the lex de imperio and these grants as made to Augustus’ successors see P. A. Brunt, JRS, 1977, 95 ff. [p. 181]
13 AGRIPPA’S IMPERIUM. See R. Syme, Rom. Rev., 337 n. 1, as against M. Reinhold, Marcus Agrippa (1933), 167 ff. Reinhold argued for imperium aequum in the imperial provinces in 23, maius imperium over the eastern senatorial provinces in 18, and maius imperium over the western provinces in 13. Despite the discovery of a papyrus fragment, which is apparently a Greek version of Augustus’ laudatio funebris for Agrippa, the problem remains unsolved. See L. Koenen, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie V (1970), 217 ff., and E. W. Gray, ibid. VI (1970), 127 ff. The latter suggests an overall imperium aequum in 23, which was renewed for five years in 18, and made maius in 13. [p. 182]
14 AUGUSTUS’ CONSULAR POWERS. This is suggested by A. H. M. Jones, JRS, 1951, 117 ff. (= Studies, 12 ff.). This interpretation of Dio 54. 10. 5 would explain how Augustus was able to command troops in Rome or Italy (Praetorian and Urban cohorts) and appoint a praefectus urbi, a consular prerogative. Cf. P. A. Brunt, Cl. Rev., 1962, 70 ff. [p. 182]
15 LECTIONES SENATUS. Augustus stated (Res Gestae 8): ‘senatum ter legi’. These lectiones probably refer to 29, 18 and 11 B.C.. He also mentioned three census at which the lustrum was celebrated in 28, 8 B.C. and A.D. 14, but a lectio senatus need not take place at the same time as a lustrum. The lectiones which Dio attributes to 13 B.C. and A.D. 4 should probably be rejected, the former as confused with a recognitio equitum, the latter as a partial census only. See A. H. M. Jones, Studies in Roman Government (1960), ch. II. Cf. also E. G. Hardy, Monumentum Ancyranum, 54 ff. A. E. Astin, Latomus, 1963, 226 ff., believes that the lectiones of 13 and 11 are one and the same, begun in 13 and finished in 11, and that this lectio and that of 18 were carried out by virtue of imperium consulare and not by a grant of censoria potestas as in 29.
A serious problem is raised by the census figure of 29/28 which is 4,063,000 in contrast with that of 70/69 which is 910,000 civium capita. Did Augustus use an essentially different basis for his enumeration from those used by Republican censors, e.g. by including women and children (as argued by A. Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy, I, 450 ff., following Beloch)? This view, rejected by Tenney Frank, Cl. Ph., 1924, 329 ff., has again been questioned by T. P. Wiseman, JRS, 1969, 71 ff., who argues that a system of personal registration at Rome was replaced by a local registration, with the result that the Augustan figures bore a more realistic relation to the actual population than did the earlier figures. On the Augustan census figures see also P. A. Brunt, Italian Manpower, 225 BC–A.D. 14 (1971), 113 ff. [p. 183]
16 LUDI SAECULARES. See J. Gagé, Recherches sur les jeux séculaires (1934); E. Fraenkel, Horace (1957), 364 ff. [p. 183]
17 ADOPTION OF TIBERIUS AND AGRIPPA POSTUMUS. H. U. Instinsky, Hermes, 1966, 324 ff., believes that although the adoption of Germanicus by Tiberius was a precondition of Augustus’ adoption of Tiberius, nevertheless Tiberius had the freedom to choose, while Augustus’ statement that the adoption was rei publicae causa was a political proclamation rather than a sign of resignation. B. Levick, Latomus, 1966, 227 ff., emphasizes that the adoption of Germanicus was to make him the equal of the younger Drusus, a wish of Augustus which Tiberius continued to respect as shown by the parallel careers of the younger men. But G. V. Sumner, Latomus, 1967, 413 ff., who discusses the ages of Germanicus and Drusus, concludes that Tiberius in the period of his developing ascendancy towards the end of Augustus’ reign, did accelerate the career of his son Drusus.
