Roman Public Life/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
THE PRINCIPATE
§ 1. The Powers of the Princeps
We have seen that the powers on which Augustus based his position as Princeps were the proconsulare imperium and the tribunicia 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 unlimited imperium was 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 an imperium, and supreme government impossible without one of such an indefinite character that it should seem to stand out of relation to the regular and limited imperia of 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 to retain the full imperium within the walls;[1] 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. It might signify that the limitations imposed by the city walls now rendered the pro-consular a quasi-consular imperium, and this was perhaps the ruling theory. But a different line of interpretation would have rendered it easy to show that the imperium here 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 civic imperium he gives justice, as a court of first instance or a court of appeal, and issues edicts to supplement the laws.
But the recognition of an imperium within 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 consular insignia had to be conferred;[2] he possessed in virtue of his tribunician power only the right of making the third proposal at the Senate: hence the grant of the jus primae relationis.[3] 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,[4] we find the Emperor credited with the heterogeneous powers of making treaties, extending the pomerium, 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, not possessed 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 of imperium, 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 the imperium; for the imperial biographies frequently speak of the gift of the proconsulare imperium (by the Senate) and of the tribunicia potestas (by Senate and People) without any hint of a general law conferring the "imperium."[5] Yet the gift of the imperium is sometimes mentioned,[6] and if the passages of jurists of the second and third centuries, which speak of imperium being conferred through a lex,[7] 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 the lex 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 sole commander.[8] 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;[9] 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.[10] 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 an imperium, 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 the imperium that strike our attention are those exercised in the military sphere—rights which, on a vast scale, reflect and extend the powers possessed by the imperator of the Republic. The Princeps has the right to raise levies,[11] 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[12] settled a vexed question of Republican procedure.[13] This recognition of the federative power was not earlier than the reign of the first Claudius,[14] but had already become a permanent element in the imperial authority by the accession of Vespasian. The right to extend the pomerium of the city, which dates also from the reign of Claudius, is also found amongst the list of imperial prerogatives in 69 A.D.[15]
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,[16] 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 to peregrinae civitates,[17] and citizenship to Latin towns, while he may alter the nominal status of a community by changing a municipium into a colony, or a colony into a municipium.[18] His right of conferring citizenship on individuals was equally unquestioned,[19] and he might remedy the defect of birth by giving ingenuitas to a freedman.[20]
With the imperium too 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 the imperium, while his power of legal interpretation, although specially 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.) The tribunicia potestas, which had been granted to Augustus in 36, reconferred in 30, and made the chief outward support of his authority in 23 B.C.,[21] continued to serve the Emperors as the ostensible means by which all other magistracies were subject to their control,[22] and possessed an artificial prominence from its employment as a means of dating the years of their reign. Positively it conferred the sacrosanctitas, which had encompassed the Republican tribune,[23] 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.[24] But its negative were now, as ever, of more value than its positive powers. The intercessio made its possessor the moderator of the state,[25] 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.[26] The right of help (auxilium)[27] 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 the Princeps 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;[28] 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 the comitia and the army soon ceased to be necessary made its absence scarcely felt. On the analogy of the tribunicia potestas, the powers of the office without the office itself were, in the form of a cura legum et morum, offered to Augustus, but declined by him.[29] There was no constitutional difficulty about exercising some of the functions of the censorship through the imperium, whether consular or quasi-consular, and this was done by Augustus when he revised the list of the Senate in 29 and 18 B.C.[30] 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).[31] His precedent was not followed because it was unnecessary. The revision of the list of the Senate and equites—the only meaning that the cura morum now had—was established by consent as an admitted right of the Princeps,[32] and even the power of creating Patricians came to be recognised as one inherent in his office. This power had been conferred on Caesar and Augustus by law; Claudius and Vespasian exercised it as censors;[33] but, apparently without further enactment, this power of ennobling, extinct since the beginning of the Republic[34] 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.[35]
(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.[36] 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.[37] 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 a relatio of 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 of magistrates, 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. The nominatio is 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.[38] The practical effect of the Prince's nomination on the election might be great, but its legal influence was nil.[39] 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.[40] 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.[41] Magistrates, who had gained their position by this act of imperial favour, were designated candidati Caesaris.[42] 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.[43] This may have been a limitation of practice, not of theory, for the words 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 the commendatio.[44]
The Princeps, according to the enactment which confers powers on Vespasian, was dispensed from certain laws (legibus solutus).[45] 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 the leges annales, or the rule forbidding the holding of the imperium within the walls. In choosing an heir the Emperor was also exempted from following the precise formalities of adrogation;[46] he could manumit without the vindicta[47] and was not subject to the disabilities of the Julian and Papian law.[48]
(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 the jus divinum,[49] 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.[50] We have not, however, merely the phenomenon of the civil assisting the religious arm, for the Prince, as pontifex 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,[51] 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.[52] When the Principate came to admit the principle of colleagueship, only one of the Augusti was made chief pontiff,[53] and the association of the highest religious and civil power continued until the stole was rejected by the piety of Gratian.[54]
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,[55] and when the jussio principis speaks on a question of burial law,[56] 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.[57]
§ 2. Titles, Insignia, and Honours of the Princeps
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 word Princeps, although it described 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,[58] 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.[59] It was above all a title which tended to emphasise the continuance of the life of the Republican government under the new régime, and suggested a mental contrast, at once to the Emperor's position as the commander of his legions, expressed in the title imperator, and to that absolute headship which, as exercised in family life at Rome, was known as dominium.[60] The name, indeed, of dominus inspired 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,[61] and Tiberius insisted that he was dominus only to his slaves.[62] 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 is dominus on his coins.[63] 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 word imperator occupies a doubtful place between the two; for while denoting no office, it signifies the possession of an active and untrammelled imperium. It occupies a twofold place in the list of titles. Augustus employed it as a praenomen, perhaps in accordance with the view that he had inherited the title from his uncle, who had borne it (apparently as a cognomen[64]) during the later years of his life, and as a praenomen it was used by most succeeding emperors.[65] 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.[66] 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 as imperator II.
