CHAPTER XTHE PRINCIPATE
We have seen that the powers on which Augustus based his position as Princeps were theproconsulare imperiumand thetribunicia potestas. In the theory of a constitution which he presented to the world the first of these prerogatives was supposed to establish his power outside Rome and Italy, the second, with its purely civic traditions, to be the basis of his influence within the central state. His object in exalting the tribunician power to the first place in Rome and her Italian dependencies now merged in the city, was to conceal as carefully as possible the military basis of his rule. The unlimitedimperiumwas to be felt only by his army and his provincial subjects.
It needed little reflection to show that this principle, although in appearance the most important that underlay the Principate, was practically unworkable. Government in Rome was inconceivable without animperium, and supreme government impossible without one of such an indefinite character that it should seem to stand out of relation to the regular and limitedimperiaof consuls and praetors. This power was secured by an easy juristic device. By a special exemption, which had its prototypes in Republican history, the Emperor was allowed toretainthe fullimperiumwithin the walls;[1585]and lawyers were careful not to declare explicitly what was implied in this retention. It might have meant—as it would have meant during the Republic—that the Emperor was not debarred by his presence in Rome from holding command abroad. Itmight signify that the limitations imposed by the city walls now rendered the proconsular a quasi-consularimperium, and this was perhaps the ruling theory. But a different line of interpretation would have rendered it easy to show that theimperiumhere as elsewhere was unlimited. The nebulous atmosphere of this mockery of a magistracy was as well suited to the despot as to the constitutional ruler. In the actual position of the Princeps within Rome we find traces of all these theories. As a provincial ruler he governs from the capital; as commander-in-chief he keeps his praetorian guards in Italy and his fleets at Ravenna and Misenum; while as the wielder of an undefined but civicimperiumhe gives justice, as a court of first instance or a court of appeal, and issues edicts to supplement the laws.
But the recognition of animperiumwithin Rome was not alone sufficient. Even when this was joined to the tribunician power, great gaps were left in the position which should be held by a true head of the state. To fill these up, and thus supply a solid foundation for autocracy, fresh grants of isolated powers were necessary; and these grants, though in theory occasional, soon became permanent in practice. The Emperor, like the tribune, possessed no distinctive official dress while he resided in Rome: hence the consularinsigniahad to be conferred;[1586]he possessed in virtue of his tribunician power only the right of making the third proposal at the Senate: hence the grant of thejus primae relationis.[1587]Such grants admitted of indefinite extension, and the stage which they had reached by the date of the accession of Vespasian is partially known to us from the only official document which throws light on the powers of the early Principate. In the existing fragment of this charter, which appears to be a decree of the Senate meant to be submitted to the people for their formal assent,[1588]we find the Emperor credited with the heterogeneous powers of making treaties, extending thepomerium, commending candidates for magistracies, and issuing edicts as interpretations of law human and divine. The measure further exempts him from the operation of certain enactments and gives him certain privileges, notpossessed by the other magistrates, in his relations with the Senate. These powers cannot be brought under any single legal designation; but, as most of them are more or less directly connected with some kind ofimperium, the view that they were tacked on to the bill conferring the tribunician power, which received the formal ratification of the Plebs, is improbable. On the other hand, they cannot be said to have belonged originally to a law conferring theimperium; for the imperial biographies frequently speak of the gift of theproconsulare imperium(by the Senate) and of thetribunicia potestas(by Senate and People) without any hint of a general law conferringthe“imperium.”[1589]Yet the gift of theimperiumis sometimes mentioned,[1590]and if the passages of jurists of the second and third centuries, which speak ofimperiumbeing conferred through alex,[1591]are genuine, we must conclude that the centre of gravity in the powers of the Princeps had shifted with the course of years. Originally the casual collection of powers, which appears in the law sanctioning Vespasian’s rule, must have been a mere supplement to the two leading prerogatives—the proconsular and the tribunician powers. But it is quite possible that in the course of time the vast development and the great importance of these added privileges may have caused the enactment containing them, now known as thelex de imperio, to overshadow the other sources of the imperial authority.
There was one source, however, most distinctively expressive of the character of the Principate, which found no expression in legal enactments. The military oath (sacramentum), which during the closing years of the Republic was tending to become a bond of personal allegiance between a legion and its chief, was naturally taken in the Principate by the whole army to its solecommander.[1592]But on the very first transference of the throne a new departure was made. At the accession of Tiberius the oath of fealty was taken voluntarily by the civil orders;[1593]it was administered by provincial governors and was renewed twice a year, on the first of January and on the anniversary of the Emperor’s accession.[1594]The fact that a soldier’s oath bound the whole Roman world was the fittest expression of the military character of the new despotism.
A classification of the Emperor’s powers in detail, with an attempt to deduce each of them from a prerogative conferred on him at his accession, is rendered difficult by the facts that no Roman lawyer cared or dared to evolve a complete theory of the Imperial constitution, and that here, as in so many other departments of Roman history, we are dealing with an office which, as it grew, gradually absorbed into itself fresh spheres of influence. The Principate, in fact, finally absorbed the state, and the only adequate formula for its authority which later jurists could find was that the people had committed its sovereign power to its delegate. But yet, when we examine the spheres of the Emperor’s activity, it becomes clear that, while some are connected with animperium, others are attached more closely to the tribunician power, while others again are associated with the relics of Republican offices held by the Princeps, or flow from certain extraordinary rights conferred on him by statute.
