into the hands of the emperor. Even in Rome and Italy its control of the administration was gradually transferred to the prefect of the city, and after the reign of Hadrian to imperial officers (juridici) charged with the civil administration.[1] The part still played by its decrees in the modification of Roman law has been dealt with elsewhere (see Senate), but it is clear that these decrees did little else than register the expressed wishes of the emperor and his personal advisers.
The process by which all authority became centralized in the hands of the princeps and in practice exercised by an organized Centralization of authority: the imperial service. bureaucracy[2] was of necessity gradual; but it had its beginnings under Augustus, who formed the equestrian order (admission to which was henceforth granted only by him) into an imperial service, partly civil and partly military, whose members, being immediately dependent on the emperor, could be employed on tasks which it would have been impossible to assign to senators (see Equites). From this order were drawn the armies of “procurators”—the term was derived from the practice of the great business houses of Rome—who administered the imperial revenues and properties in all parts of the empire. Merit was rewarded by independent governorships such as those of Raetia and Noricum, or the command of the naval squadrons at Misenum and Ravenna; and the prizes of the knight's career were the prefectures of the praetorian guard, the corn-supply and the city police, and the governorship of Egypt. The household offices and imperial secretary ships were held by freedmen, almost always of Greek origin, whose influence became all-powerful under such emperors as Claudius.[3] The financial secretary (a rationibus) and those who dealt with the emperor's correspondence (ab epistulis) and with petitions (a libellis) were the most important of these.
This increase of power was accompanied by a corresponding elevation of the princeps himself above the level of all other Outward splendour. citizens. The comparatively modest household and simple life of Augustus were replaced by a more than regal splendour, and under Nero we find all the outward accessories of monarchy present, the palace, the palace guards, the crowds of courtiers, and a court ceremonial. In direct opposition to the republican theory of the principate, members of the family of the princeps share the dignities of his position. The males bear the cognomen of Caesar, and are invested, as youths, with high office; their names and even those of the females are included in the yearly prayers for the safety of the princeps;[4] their birthdays are kept as festivals; the praetorian guards take the oath to them as well as to the princeps himself. The logical conclusion was reached in the practice of Caesar-worship,[5] which was in origin the natural expression of a widespread sentiment of homage, which varied in form in different parts of the empire and in different classes of society, but was turned to account by the statecraft of Augustus to develop something like an imperial patriotism. The official worship of the deified Caesar, starting from that of the “divine Julius,” gave a certain sanctity and continuity to the regular succession of the emperors, but it was of less importance politically than the worship of “Rome and Augustus,” first instituted in Asia Minor in 29 B.C., and gradually diffused throughout the provinces, as a symbol of imperial unity. It must be observed that living emperors were not officially worshipped by Roman citizens; yet we find that even in Italy an unauthorized worship of Augustus sprang up during his lifetime in the country towns.[6]
On the accession of Augustus, there could be little doubt as to the nature of the work that was necessary, if peace and prosperity were to be secured for the Roman world. He was called upon to justify his position by rectifying the frontiers and strengthening their defences, by reforming the system of provincial government, and by reorganizing the finance; and his success in dealing with these three difficult problems is sufficiently proved by the prosperous condition of the empire for a century and a half after his death. To secure peace it was necessary to The frontiers. establish on all sides of the empire really defensible frontiers; and this became possible now that for the first time the direction of the foreign policy of the state and of its military forces was concentrated in the hands of a single magistrate. To the south and west the generals of the republic, and Caesar himself, had extended the authority of Rome to the natural boundaries formed by the African deserts and the Atlantic Ocean, and in these two directions Augustus's task was in the main confined to the organization of a settled Roman government within these limits. In Africa the client state of Egypt was ruled by Augustus as the successor of the Ptolemies, and administered by his deputies (praefecti), and the kingdom of Numidia (25 B.C.) was incorporated with the old province of Africa. In Spain the hill-tribes of the north-west were finnally subdued and a third province, Lusitania, established.[7] In Gaul Augustus (27 B.C.) established in addition to the “old province” the three new ones of Aquitania, Lugdunensis and Belgica,[8] which included the territories conquered by Julius Caesar. The North. Towards the north the republic had left the civilized countries bordering on the Mediterranean with only a very imperfect defence against the threatening mass of barbarian tribes beyond them. The result[9] of Augustus's policy was to establish a protecting line of provinces running from the Euxine to the North Sea, and covering the peaceful districts to the south,—Moesia (A.D. 6), Pannonia (A.D. 9), Noricum (15 B.C.), Raetia (15 B.C.) and Gallia Belgica. Roman rule was thus carried up to the natural frontier lines of the Rhine and the Danube. It was originally intended to make the Elbe the frontier of the empire; but after the defeat of P. Quintilius Varus (A.D. 9) the forward policy was abandoned. Tiberius recalled Germanicus as soon as Varus had been avenged; and after the peace with Maroboduus, the chief of the Marcomanni on the upper Danube, in the next year (A.D. 17), the defensive policy recommended by Augustus was adopted along the whole of the northern frontier. The line of the great rivers was held by an imposing mass of troops. Along the Rhine lay the armies of Upper and Lower Germany, consisting of four legions each; eight more guarded the Danube and the frontiers of Pannonia and Moesia. At frequent intervals along the frontier were the military colonies, the permanent camps and the smaller intervening castella. Flotillas of galleys cruised up and down the rivers, and Roman roads opened communication both along the frontiers and with the seat of government in Italy.
In the East, Rome was confronted with a well-organized and powerful state whose claims to empire were second only to her The East. own. The victory of Carrhae (53 B.C.) had encouraged among the Parthians the idea of an invasion of Syria and Asia Minor, while it had awakened in Rome a genuine fear of the formidable power which had so suddenly arisen in the East. Caesar was at the moment of his death preparing to avenge the death of Crassus by an invasion of Parthia, and Antony's schemes of founding an Eastern empire which should rival that of Alexander included the conquest of the kingdom beyond the Euphrates. Augustus, however, adhered to the policy which he recommended to his successors of “keeping the empire within its bounds”; and the Parthians, weakened by internal feuds and dynastic quarrels, were in no mood for vigorous action. Roman pride was satisfied by the restoration of the standards taken at Carrhae. Four legions guarded the line of the Euphrates, and, beyond the frontiers of Pontus and
- ↑ Vit. Hadr. 22; “Juridici” were appointed by Marcus Aurelius, Vit. Ant. 11; Marquardt i. 224.
- ↑ On the growth of the imperial bureaucracy see Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten bis auf Diocletian (1905).
- ↑ For the position of the imperial freedmen under Claudius, see Friedländer i. 88 sqq.; Tac. Ann. xii. 60, xiv. 39, Hist. ii. 57, 95.
- ↑ Acta Fr. Arval. (ed. Henzen), 33, 98, 99.
- ↑ For Caesar-worship, see Mommsen, Staatsr. ii. 755 sqq.; Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, p. 283 sqq., and Kornemann in Beiträge zur alten Geschichte, i.
- ↑ See Rushforth, Roman Historical Inscriptions, Nos. 38 sqq. and notes.
- ↑ Marquardt i. 257; Mommsen, Provinces, i. 64.
- ↑ Marquardt i. 264; Mommsen, Provinces, i. 84. seq.
- ↑ See especially Mommsen, Provinces, i. caps. 4 and 6.