A more distinctive title of office is that of proconsul. Although it merely expresses the fact of a proconsulate 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's imperium.
Amongst the honorary appellations of the Emperor, Caesar and Augustus take the foremost place. The latter, although appended to the Emperor's name like a cognomen, 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,[67] and was not borne even by that subordinate partner on the throne (consors imperii), the holder of the proconsulate imperium or tribunicia 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 161 A.D. that the duo Augusti appear.
Caesar, on the other hand, was in origin purely a family designation, since it was the hereditary cognomen of that branch of 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 that Caesar becomes 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.[68] The name, even when thus artificially employed, continued to be a cognomen; 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;[69] 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.[70] After the beginning of the third century the name appears as nobilissimus 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 honorary cognomina, such as Germanicus, 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 designation pater patriae has 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.[71]
The order of the imperial titles admits of variations, but, as finally fixed, was usually pontifex 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).[72]
The usual insignia of 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 scarlet paludamentum. But the laurel crown, which he might wear anywhere and at any time,[73] and the laurel-wreathed fasces[74] 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[75] and viatores, 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,[76] by the consuls and the colleges of priests; his birthday and the days of his victories were celebrated as public festivals;[77] his statue and image are sacred and may not be profaned even by juxtaposition with unclean things;[78] his genius is 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 on earth.[79] Coins, whether struck by the Senate or the Emperor, show only his head or that of members of the imperial house.
The domus Caesaris was, 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.[80] 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.[81] 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 of equites (princeps juventutis).[82] There was, indeed, one title which seemed to signify a dignity absolutely equal to that of the Princeps himself. This was the name Augusta, 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.[83] The name Augusta came, however, to be employed merely as an honorary designation, to be borne by such a woman as Marciana, the unaspiring sister of Trajan.[84] A stranger title was developed by the ambition of 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 of laesa 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.[85]
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."[86] Yet, although the entourage of 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 daily salutatio, drawn distinctions amongst their numerous adherents; at the morning audience some were received singly, others in larger or in smaller groups;[87] 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. The amici of the Princeps were those "received at court," and were divided into friends of the first and second "audience."[88] 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, who consisted of senators or knights, he selected a group for a special journey,[89] and employed them as delegates in matters administrative, judicial, and military.
§ 3. Creation, Transmission, and Abrogation of the Principate
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,[90] but it was not necessary that there should be a Princeps. Hence there was no institution such as the Republican interregnum to fill up the gap left by the vacancy of the throne,[91] 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;[92] and, although on the accession of his successor, Gaius Caesar, the soliti honores were conferred en 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.[93]
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 of the Principate. As a rule, all that it can do is to recognise an imperium already 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 as imperator. 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.[94] Vespasian was acting contrary to that spirit when he regarded as the beginning of his the moment at which he had been saluted imperator by the legions of Egypt.[95]
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.[96]
But whether we lay more stress on the de facto or the de jure element in the act of election, we must admit that the elective principle 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 the proconsulare imperium, the tribunicia potestas, or both. It was thus that Augustus at different times designated Agrippa and Tiberius for the throne,[97] that Tiberius pointed to Germanicus and Drusus as his destined successors, that Nerva nominated Trajan, Trajan Pius, and Pius Marcus Aurelius.[98] Although such a position is described as one of colleagueship in the imperial power, yet it did not confer, as regards the imperium, 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,[99] unless these rights were conferred by special mandate, as they were on Tiberius during the closing years of Augustus' life;[100] nor had the colleague, although in possession of an independent imperium, any right to triumph, except by the will of the Princeps,[101] for his victory had been due to legions which had taken the sacramentum to another. The name imperator was 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.[102] It is uncertain whether the possessor of the tribunicia potestas and of the proconsulare imperium in its lower form had to have these powers reconferred on his accession to the throne. In the case of the imperium, 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,[103] 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.[104]
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 a contio whether in the Forum, the Senate, or the camp.[105] 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.[106]
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.[107] This was 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, the novus 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.[108] Deposition was followed by death, and then came the condemnation of the reign, one that might follow even when the death of the tyrant had not been directly ordered by the government.[109] 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).[110] His acta were rescinded, his name erased from the records. A milder form of censure was the mere neglect of his acta in the form that no oath to observe them was sworn by magistrates and senators.[111] 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 two-fold form of an oath to observe the acta of the dead Emperor[112] 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,[113] 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.