(i.) The first rights connected with theimperiumthat strike our attention are those exercised in the military sphere—rights which, on a vast scale, reflect and extend the powers possessed by theimperatorof the Republic. The Princeps has the right to raise levies,[1595]to nominate officers, and to confer military distinctions. In declaring war he has replaced the comitia of the centuries; and the statutory recognition of his right to conclude a treaty[1596]settled a vexed question of Republicanprocedure.[1597]This recognition of the federative power was not earlier than the reign of the first Claudius,[1598]but had already become a permanent element in the imperial authority by the accession of Vespasian. The right to extend thepomeriumof the city, which dates also from the reign of Claudius, is also found amongst the list of imperial prerogatives in 69A.D.[1599]
The Republican general had often followed up a successful campaign by assigning lands and planting colonies. These acts had been done at the mandate of the people; but the new commander-in-chief needed no such permit. The Princeps divides territories that belong to the Roman people and establishes colonial settlements at his will. The gift of the franchise had also been entrusted at times to the Republican commander,[1600]and now it is placed wholly in the hands of the Emperor. He grants these gifts both to communities and to individuals. He gives Latin rights toperegrinae civitates,[1601]and citizenship to Latin towns, while he may alter the nominalstatusof a community by changing amunicipiuminto a colony, or a colony into amunicipium.[1602]His right of conferring citizenship on individuals was equally unquestioned,[1603]and he might remedy the defect of birth by givingingenuitasto a freedman.[1604]
With theimperiumtoo is obviously connected the administration of those provinces which were peculiarly entrusted to the care of the Princeps. The government of these provinces, as well as the maintenance of the army, necessitated a financial administration, separate from that of the state and peculiar to himself, and this was accompanied by a right of coinage. His criminal and civil jurisdiction over citizens as well as soldiers are also connected with some undefined idea of theimperium, while his power of legal interpretation, althoughspecially conferred, does not differ essentially from that of the praetor, and is to be traced to the same source. The detailed consideration of these powers must be deferred until we treat of that separation of authority between Caesar and the Senate which gave its formal character to the Principate.
(ii.) Thetribunicia potestas, which had been granted to Augustus in 36, reconferred in 30, and made the chief outward support of his authority in 23B.C.,[1605]continued to serve the Emperors as the ostensible means by which all other magistracies were subject to their control,[1606]and possessed an artificial prominence from its employment as a means of dating the years of their reign. Positively it conferred thesacrosanctitas, which had encompassed the Republican tribune,[1607]the right of approaching the assembly of the Plebs, which was of value as long as the Emperors deigned to legislate through popular channels, and perhaps the only strictly constitutional power which they possessed of transacting business with the Senate.[1608]But its negative were now, as ever, of more value than its positive powers. Theintercessiomade its possessor the moderator of the state,[1609]and the severest means of tribunician coercion could be employed against every recalcitrant official; while this veto, when used in the Senate, became either a means of suspending the jurisdiction of that body or a method of pardoning the criminal whom it had condemned.[1610]The right of help (auxilium)[1611]based on the appeal (appellatio) becomes also, as we shall see, one of the means of establishing the first true appellate jurisdiction which the Roman world had seen.
(iii.) With respect to other Republican offices in which thePrinceps was directly interested, we have only to consider the consulship and the censorship, for they were the only two whose titles or powers were sufficient to warrant their assumption by the head of the state.
The consulship was no integral part of the imperial power after Augustus had ceased to employ it in this way;[1612]but it was frequently assumed as an occasional office by the Princeps, who held it for a short time, generally at the beginning of his rule.
The censorship had disappeared as a Republican office, and we might have expected that its vast powers combined with its Republican traditions would have made it a valuable supplement to the authority of the Prince. But there were reasons against its assumption. In its pure form it was an occasional office, and its permanent tenure might have shocked Republican sentiment; while the fact that the assessment of the Roman people for thecomitiaand the army soon ceased to be necessary made its absence scarcely felt. On the analogy of thetribunicia potestas, the powers of the office without the office itself were, in the form of acura legum et morum, offered to Augustus, but declined by him.[1613]There was no constitutional difficulty about exercising some of the functions of the censorship through theimperium, whether consular or quasi-consular, and this was done by Augustus when he revised the list of the Senate in 29 and 18B.C.[1614]Two of the succeeding Principes, however, Claudius and Vespasian, thought fit to assume the office in its old temporary form, and Domitian carried out the design of making it an integral part of the Principate by assuming the position of censor for life (censor perpetuus).[1615]His precedent was not followed because it was unnecessary. The revision of the list of the Senate andequites—the only meaning that thecura morumnow had—was established by consent as an admitted right of the Princeps,[1616]and even the power of creating Patricians came to be recognised as one inherent in his office. This power had been conferred onCaesar and Augustus by law; Claudius and Vespasian exercised it as censors;[1617]but, apparently without further enactment, this power of ennobling, extinct since the beginning of the Republic[1618]and no part of the Republican census, became an admitted imperial prerogative. It was only when the destined Princeps was himself a Plebeian that this honour, which was considered a necessary qualification for his office, was conferred on him by the Senate.[1619]
(iv.) The chief of the extraordinary rights conferred on the Princeps by special enactment were those which had relation to the Senate, the right of recommendation to office (commendatio) and a dispensation from the operation of certain laws.