Augustus in A.D. 4 also adopted the third son of Agrippa and Julia, born in 12 B.C. after his father’s death and called Postumus. If an inscription from Trebula (Ann. Epigr., 1964, no. 107) refers to Postumus and not to his father, this would provide evidence that Postumus at some point for a short time held an official position under Augustus: see J. Reynolds, JRS, 1966, 119. But Postumus’ depraved character led Augustus to disinherit him: he was then banished (A.D. 7) and was killed immediately after Augustus himself had died. On the (improbable) story (Dio Cassius, lvi. 30, 1–2) that Augustus secretly visited Postumus on the island of Planasia (his place of banishment) during the closing months of his life, see M. P. Charlesworth, AJP, 1923, 146 ff. On the legal steps that Augustus took against Postumus see B. Levick, Historia, 1972, 674 ff. See also S. Jameson, Historia, 1975, 287 ff. On the last years of Augustus in the light of prosopographical studies see A. Ferrill, Historia, 1971, 718 ff. [p. 184]
18 PROVOCATIO. On this see A. H. M. Jones, ‘I appeal unto Caesar’, Studies presented to D. M. Robinson, 918 ff. (= Studies, ch. iv). P. Garnsey, JRS, 1966, 166 ff., questions the view that in the first century A.D. appeal was lodged before trial, i.e. the judge did not try the case but merely conducted a preliminary investigation; he argues that in both the first and second centuries appeal was made after sentence. If this is so, the classic case of St. Paul will not be a case of appeal proper at all. Mistrusting Festus and his chances of justice in Jerusalem Paul rejected the court (reiectio) at the hearing at Caesarea and exercised his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to Caesar, hoping for a trial in Rome. Festus, who was not obliged to agree but could have tried the case himself, decided to grant the request; in practice governors had considerable discretion. For a general survey of provocatio see A. W. Lintott, Aufstieg, I, ii (1972), 226 ff. [p. 186]
19 IMPERIAL AND SENATORIAL JURISDICTION. For a full discussion see A. H. M. Jones, Historia, 1955, pp. 464 ff. (= Studies, ch. v). Augustus also exercised appellate jurisdiction in civil cases, and so common were the appeals to him against civil judgements, both in Italy and the provinces, that he delegated the former to the urban praetor and the latter to special consulares. He also on occasion seems to have exercised a primary (non-appellate) civil jurisdiction. See further J. Bleiken, Senatsgericht und Kaisergericht (1962), on which cf. A. N. Sherwin-White, JRS, 1963, 203 ff.; A. H. M. Jones, The Criminal Courts of the Roman Republic and Principate (1972), ch. 3. [p. 186]
20 AERARIUM AND FISCUS. On this vexed problem see H. Last, JRS, 1944, 51 ff. and A. H. M. Jones, JRS, 1950, 22 ff. (= Studies, ch. vi). On the Aerarium and its officials, see F. Millar, JRS, 1964, 33 ff. Regarding the Fiscus whereas F. Millar, JRS, 1963, 29 ff., believes that the term fiscus was restricted to the emperor’s personal wealth, P. A. Brunt, JRS, 1966, 75 ff., argues (with Jones) for wider uses as well (public funds handled by the emperor acting as a State agent) and that it came gradually to include the whole financial administration controlled by the emperor. [p. 186]
21 AUGUSTAN COINAGE. See C. H. V. Sutherland, Coinage in Roman Imperial Policy, 31 BC–A.D. 68 (1951), chs. 2–4. [p. 188]
22 IMPERIAL AND SENATORIAL PROVINCES. F. Millar, JRS, 1966, 156 ff., challenges the
accepted view and suggests that the division between senatorial and imperial provinces did not create a clear-cut division of responsibility and authority. He argues that, apart from the method of appointment, the only administrative difference (until the second century) was that, whereas the emperor gave instructions (mandata) to his legati, he did not so instruct proconsuls. In other respects the emperor and Senate were active in each other’s sphere (though the Senate did not deal with imperial provinces as a whole); both (and especially the emperor) made regulations which were applicable everywhere and passed measures relating to places in either type of province. Cf. Millar, The Roman Empire (1967), 55. If this view may seem rather extreme the reassessment of the evidence must emphasize at very least that the system has too often been regarded as more rigid than it probably was. [p. 189]
23 THE IMPERIAL COUNCILS. See J. A. Crook, Consilium Principis (1955), a useful study of a controversial subject, which stresses the personal influence and importance of the amici principis as counsellors. A new papyrus fragment (see E. G. Turner, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, xxv, 2435) describes the reception of a deputation from Alexandria by the Consilium Principis in A.D. 13. [p. 189]
23a SENATORIAL ORDER. Augustus’ handling of the senatorial census is discussed by C. Nicolet, JRS, 1976, 20 ff., whose views are based on the (unorthodox) belief that under the Republic entry to the Senate was via the equestrian order and that therefore senators had to have a census rating (at least that of the first class). [p. 189]
From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 Page 62