§ 4. The other Powers in the State—the Magistracy, the Comitia, and the Senate
(1) The Magistracy
As the Republican constitution continued in form unimpaired, so its most essential feature, the magistracy, although subjected to 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 the cursus honorum, and one of the steps in the certus ordo magistratuum. The minimum age for the quaestorship was now twenty-five years,[114] for the praetorship thirty,[115] 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 the sex-et-vigintiviratus of the Republic had now shrunk.[116] The other, perhaps originally a practical rather than a legal qualification, was the tenure of the military tribunate,[117] 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 by soldiers; 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 the sacramentum—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.[118] An exemption from this lengthy course could, however, be given by an exercise of the imperial right of adlectio. 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 the adlectio also had the effect of qualifying for the magistracy immediately above the rank thus artificially assigned. One who was adlectus inter quaestorios was qualified for the tribunate, one adlectus inter tribunicios for the praetorship, and one adlectus inter praetorios for the consulship. The consulship was amongst civic magistracies still the crown of a political career; hence the rarity of adlection inter consulares.[119]
A smaller honour was the conferment by the Senate, generally on the proposal of the Princeps, of the ornamenta of 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,[120] but merely the privilege of wearing the insignia of an office at festivals and on other public occasions;[121] it may, however, have given the right of voting with the class of senators whose ornamenta were conferred, if the person honoured was already provided with a seat at the Senate.[122] 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[123] and of the watch,[124] or to provincial procurators.[125] Claudius granted it to imperial freedmen,[126] and we find that even senators excluded from the curia were sometimes left the ornamenta of their rank.[127]
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 subordinate imperium,[128] 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.[129] The triumphal insignia might, however, be granted by the Senate on the proposal of the Princeps.[130]
The election to the magistracies will be more fitly treated in connexion with the comitia and the Senate. The obligations to which their holders bound themselves on their appointment were those of the Republic, with the exception that the jus jurandum in leges was amplified by the inclusion of the valid acta of the Princeps—those, that is, of a living or a previous emperor whose binding character had been recognised by oath.[131]
If we turn now to the individual offices, we find that the CONSULS are 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,[132] 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,[133] and it was by the surrender of his dagger to a consul that the abdication of Vitellius was effected.[134] 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.[135] 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.[136] Even the half-yearly consulships of the early Principate become in course of time very infrequent, and we subsequently find a tenure of but four or two months.[137] Those appointed for 1st January were ordinarii, the others suffecti,[138] and the whole year was dated by the names of the former.
The number of the PRAETORS varied 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.[139] The reason for this expansion of their numbers was their utility for the enlarged jurisdiction of the period. The Republican functions of the praetor urbanus and the praetor peregrinus continued, until those of the latter became extinct, perhaps soon after the conferment of citizenship on the whole Roman world by Caracalla (212 A.D.);[140] while other praetors, were guides of the quaestiones perpetuae, until the disappearance of these commissions towards the close of the second century.[141] But new spheres of extraordinary jurisdiction claimed the attention of others. Thus Claudius instituted two praetors for adjudication on trusts (fidei commissarii),[142] Nerva one for the decision of cases arising between the fiscus and private individuals (fiscalis),[143] and Marcus Aurelius another for the granting, and perhaps for the control, of guardians (tutelaris).[144] For a short time the administration of the aerarium was also in the hands of praetors.[145]
Most of the specific functions, which the AEDILES had 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 the cura annonae passed 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 the Senate,[146] and attempted to carry out the sumptuary laws.[147] The cura urbis still entailed on them the duty of keeping clean the streets of Rome[148] and a supervision over places of public resort.[149] Much of their criminal jurisdiction must have lapsed with the disappearance of trials before the comitia, but they still retain a power of inflicting fines and seizing pledges—one which was limited and regulated during the reign of Nero[150]—and the special civil jurisdiction of the curule aediles still continues.[151]
The QUAESTORS still maintained their functions as financial officials and general assistants to the magistrates. Their number had been raised by Caesar to forty, but was again reduced to twenty by Augustus.[152] For a time two quaestors had the guardianship of the aerarium,[153] and others were in the public provinces the financial and judicial assistants of the proconsuls.[154] Four more were assigned to the consuls, two to each, as their agents and assistants;[155] while the Princeps himself employed two, commended by himself (quaestores Augusti, quaestores candidati principis), chiefly for the purpose of reading his despatches to the Senate.[156] During the reign of Claudius a step was taken which "put up the quaestorship for sale,"[157] and associated it with a function that clung to it longer than any other. This was the exhibition of gladiatorial games at the cost of the exhibitor,[158] a pecuniary burden which henceforth fell on every aspirant for higher office, until Severus Alexander ordained that only the quaestores candidati should themselves defray the expenses of these spectacles, the cost of the games given by the others being defrayed from the fiscus.[159]