The special privileges which distinguished the Emperor from other magistrates in transacting business with the Senate were three in number. First, he has not merely the power to put a motion (referre) when present in the house, but he can send a written recommendation (relationem facere) when the Senate meets under the presidency of another magistrate.[1620]In such a meeting the Emperor as a rule only claims priority for one item in a single sitting (jus primae relationis); hence we sometimes find, as a special privilege, the right of priority given him for three, four, or five.[1621]The power which he possesses of dividing the house upon his motion without debate (senatus consultum per discessionem facere) is not a new one, but one that might be exercised by the consul of the later Republic. Secondly, the Emperor has the power to withdraw arelatioof his own which is already before the house (relationem remittere); and thirdly, the privilege of ordering the Senate to meet under the presidency of another magistrate.
The second special right has reference to the elections ofmagistrates, and introduces us to the question how far the Princeps could control them. Two functions are attributed to him by our authorities, that of nomination and that of commendation; but the effects of the two are very different. Thenominatiois merely the negative power possessed by the Republican magistrate of receiving names and excluding unqualified aspirants from candidature. With respect to most offices—the praetorship, for instance—it was exercised by the Princeps conjointly with the consuls, and the number of candidates whom he nominated was, at least in the early Principate, limited.[1622]The practical effect of the Prince’s nomination on the election might be great, but its legal influence wasnil.[1623]Commendatio, on the other hand, a privilege developed from the Republican practice by which candidates were recommended by distinguished persons for election, is a right legally conferred, and one which absolutely secures the choice by the electing body of the person so commended.[1624]The extent to which it might be employed differed with the various magistracies; thus in Tiberius’ reign, out of at least twelve candidates for the praetorship only four were commended by the Emperor.[1625]Magistrates, who had gained their position by this act of imperial favour, were designatedcandidati Caesaris.[1626]The highest office of all, the consulship, seems, at least in the early Principate, never to have been awarded on a formal imperial recommendation; for the description of the method by which Tiberius filled up this post at his pleasure shows that the Emperor effected his object by a clever use of the nomination.[1627]This may have been a limitation of practice, not of theory, for thewords of the law as we have it exempt no office from this imperial control, and it is certain that from the time of Vespasian onwards the consulship too was subject to thecommendatio.[1628]
The Princeps, according to the enactment which confers powers on Vespasian, was dispensed from certain laws (legibus solutus).[1629]There is no implication here of an exemption from the operation of the ordinary civil and criminal law. The Princeps is not above the laws, nor are the courts of the community his courts; and, if he was exempt from prosecution during his year of office, this was the normal privilege of the Republican magistrate. What is meant is the dispensation from certain principles of the constitution or enactments, which the Principate as a magistracy necessarily violated or which were found inconvenient to the Princeps. Such were theleges annales, or the rule forbidding the holding of theimperiumwithin the walls. In choosing an heir the Emperor was also exempted from following the precise formalities of adrogation;[1630]he could manumit without thevindicta[1631]and was not subject to the disabilities of the Julian and Papian law.[1632]
(v.) The separation of religious from political duties, which had been a characteristic of the Republic, was continued theoretically under the Principate. The Emperor was in no sense a high priest, and ritual was still a function of the sacerdotal colleges. But he was a member of the great religious guilds which dealt with augury and with thejus divinum,[1633]and the law gives him the power to carry out the orders of such societies if he thinks it to be in the interest of the state.[1634]We have not, however, merely the phenomenon of the civil assisting the religious arm, for thePrince, aspontifex maximus, represents both in his own person. The chief pontificate was specially conferred on him with the other imperial powers; he may originally have been invested, like the pontifex of the Republic, by the assembly of the seventeen tribes,[1635]but later the creation seems to have been wholly the work of the Senate, although a formal announcement of the result (renuntiatio) was still made before the assembly.[1636]When the Principate came to admit the principle of colleagueship, only one of the Augusti was made chief pontiff,[1637]and the association of the highest religious and civil power continued until the stole was rejected by the piety of Gratian.[1638]
It is obvious that the attempt to keep the rôles of pontiff and Princeps apart, even if made, could never have been successful. Where crime was also sin the pontiff could now utter authoritative law and exercise coercion; the lay and the religious character are strangely mixed in the methods adopted by Domitian for the punishment of incest,[1639]and when thejussio principisspeaks on a question of burial law,[1640]it must have been difficult to tell whether it was the Prince or the pontiff who was giving his decision.
Apart from its influence on law, the chief pontificate was valuable for its powers of patronage. Few distinctions were more earnestly sought by young nobles than admission to the religious colleges, and the door to them lay chiefly through the Princeps. His influence might be exercised by his right of nomination or by his commendation to the electing body.[1641]
In dealing with the titles of the Princeps, it is as well to begin with those which were not in the list of official titles, for, impressed on the ruler, as they were, by current usage, they were often the most significant. The wordPrinceps, although itdescribed no office or peculiar authority, was yet a semi-official designation; even as employed in the later Republic it had signified a political pre-eminence over other citizens,[1642]and now it denoted not so much the “chief citizen” as the “head” or “chief man” in the state, the director of the Republic, to whom all looked for guidance, who was responsible for its failures and credited with its successes, even when these were the result of the actions of other magistrates.[1643]It was above all a title which tended to emphasise the continuance of the life of the Republican government under the newrégime, and suggested a mental contrast, at once to the Emperor’s position as the commander of his legions, expressed in the titleimperator, and to that absolute headship which, as exercised in family life at Rome, was known asdominium.[1644]The name, indeed, ofdominusinspired such a horror in the mind of Augustus that he disliked this mode of address (a familiar one from the members of a family to its head) to be employed even by his sons and grandsons,[1645]and Tiberius insisted that he wasdominusonly to his slaves.[1646]But the language of courtly life, perhaps at times of real affection, forced the title into use, and the younger Pliny employs it constantly in his correspondence with Trajan. It is not, however, until the time of Severus that it appears on the public addresses of corporations, and Aurelian is the first emperor who isdominuson his coins.[1647]It is probable that these niceties of western nomenclature were always lost on the oriental mind. To it the Principate is a monarchy, and Caesar, when he is not a god, is either αὐτοκράτωρ or βασιλεύς.
If we turn now to the titular designation of the Princeps, we find that this consists partly of titles of office, partly of those of honour. The wordimperatoroccupies a doubtful place betweenthe two; for while denoting no office, it signifies the possession of an active and untrammelledimperium. It occupies a twofold place in the list of titles. Augustus employed it as apraenomen, perhaps in accordance with the view that he had inherited the title from his uncle, who had borne it (apparently as acognomen[1648]) during the later years of his life, and as apraenomenit was used by most succeeding emperors.[1649]But it appears a second time in the titular designation of the Princeps with its old Republican significance—that of an appellation borne by a commander who had been acclaimed after a victory.[1650]As so employed it was qualified by numerals to mark the number of the salutations; amongst these was reckoned that which had acclaimed him Emperor, and, consequently, after the first victory won under his auspices, he appears asimperatorII.
A more distinctive title of office is that ofproconsul. Although it merely expresses the fact of aproconsulate imperium, it was a designation that was avoided by the early Principes, probably out of deference to the senatorial administration of the public provinces, which was exercised through proconsuls, and it was first employed by Trajan. Its employment hints at the practical disappearance of the dual control abroad, and suggests the all-embracing nature of the Emperor’simperium.
Amongst the honorary appellations of the Emperor,CaesarandAugustustake the foremost place. The latter, although appended to the Emperor’s name like acognomen, was never looked on as a family designation. It was the highest of all personal titles of honour, since it expressed the sanctified majesty of the Prince alone,[1651]and was not borne even by that subordinate partner on the throne (consors imperii), the holder of theproconsulate imperiumortribunicia potestas, through whose assistance the earlier emperors sometimes lightened the burden of their administration. It was not until the collegiate principle was fully recognised in 161A.D.that theduo Augustiappear.
Caesar, on the other hand, was in origin purely a family designation, since it was the hereditarycognomenof that branchof the Julian house which had ascended the throne, and all the emperors to Caligula could claim a legitimate right to it whether by descent or adoption. Even Claudius and Nero, connected as they were with the extinct family of Caesars, might use it with some show of family right. It is only with Galba and his successors thatCaesarbecomes strictly an appellative; it is an assertion of a fictitious dynastic claim such as that which led the princes of the house of Emesa to adopt the revered name of Antoninus, and may be indirectly connected with a claim to succeed to the crown property.[1652]The name, even when thus artificially employed, continued to be acognomen; it was shared by the ruling Princeps with his sons and grandsons.
With Hadrian’s reign we find the beginning of a limitation of its use. The Caesar is now the presumptive successor to the throne;[1653]the elective monarchy has been recognised as one that is, if not hereditary, at least capable of transmission through nomination, and the choice of the bearer of the name is made by the reigning Emperor, although it may be suggested by the Senate.[1654]After the beginning of the third century the name appears asnobilissimus Caesar, Geta being the first prince to bear this title. The recognition of the dual monarchy rendered it inevitable that two Caesars might be simultaneously designated for the throne.