The tribunes of the Plebs were not colleagues of the Princeps, for the tribunica potestas was not the tribunate, and the actions in virtue of it were not even theoretically subject to the tribunes' veto. But their great negative powers were still occasionally exercised in some departments of state during the first century of the Principate. Like the office itself, however, they were but a shadow of those of the Republic.[160] The intercessio against decrees of the Senate might be attempted when unimportant matters, such as the right to scourge actors, were under discussion,[161] or might be employed as a warning to the Senate that the Princeps should be consulted on the business in hand.[162] In higher matters of state its exercise might mean danger or death to the tribune who mistook the fictitious for the real Republic, or who, recognising the tyranny, chose to brave the anger of the Emperor.[163] The right of auxilium was still exercised against a praetor in 56 A.D.,[164] and appealed to by an Emperor in 69.[165] But this, too, soon disappeared to leave no trace. In the early Principate the tribunes seem to have possessed some right of summoning civil cases from the Italian towns to Rome,[166] probably through an exercise of the veto; and, although their criminal jurisdiction had disappeared with the comitia, they retained some power of inflicting fines (multae), which was limited during the reign of Nero.[167] There is also evidence that they still possessed the right of veto in civil jurisdiction.[168] Amongst positive powers their presidency of the Senate still survives, as we shall see in dealing with that body.
The office of tribune, since it conferred little distinction, was by no means an object of ambition; and the difficulty of getting the ten places filled led to the inclusion of this magistracy, as one of the necessary steps, in the cursus honorum,[169] and sometimes to more drastic measures such as the selection of ex-quaestors by lot under Augustus,[170] or the reception of members of the equestrian order under Claudius.[171] Yet, with all its disadvantages, the tribunate survived the Principate, and tribunes are named in imperial despatches of the fourth century.[172]
(2) The Comitia
An element in the restoration of the Republic by Augustus, after the provisional government of the Triumvirate was over, was a renewal of the life of the popular assemblies.[173] But it was impossible that their purely local character could be reconciled with the imperial interests of the day, or that their popular character should be consistent with the rule of the Princeps and his nobility. For a moment they remained to a certain extent a reality, and throughout the Principate they exercised the shadow of power which was sufficient to express the still surviving theory of popular sovereignty.
From the first a considerable portion of the powers of the comitia had been transferred wholly to the Princeps; for to him belonged the rights of declaring war, of making peace, and of forming alliances;[174] while the criminal jurisdiction which the people exercised at the end of the Republic was no longer necessary, for while the more definite portion of it was handed over to the quaestiones,[175] the more indefinite now fell under the extraordinary cognisance of the Senate. Legislative power tended to centre more and more in the Princeps and Senate, and it is only during the first century that enactments are mentioned which have the true forms of leges and plebiscita.[176] The right of election was the most permanent of the popular prerogatives. Under Augustus the people still chose its magistrates, although the choice was considerably influenced by the Princeps;[177] and after Tiberius in the first year of his reign had caused all the real elements of election—the profession, the nomination, the vote—to be transferred to the Senate,[178] the formal renuntiatio of the successful candidates (an integral part of the election)[179] still continued to be made to the people down to the third century.[180] It is only in respect to the consulship that there is a doubt whether, during the first century A.D., more than the mere announcement of the result was not effected in the comitia. The evidence is conflicting, but the indications of a formal popular control of these appointments are on the whole outweighed by those which refer to the Senate the real elements of election—rendered nugatory at times by the way in which the Princeps exercised his powers of nomination.[181] There can be little question, however, that in the later Principate the consular, like all other, elections were vested in the Senate. The survival of the comitia into the third century, whether for the purpose of the renuntiatio or for that of ratifying the powers of the Princeps, was no mere mass-meeting informally assembled. The stately forms of the Republic were preserved, and when the centuries were assembled the red flag still flew from the Janiculum.[182]
(3) The Senate
It was through the Senate of the Principate that the idea of popular sovereignty was most practically and even most formally expressed; and, as the Principate claimed and even tried to be nothing more than the extraordinary magistracy of a Republic, the most infinite pains was taken with this body to give it dignity, stability, and weight. We shall speak elsewhere of the senatorial "order" which was created during the Principate; it was from this order that the Senate was recruited, and the will of the Princeps could be very distinctly asserted in the selection of members of the great council. Entrance was, as in the Republic, chiefly through the magistracy, the tenure of the quaestorship qualifying for a seat at the board. When, therefore, the Senate became itself the electing body, the principle of entrance was one of cooptation; and as the Princeps did not, to any great extent, influence the selection of quaestors by his commendatio,[183] the principle was something more than a mere theory. But we shall see that he often gave the latus clavus which admitted to the senatorial order; we have seen that he advanced to the military tribunate, which became one of the qualifications for the quaestorship;[184] he might also have exercised an influence in the formal nomination of candidates for this office; while his right of adlectio,[185] when exercised with reference to persons who had not been magistrates, gave him the power of actually creating senators.