Other honorarycognomina, such asGermanicus,Pius,Felix, were, even when transmitted, purely personal, although their adoption was now reserved for the Emperor, and such designations were no longer borne by the other nobles in the state. The designationpater patriaehas more distinct reference to the political position of the Princeps. A title once conferred by popular acclamation on Cicero, it is now equally in the gift of the people as represented by the Senate. As its conferment was not necessary to the powers of the Principate, the grant of this designation, however much it might be the result of flattery, was always regarded as the reward of merit.[1655]
The order of the imperial titles admits of variations, but, as finally fixed, was usuallypontifex maximus,tribunicia potestate(II.III.etc.),imperator(II.III.etc.),consul(II.III.etc.),censor(when this office was assumed, as it was by Claudius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian),proconsul(a title adopted by Trajan and occupying the last place after the reign of Hadrian).[1656]
The usualinsigniaof the Princeps are those of a Republican magistrate. Within the walls he wears the scarlet-striped gown (toga praetexta); outside them he may don the scarletpaludamentum. But the laurel crown, which he might wear anywhere and at any time,[1657]and the laurel-wreathedfasces[1658]are peculiar to him. At festivals and games the embroidered robe of triumph (vestis triumphalis) might also be assumed. Like other magistrates he has lictors[1659]andviatores, but he also boasts a special bodyguard as well, other than the praetorian cohorts. This guard was composed of mounted foreign mercenaries, usually of German horsemen.
But other peculiar honours seemed to lift the Princeps to more than magisterial rank. Regular vows (vota) were offered for him, as for the state,[1660]by the consuls and the colleges of priests; his birthday and the days of his victories were celebrated as public festivals;[1661]his statue and image are sacred and may not be profaned even by juxtaposition with unclean things;[1662]hisgeniusis the most binding power by which a man can swear; for while perjury in the name of the gods is punished only by heaven, to swear falsely by the Emperor’s name is treason onearth.[1663]Coins, whether struck by the Senate or the Emperor, show only his head or that of members of the imperial house.
Thedomus Caesariswas, in fact, raised far above the position of the other noble houses in the state. It was especially the agnatic descendants of the founder of the dynasty that were thus honoured, and the Roman idea of the unity of the household even led to the inclusion of the name of Caesar’s relatives in the soldier’s oath of fealty.[1664]Their effigies, too, appear on coins—a right originally restricted to such members of the family as actually shared in the government, but which was in later times granted as a compliment to ladies of the imperial house.[1665]Caesar’s relatives might also be distinguished by commands which could be interpreted as a promise of the succession. We shall speak elsewhere of this meaning which might be read into the gift of the proconsular or tribunician power, and almost equally significant was the appointment of some young member of the family to the honorary command of the corps ofequites(princeps juventutis).[1666]There was, indeed, one title which seemed to signify a dignity absolutely equal to that of the Princeps himself. This was the nameAugusta, which was borne by certain ladies of the ruling family. It was originally reserved for a single member, such as the mother, the grandmother, or the wife of the reigning Emperor, and may have originally implied some share in the throne. The Principate was not a regular magistracy, and there was no valid constitutional ground for excluding women from the throne, although the actual influence of queen-mothers, such as Livia, Agrippina, or Mamaea, however powerful it may have been, was wholly informal.[1667]The nameAugustacame, however, to be employed merely as an honorary designation, to be borne by such a woman as Marciana, the unaspiring sister of Trajan.[1668]A stranger title was developed by the ambitionof ladies of the second and third century. Faustina, wife of Marcus Aurelius, and Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus, were both designated “mothers of the camp” (mater castrorum). One important and disastrous result of this elevation of the imperial house was that its members were protected, like its head, against all the attacks oflaesa majestas. As even the most indirect reflection on the Princeps was treason, because he represented the state, a similar view was taken of constructive wrongs to members of the imperial family, because they were one with the Princeps. This view was too purely Roman to need time to develop. Even in the reign of the second Princeps we find that a poet has to expiate by death the folly of an obituary poem on the Emperor’s living son.[1669]
As the Princeps was not a king he had no court, and “Augustus or Trajan would have blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial offices which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain.”[1670]Yet, although theentourageof the early Principes was simplicity itself, the stately life of the Republican noble had already furnished precedents for distinguishing the grades and privileges of those who sought the Emperor’s presence. The younger Gracchus and Livius Drusus had, at the dailysalutatio, drawn distinctions amongst their numerous adherents; at the morning audience some were received singly, others in larger or in smaller groups;[1671]and it is not surprising that this distinction should have been revived for the great throng of callers who filled the hall of the imperial palace. Theamiciof the Princeps were those “received at court,” and were divided into friends of the first and second “audience.”[1672]From this body were selected the judicial and administrative advisers of the Emperor (consilium) as well as the comrades (comites) whom he took with him when he quitted Italy on business of state. From the latter, whoconsisted of senators or knights, he selected a group for a special journey,[1673]and employed them as delegates in matters administrative, judicial, and military.