The qualifications for the Senate had reference to age, wealth, and birth. As twenty-five was the minimum age for the quaestorship, a man might be a senator at twenty-six.[186] The census required, though it varied from time to time during the reign of Augustus, was finally fixed at a million sesterces.[187] Ingenuitas was required—Claudius even demanded free birth through three generations[188]—and it was counted one of the abuses of tyrannical rule when the favour of Emperors admitted freedmen into the Senate.[189] For a time the council maintained its mainly Roman character, but "new men" from Italy and the provinces crept in with the censorships of Claudius and Vespasian,[190] and the former Emperor even granted admission to the Gallic Aedui, perhaps by an employment of his right of adlectio.[191] The reception of provincials finally became so frequent that, to give them an Italian interest, it was decreed by Trajan that one-third of their property must be invested in land in Italy,[192] a quota that was changed by Marcus Aurelius to one-fourth.[193]
Removal from the Senate belonged to the Emperor either as censor, when he exercised the discretionary moral judgment which had been associated with the Republican lectio,[194] or in virtue of that power of revision which, as we have seen, became associated with the Principate.[195] The chief grounds of exclusion were lack of the requisite census, refusal to take the oath in acta Caesaris which was demanded of senators as of magistrates,[196] or condemnation for crime. The Senate itself, in the exercise of its judicial power, could add to the sentence which it inflicted on a senator the penalty of expulsion from the house;[197] it might even make this expulsion a punishment for calumnious accusation.[198] The revised list of the Senate (album senatorium) was posted up publicly every year,[199] and the Emperor appeared at the head of this list as princeps senatus.[200] The number of the Senate was fixed by Augustus at 600,[201] and, as there seems to have been little or no alteration in the number of the quaestors, the size of the body into which they passed may have been fairly constant. Augustus also instituted fixed days for meeting. These regular meetings (senatus legitimi) took place twice a month, on the Kalends and the Ides, except during the autumn months of September and October, and attendance on these days was compulsory.[202] Even to these meetings, however, there was a summons through an edict.[203] Extraordinary sittings (senatus indicti) could also be held whenever the magistrate deemed them necessary.[204] The presidency and summons belonged chiefly to the consuls, but, as in the Republic, were possessed also by the praetors and tribunes.[205] When the Senate had been summoned, the Princeps shared in the presidency as a magistrate, and it is very questionable whether he ever appeared at the board in the character of a simple senator.[206] As a magistrate he might address the house at any moment, and, during the early Principate at least, custom dictated that there should be a pause at the opening and at the close of a debate which the Princeps might fill up with an expression of opinion if he pleased.[207] We have already noticed the singular privileges which he possessed in the matter of bringing business before the house.[208]
Amongst the powers of the Senate, that which was formally the greatest was the creation and deposition of the Princeps. We have already seen how this right was limited in practice;[209] but its nominal exercise was an expression of the view that the sovereignty of the Roman people now found its chief exponent in the ancient council. The same idea is expressed in the senatorial power of dispensation from laws—whether in favour of the Princeps and members of his house,[210] or in administrative matters such as the right of forming associations.[211] The elective power which the Senate enjoyed from the beginning of the reign of Tiberius[212] is also a sign of its perpetuating the powers of the people.
Over foreign administration, once the great bulwark of its power, the Senate has now but little control. Although it still receives messages of the victories of the Princeps, and grants him a triumph,[213] it has lost all independent rights of war, peace, and alliance. But it receives envoys from the provinces which are under its control,[214] and from the towns of Italy,[215] and, at least in the first century of the Principate, it may act as the advising body of the Princeps in spheres which pertain wholly to him. Tiberius consulted the Senate on military questions;[216] Vespasian waived an embarrassing offer of help from the Parthians by urging them to send an embassy to the Senate; and Decebalus, after his conquest by Trajan, obtained his final terms of peace by the same means.[217] Such concessions were doubtless acts of grace on the part of the Princeps, but they also represent a constitutional principle which finally disappeared—the principle of consulting the representatives of the people on questions that were of paramount interest to the state.
The other powers of the Senate, which express its sovereignty or its partnership of administration with the Princeps, we must reserve for the next section, in which we shall attempt to illustrate the theory of a dual control which pervades the constitution of the Principate.
§ 5. The Chief Departments of the State; the Dual Control of Senate and Princeps
We have already seen that, in the most essential fact of sovereignty—the creation of the Principate—the Senate and people, or rather the Senate as representing the people, was theoretically supreme.[218] The attribute of sovereignty that comes nearest to this is the power of legislation, for it is one that the "determinate human superior" generally retains in his own hands. The other functions that are usually associated with the highest authority in a community, such as the control of general administration, jurisdiction, finance, cultus and coinage, may more easily be delegated. If the delegation is temporary, there is no division of sovereign power; if perpetual, there is such a division unless the legislative power be thought of as capable of recalling the mandate. We have already seen to what a large extent the people had delegated its powers to the Princeps, and we have also seen that this delegation was, in fact though not in theory, perpetual.[219] But, in the spheres of authority which we are now about to examine, there is neither the theory of complete retention, nor that of complete delegation, of sovereign power. The sovereign has partly retained and has partly delegated in perpetuity every one of the functions of government which we have enumerated, and this singular dualism affects, not only the administrative, but even the legislative activity of the state.
(i.) Legislation.—With respect to legislation it has already been shown how the comitia still uttered their general mandates until a period at least as late as the reign of Nerva.[220] But, even before the legislative power of the people became extinct, this power had been passing to the Senate; and in the strict theory of the constitution, true legislative authority is to be finally found only in the great council which represents the people.
The origin of this senatorial legislation is doubtless to be sought in the advice on legal points which the Republican Senate had often tendered to the magistrate, and in the interpretation of customary law or of enactments which often accompanied this advice.[221] It has, indeed, been noted that the senatus consulta of the Principate, which prescribe general commands such as in the Republic would have been the subject of leges, are often expressed in this advisory form;[222] decrees of the Senate never attained the formal structure of a law;[223] they also lack its imperative mode of utterance, and for these two reasons they were never described as leges. The highest degree of validity which the jurist could give them was "the binding force of laws";[224] but this force was sufficient to make them sources of the jus civile,[225] and down to the third century such general commands as tended to alter the fundamental legal relations of Roman citizens to one another, were generally expressed in the form of senatus consulta.
The Princeps, on the other hand, is not credited directly with any power of legislation; but the faculty for making jus, which was inherent in the imperium of every Roman magistrate, and especially apparent in that of the praetor, was manifested by the Princeps in an unexampled degree. His methods of utterance are through the edict, the decree, and the rescript. The edictum is, like that of the praetor, technically an interpretation of law; but the creative power associated with interpretation is here pushed to its extremest limits, and statute law supplemented this faculty inherent in the imperium by explicitly declaring that whatever ordinances the Princeps might lay down should (with certain limitations fixed by precedents) be considered valid.[226] Whether the edict of one Princeps bound his successor must have depended to some extent on the degree of formality in the utterance. Tiberius professes respect even for the obiter dicta of Augustus;[227] but this reverence was exaggerated, and none but the formal edicts expressed in written form could, as a rule, have been included in the acta. It is by no means certain that even these were always included in the acta to which the oath was taken;[228] but if an edict had been recognised as valid by several succeeding Principes and was then abandoned, some formal method of repudiation seems to have been necessary.[229]
The decretum was, in its strict sense, the sentence of the Princeps when sitting as a high court of justice;[230] as a res judicata it necessarily possessed absolutely binding force for the case in which it was issued, and prevented any renewal of this process; but, unless formally rescinded in a succeeding reign, its validity as a precedent seems not to have been questioned, and the words Caesar dixit appeal to the jurists almost with the force of law.[231]
The third mode of utterance is by means of the letter (epistola) or rescript (rescriptum).[232] These letters contained instructions either on administrative or on judicial matters. In their first character they might be addressed either to individual officials subordinate to the Emperor or to the provincial diet,[233] the scope of their application depending on the Emperor's discretion at the time of the issue, and on the interpretation of the rescript after his death. In matters of justice, whether addressed to the judge or to the litigant, they might settle doubtful points of law or extend a principle to new cases. The power of interpretation is at least as great in the rescript as in the edict; but the rescript was the more powerful vehicle for law-making. It kept the Princeps in constant touch with the provincial world, and was the chief mode in which the uniformity of its administration and its law was moulded. The rescripts also had, on account of the precision and permanence of their form, a more unquestioned validity, as perpetual enactments, than either the edict or the decree. When the acta of an emperor are referred to, it is chiefly these, together with the charters or privileges (leges datae, beneficia) that he may have conferred on states, that are intended. The rescripts might be elicited either by the consultatio of a doubtful official who was subordinated, either as an administrator or as a judge, to the Emperor, or they might be written in answer to the petition (libellus, supplicatio) of one of the parties to a suit. In the latter case they were often a convenient substitute for the personal appearance of the appellant in the Emperor's court.