The Principate was, in the theory of the constitution, an elective office, and one based on the principle of occasional delegation. It was necessary for the life of the state that there should be a magistracy,[1674]but it was not necessary that there should be a Princeps. Hence there was no institution such as the Republicaninterregnumto fill up the gap left by the vacancy of the throne,[1675]and the fact that such gaps did occur in the history of the Principate shows that the possibility of government by magistrates, senate, and people was no mere fiction. The abstract idea of a Principate was indeed perfectly realised at the death of the very first Princeps, in so far as responsible men in the Roman world had a perfectly definite idea of the precise powers that must be vested in an individual in order to save that world from anarchy. Yet Tiberius can pretend to hesitate, not merely about assuming the office, but about the nature of the office which he assumes;[1676]and, although on the accession of his successor, Gaius Caesar, thesoliti honoreswere conferreden bloc, yet the idea that the creation of a Princeps was an act of special investiture always clung to the office. It was obvious so far as the choice of the person was concerned, but it even affected the powers conferred, and we have seen that the grants made to Emperors of the second and third centuries were in all probability different, both in form and in matter, from those made to Emperors of the first.[1677]
The electing body was the Roman people, chiefly represented by the Senate but still retaining in its own hands the formal ratification of most of the powers conferred. But the powerlessness of this sovereign is of the very essence of the history ofthe Principate. As a rule, all that it can do is to recognise animperiumalready established by the army, whether this establishment be due to the tacit consent of praetorians or legionaries or to the active use of their swords. The crucial point in the creation of an emperor is his salutation by his army asimperator. Such a salutation did not mean that the general who accepted it was Princeps; it meant only that he was a candidate for the Principate. The act itself was one of revolution; its legality depended upon its success. Did the legions in other provinces accept the candidature, the Senate immediately fulfilled its formal task; did rival aspirants meet in battle, it was always ready to welcome the survivor. To be truly a Princeps was to receive the customary honours and offices from the Senate, and Vitellius was acting in the true spirit of the constitution when he adopted as the formal date of his accession (dies imperii) the day on which his claims had been ratified by the fathers.[1678]Vespasian was acting contrary to that spirit when he regarded as the beginning of his the moment at which he had been salutedimperatorby the legions of Egypt.[1679]
Yet although the history of the Empire furnishes an unparalleled series of successful revolutions, it must not be supposed that the importance of the Senate’s formally transmitting the succession was ever questioned or obscured. The Senate’s authority was rendered stable by the many peaceful instances of dynastic succession; it was rendered creditable by such a stand as that made against the tyrant Maximin; it was kept alive by the fact that when, in the days of the “thirty tyrants,” the Empire was breaking up, Italy was still the only formal centre of a world power; it was bound up with the magic name of Rome, and even in the third century was welcomed with relief by an army sick of its own lawless violence.[1680]
But whether we lay more stress on thede factoor thede jureelement in the act of election, we must admit that the electiveprinciple was not the sole determinant in the transmission of the Principate. It was crossed by two others, both of which were typically Roman. These were the principles of nomination and of hereditary succession.
Nomination took the form of designation by some significant act. One of the most significant modes in which the Princeps could point to his choice of a successor was to invest an individual with an approximation to those powers which were of the essence of the Principate, and thus to make him in a sense a colleague in the Empire (collega,consors imperii). The powers chosen were theproconsulare imperium, thetribunicia potestas, or both. It was thus that Augustus at different times designated Agrippa and Tiberius for the throne,[1681]that Tiberius pointed to Germanicus and Drusus as his destined successors, that Nerva nominated Trajan, Trajan Pius, and Pius Marcus Aurelius.[1682]Although such a position is described as one of colleagueship in the imperial power, yet it did not confer, as regards theimperium, the most characteristic rights of the Principate. The colleague did not possess joint command over the praetorian guard or the fleet, nor joint administration over all the Caesarian provinces,[1683]unless these rights were conferred by special mandate, as they were on Tiberius during the closing years of Augustus’ life;[1684]nor had the colleague, although in possession of an independentimperium, any right to triumph, except by the will of the Princeps,[1685]for his victory had been due to legions which hadtaken thesacramentumto another. The nameimperatorwas not borne by this assistant to the throne unless it was specially conferred, as it was by Vespasian on Titus and by Hadrian on Antoninus Pius.[1686]It is uncertain whether the possessor of thetribunicia potestasand of theproconsulare imperiumin its lower form had to have these powers reconferred on his accession to the throne. In the case of theimperium, since it fell short of that required for the imperial position, reconferment is probable. But yet the possession of such a power seemed to create a continuity in the Principate, and the state seemed never to have lost its head.
A second mode of nomination was effected by the Princeps designating his intended successor as his heir. It was not merely that this was an effective way of showing one’s will, but it actually pointed to a transmission of the crown property (patrimonium) which accompanied the Principate. Gaius attempted to employ this mode of designation in favour of his sister Drusilla,[1687]and Tiberius showed either that he had left the succession open, or that he contemplated a joint Augustate, by making his great-nephew Gaius and his grandson Tiberius Gemellus joint heirs.[1688]
Adoption was as effective a means of emphasising one’s intentions. Such an adoption by the Princeps might be by testament, but it need not follow the legal forms, and required only a public announcement through acontiowhether in the Forum, the Senate, or the camp.[1689]It was thus that Galba named Piso as his successor, but adoption usually accompanied the gift of quasi-imperial power, as in the cases of Tiberius, Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.[1690]
We have already noticed the method by which the Princeps, sometimes with the help of the Senate, could announce his wishes as to the succession by the gift of the name of Caesar.[1691]Thiswas a constitutional recognition of a principle of designation which had hitherto been informal.