The edicts, decrees, and rescripts came eventually to be described as "imperial constitutions" (constitutiones principum), and although, as we have seen, different degrees of permanence might attach to each of these methods of utterance, to a jurist of the second century they all had the force of law.[234] From this category of enactments with binding force one important class of imperial ordinances seems formally to have been exempted. This class consisted of the mandata, or general instructions which the Princeps gave to officials subordinate to himself. In the early Principate they were for the most part issued to the governors of Caesar's provinces, but the gradual encroachment of the Emperor's powers on senatorial administration led to the mandates being issued to proconsuls as well. When the mandate dealt with a precise point of the jus civile and was repeated by successive emperors, it doubtless came to have the force of a rescript;[235] but it was more often concerned with the general administrative duties of subordinates, directing them in the doubtful cases of the moment, and, therefore, not necessarily laying down rules of perpetual validity. In one sense the mandate stands higher than the rescript, for it is as a rule more general in form, and a mandatum may be the result of a series of rescripta on the same point; but in another sense it stands lower, since it was understood that it might be recalled at any moment by the Princeps who had issued it, and that it might not be observed by his successor. The remarkable differences of treatment to which the Christians were subjected during the Principate was due chiefly to the fact that, so far as this treatment was a concern of the central government at all, it was one directed by mandate.
A review of the powers of the Princeps as exercised through his "constitutions" and his mandates shows that he was not regarded as a true legislative authority, and that the binding force of his ordinances was technically inferior to that possessed by decrees of the Senate. But the theory of legislation was never of much practical importance at Rome. The Romans had lived for centuries mainly under the rule of interpreted or judge-made law, and now the Roman world, enlarged and unified, looked for guidance, not to the comitia, which were in decay, or to the Senate, whose contact with the provinces was ever becoming less, but to the one interpreter who was known to every judge and every litigant, and whose utterances could be heard at the farthest ends of the earth. It was the force of circumstances, not any constitutional theory, which made the Princeps the highest of all legislative, because the greatest of all interpreting, authorities.
(ii.) Jurisdiction.—If we turn from the legislative to the judicial sphere, we find the same theoretical assertion of a dual control. But it is complicated in this instance by the fact that the Senate is not the sole representative of the Republican side of the administration. The state still asserts itself through old organs such as the praetors and the judices, while it has acquired a new organ in the joint activity of consuls and Senate. In a sphere parallel to theirs the Princeps works, sometimes exercising a jurisdiction that is all his own, at other times infringing on their powers, but always occupying a position that exhibits him to the provincial mind as the highest court in the Roman world. The jurisdiction of these several courts must be treated in its separate aspects of civil and criminal, of jurisdiction in the first instance and by way of appeal. The power of reversing sentences and the right to pardon must also be considered.
The civil jurisdiction of the Republic, with its division into jus and judicium, continued during the greater part of the period of the Principate, and the praetor still gave his legal rulings in the shape of a formula which he submitted to a judex. But these judicia ordinaria tended gradually to be replaced by the personal cognisance (cognitio) of the magistrate, which, exercised on a limited scale by the praetor during the Republic, became a feature of the Emperor's own jurisdiction from the very beginning of the Principate, and was soon extended to provincial governors and to his great delegates, the praefects. This jurisdiction was described as extra ordinem, and, like the other form, it admitted of a distinction between magistrate and judex. But the new judex extra ordinem datus[236] is wholly different in character from the judex ordinarius of the older form of process. The new procedure does not admit the distinction between jus and judicium; the judex is a true delegate, is appointed without a formula, and decides on the law as well as on the facts of the case. The sphere of the cognitio of the Princeps was probably unlimited in theory, and may have been conferred on the first Emperor by statute.[237] It was a voluntary jurisdiction which any one might request and which the Emperor might refuse. In case of such refusal the case was taken by the praetor. The early Principes, however, showed an unwillingness to interfere with the common-law jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, and confined their attention to cases of equity, such as those springing from matters of trust (fidei commissum) and guardianship (tutela). But the number even of these cases soon became too vast for the cognisance of the Emperor and his occasional delegates, and we have seen how special praetors were successively appointed to share in this equitable jurisdiction.[238]