Three of the modes of nomination which we have mentioned—those by heirship, adoption, and the gift of the name of Caesar—obviously approach very closely to the principle of hereditary succession. Adoption especially created to the Roman mind a tie only less strong than that of natural birth; and, whichever of the three methods was employed, it would have been considered almost inconceivable that a man should pass over his own son or agnatic descendant in favour of a stranger. Just as in the Republic son had succeeded father in office, so in the Principate it was easy to gain recognition for a dynasty; and, as a rule, it was only when the last of a line had, for misgovernment or other reasons, been violently overthrown, that the principle of selection found free play. The magic of the name of Caesar could call even Claudius to the throne; Vespasian, thenovus homo, found it easy to transmit his power; the dynasty founded by Severus ran through four generations in spite of the murder of Caracalla and the scandal of Elagabalus’ rule; the death of the two elder Gordians made the accession of the third inevitable; and Carus, the last of the rough soldier emperors, could be succeeded by the gentle Numerian and the extravagant Carinus.
The lack of any definite principle of succession combined with the warring forces within the Empire to make the position of a ruling Emperor one of dazzling uncertainty. The possibility of election by the legions created a rude standard of merit, and it is questionable whether any really incapable man ever sat on the Roman throne. But usurpation was often followed by dethronement, tyranny by death or posthumous disgrace; and although such expulsions, executions, and censures were practically the work of the army, it is of some importance for the constitutional theory of the Principate to determine the legal form which dethronement or condemnation assumed.
As it was the Senate, representing the people, which gave, so it was this power which took away the Principate; and the act of deposition is attested in the cases of Nero, Didius Julianus, and Maximin.[1692]Deposition was followed by death, and then came the condemnation of the reign, one that might follow evenwhen the death of the tyrant had not been directly ordered by the government.[1693]In its extremest form this was a condemnation of the memory (damnatio memoriae) of the late ruler on the ground that he was a traitor (perduellis).[1694]Hisactawere rescinded, his name erased from the records. A milder form of censure was the mere neglect of hisactain the form that no oath to observe them was sworn by magistrates and senators.[1695]In the latter case there was no wholesale rescission of the acts, and each special case in which the late Emperor had decided was approved on its individual merits.
On the other hand the acceptance of a reign took the twofold form of an oath to observe theactaof the dead Emperor[1696]and a vote to assign him a place amongst the deified Caesars. The prospect of this posthumous recognition of the merits of a reign must often have exercised a stimulating influence on the occupant of the throne,[1697]although it was somewhat spoilt by the consciousness that the decision of the Senate would, to a large extent, be guided by the wishes of his successor in office.
As the Republican constitution continued in form unimpaired, so its most essential feature, the magistracy, although subjectedto modification, was still an integral element in the administration of Rome and Italy during the Principate. Few radical differences were introduced into the magisterial qualifications or career; the innovations affected only the age for office, the starting point in thecursus honorum, and one of the steps in thecertus ordo magistratuum. The minimum age for the quaestorship was now twenty-five years,[1698]for the praetorship thirty,[1699]and two new qualifications were necessary before the quaestorship could be held. One was membership of the vigintivirate, the aggregate of lower magistracies to which thesex-et-vigintiviratusof the Republic had now shrunk.[1700]The other, perhaps originally a practical rather than a legal qualification, was the tenure of the military tribunate,[1701]the latter being held generally after one of the magistracies in the vigintivirate had been administered. This change, though apparently formal, meant a fundamental alteration in the spirit of the new nobility. The possibilities of culture, to be acquired in the schools of Athens and Rhodes, were now almost extinct. From the age of eighteen the aspirant to the highest honours in the State might be serving with Caesar’s legions on the frontier. It was through the Emperor’s grace that he attained a military position which was at least a practically necessary qualification for the magistracy; at the age of twenty-five the young soldier entered on the race for higher honours; as an ex-praetor, even at times as an ex-quaestor, he might be made the general of a brigade (legatus legionis), and from thence proceed to the government of a military, or the administration of a civil, province. Nothing shows more clearly the true military character of the new monarchy than the fact that even its civil and Republican posts were administered bysoldiers; nothing explains more adequately the subservience of the Senate than the fact that it was composed mainly of ex-officers, trained in the habits of rigid obedience and in unwavering respect to thesacramentum—of men to whom Caesar was not Princeps but Imperator.
With respect to the steps in office which followed the quaestorship, a further change was due to the unwillingness of candidates to burden themselves with the aedileship, now that its powers of bribery were of no avail, and with the now undistinguished tribunate of the Plebs. The rule was laid down that between the quaestorship and praetorship a Patrician must hold the curule aedileship, a Plebeian one of the two aedileships or the tribunate.[1702]An exemption from this lengthy course could, however, be given by an exercise of the imperial right ofadlectio. This was the conferment of an artificial magisterial rank. In form it was a power exercised in the revision of the list of the Senate and elevated from a lower to a higher grade within that order. But theadlectioalso had the effect of qualifying for the magistracy immediately above the rank thus artificially assigned. One who wasadlectus inter quaestorioswas qualified for the tribunate, oneadlectus inter tribuniciosfor the praetorship, and oneadlectus inter praetoriosfor the consulship. The consulship was amongst civic magistracies still the crown of a political career; hence the rarity of adlectioninter consulares.[1703]
A smaller honour was the conferment by the Senate, generally on the proposal of the Princeps, of theornamentaof a magistracy (quaestoria,praetoria,consularia) on one who had not held the magistracy itself. This honour gave no right of entry into the Senate, and none of holding the magistracy next in rank to that whose ornaments were conferred,[1704]but merely the privilege of wearing theinsigniaof an office at festivals and on other public occasions;[1705]it may, however, have given the right of voting with the class of senators whoseornamentawere conferred, if the person honoured was already provided with a seat at the Senate.[1706]This distinction was by no means reserved for persons legally qualified for the magistracy; it might be granted to knights high up in the imperial service, such as the praefects of the guard[1707]and of the watch,[1708]or to provincial procurators.[1709]Claudius granted it to imperial freedmen,[1710]and we find that even senators excluded from the curia were sometimes left theornamentaof their rank.[1711]
The permission to use the ornaments of a triumph (ornamenta triumphalia) was the result of the limitation of the right to the actual triumph. The application of the principle that this right was inconsistent with a subordinateimperium,[1712]had, when applied to the Principate, the effect of legally confining triumphs to the Princeps alone; for the governors of his own provinces were merely his delegates, while those of senatorial provinces, though nominally in independent authority, had as a rule no armies at their command.[1713]The triumphalinsigniamight, however, be granted by the Senate on the proposal of the Princeps.[1714]
The election to the magistracies will be more fitly treated in connexion with thecomitiaand the Senate. The obligations to which their holders bound themselves on their appointment were those of the Republic, with the exception that thejus jurandum in legeswas amplified by the inclusion of the validactaof the Princeps—those, that is, of a living or a previous emperor whose binding character had been recognised by oath.[1715]
If we turn now to the individual offices, we find that theconsulsare still the officially recognised heads of the Republic and of the Senate. On the suspension of the Principate they are the representatives of the state,[1716]and we find them acting in accordance with this character. It was the consuls who, on the deposition of Nero, sent despatches to Galba with the news of his selection,[1717]and it was by the surrender of his dagger to a consul that the abdication of Vitellius was effected.[1718]The dignity of the office is shown by the fact that it was the only one in which a citizen might have the Princeps as a colleague, and still more by the view of a gracious emperor that, when he was performing the functions of that office, the vast dignity of the Principate was for a moment lost in that of the consulship.[1719]As presidents of the Senate the consuls were partners in its nominal sovereignty. They guided its jurisdiction, both in civil and in criminal matters, and in the former may have acted as its commissioners. They also possessed in their own right high judicial functions—in matters of trust (fidei commissa), for instance—which were originally delegated to them by the Princeps, and of which we shall treat elsewhere.
But the very fact that the consulship was such a prize, as well as the fact that its occupation led to the filling of other high offices—the government of certain senatorial and imperial provinces and the praefecture of the city—induced a shortening of its tenure and a consequent multiplication of the individuals who might enjoy its privileges and become qualified for other duties. The expensiveness of the office may also have contributed to this end; for the increase in the number of occupants would lessen the pecuniary burden imposed by the celebration of games.[1720]Even the half-yearly consulships of the early Principate become in course of time very infrequent, and wesubsequently find a tenure of but four or two months.[1721]Those appointed for 1st January wereordinarii, the otherssuffecti,[1722]and the whole year was dated by the names of the former.
The number of thepraetorsvaried under Augustus and his successors from ten to eighteen. Twelve, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen are found at various times, and the final limit of eighteen was still maintaining itself in the time of Hadrian.[1723]The reason for this expansion of their numbers was their utility for the enlarged jurisdiction of the period. The Republican functions of thepraetor urbanusand thepraetor peregrinuscontinued, until those of the latter became extinct, perhaps soon after the conferment of citizenship on the whole Roman world by Caracalla (212A.D.);[1724]while other praetors, were guides of thequaestiones perpetuae, until the disappearance of these commissions towards the close of the second century.[1725]But new spheres of extraordinary jurisdiction claimed the attention of others. Thus Claudius instituted two praetors for adjudication on trusts (fidei commissarii),[1726]Nerva one for the decision of cases arising between thefiscusand private individuals (fiscalis),[1727]and Marcus Aurelius another for the granting, and perhaps for the control, of guardians (tutelaris).[1728]For a short time the administration of theaerariumwas also in the hands of praetors.[1729]
Most of the specific functions, which theaedileshad exercised during the Republic, now passed to other hands or were shorn of their importance. The history of the later Republic had shown how incompetent these officials were to exercise an adequate control of the market, and thecura annonaepassed to the Princeps and to the praefecture established by him. Their police functions were to a large extent absorbed by the praefecture of the city, but they still destroyed books condemned by theSenate,[1730]and attempted to carry out the sumptuary laws.[1731]Thecura urbisstill entailed on them the duty of keeping clean the streets of Rome[1732]and a supervision over places of public resort.[1733]Much of their criminal jurisdiction must have lapsed with the disappearance of trials before thecomitia, but they still retain a power of inflicting fines and seizing pledges—one which was limited and regulated during the reign of Nero[1734]—and the special civil jurisdiction of the curule aediles still continues.[1735]