The civil courts of appeal existing under the Principate are partly due to a survival of the Republican principle of appellatio to a magistrate with the right of veto, partly to the principle (new for Rome, though not for the provinces) of delegated jurisdiction, and partly to a wholly novel principle of an appeal which can completely reverse the decisions of a lower court, which has its origin mainly in an attempt at centralising the higher provincial jurisdiction in Rome. From the decision of a judex in the judicia ordinaria there is now, as formerly, no appeal to any authority, although, as we shall see, the sentences of judices might, under certain conditions, be reversed by the authority either of the praetor or the Princeps. From the decision of the praetor in jure an appeal lies as before to an equal or higher authority,[239] and the veto in virtue of the major potestas or majus imperium is naturally possessed by the Princeps. When we find Tiberius present in the praetor's court, he may be there for the purpose of over-ruling that magistrate's decisions.[240] His presence seems to show that the limitations of the old auxilium—which must be offered in person[241]—were preserved. Whether the veto was pronounced in virtue of the imperium or in virtue of the tribunicia potestas is a matter of indifference; how the veto operated is the really important point. On the analogy of the Republican intercession its effects should have been purely cassatory, and perhaps in the early Principate this principle was observed. But it must be remembered that the Princeps is in a very different position to the vetoing consul or tribune of the Republic, or even to the Republican praetor who presides over a department other than that which he controls by his veto. These magistrates can negative a decision of a lower court, but they cannot replace this negatived decision by a positive judgment of their own. The Princeps, on the other hand, has a theoretically unlimited power of civil jurisdiction.[242] He can, therefore, supplement his negative by a positive judgment, and this unique combination of the power of vetoing and the power of judging is almost unquestionably the basis of that appeal to Caesar which leads to the reformation of a sentence. It is not improbable that the appeal came to operate in this way even against the praetor, although, even if it did not, the effect of Caesar's veto would really be reformatory. Even the tribunes of the Republic could put pressure on a praetor to induce him to alter his formula,[243] and we can hardly imagine the praetor withstanding the suggestion accompanying a veto pronounced by the holder of the tribunicia potestas. The jurisdiction of the municipal towns of Italy was, so far as it was "ordinary" jurisdiction, still under the control of consuls, praetors, and tribunes, at least as late as the reign of Nero.[244] These municipal courts were technically those of the praetor urbanus, and the Princeps probably interfered (if at all) with their jurisdiction only through his control of the rulings of the praetor in Rome. We shall trace elsewhere the mode in which the extraordinary jurisdiction of one of Caesar's delegates, the praefect of the city, came to encroach on the ordinary jurisdiction of the Roman courts.
Another method of appeal springs from the principle of delegated jurisdiction. Caesar, when he cares to exercise civil jurisdiction, can perform it either personally or through mandataries, and there is necessarily an appeal from the mandatary to the higher authority, unless this authority distinctly asserts that no appeal will lie.[245] The appeal in such a case, if it is upheld, issues not merely in the veto but in the reform of the sentence of the mandatary. Caesar may, of course, employ such delegates as he pleases. Augustus used the praetor urbanus and consulares for home and foreign appellationes,[246] a word which in this context probably means simply "requests for cognisance" made to the Princeps. The imperial jurisdiction in matters of trust (fidei commissa) was delegated to consuls or to praetors.[247] But, apart from this regular delegation, the Emperor might instruct any one to be his judex extra ordinem, when he did not care to take the case himself.
The appeal from provincial governors was, so far as the public or senatorial provinces were concerned, the result of a conscious striving after unity of administration, although it was not wholly unconnected with Republican precedents; with respect to Caesar's provinces, it was a direct consequence of the fact that the governors of these provinces were merely his legates, although the frequency with which the appeal was allowed shows the same striving for a centralised jurisdiction. The principle which in the early Principate regulated appeals from the public provinces was that these should come invariably to the Senate, and this principle of the dyarchy, which tended to be disregarded, was emphatically restated by Nero at the commencement of his reign.[248] It was probably a development of a Republican custom in accordance with which certain important cases had been summoned from the provinces to Rome by the consuls and Senate (Romam revocatio);[249] but this principle seems to have been now extended to include true cases of appeal as well as cases of denial of jurisdiction. When such appeals in civil matters came to Rome, it is probable that the Senate delegated the hearing of them to the consuls.
The fact that this principle of the appellate jurisdiction of the Senate required restatement in 54 A.D. prepares us for the ultimate neglect into which it fell. It is certain that by the close of the second and beginning of the third century, Caesar, or his great delegate the praefect of the praetorian guard, is the universal court of appeal for the whole provincial world. This result cannot be attached to any power possessed by the Princeps over the proconsuls of the public provinces; for the statement that he possessed maius imperium over such governors[250] can only mean that in any collision of authority the Princeps is not inferior to the proconsul. The world-wide appellate jurisdiction of the Princeps was a thing of very gradual growth, and it originated, not from any idea of his prerogative, but from the irresistible tendency of provincial governors, senatorial as well as imperial, to refer their difficulties to the highest interpreting authority in the Roman world, the Princeps and his consilium of judicial advisers. It is no wonder that the man who became the central source of law should also become the universal authority for its interpretation in detail.
When we turn to criminal jurisdiction, we find that here too there are three sources of jus. The Republic is represented by the quaestiones perpetuae with their praetors and equestrian judices, and also by the new criminal jurisdiction which has been attached to the consuls and the Senate; the Principate is represented by the jurisdiction of the Princeps and his delegates. The jurisdiction of the quaestiones, so long as it continued,[251] proceeded on the old lines. They judged except where the case, through a request of the parties accepted by a higher court, was exempted from their jurisdiction. The higher courts, which might stop their jurisdiction by accepting a case, were those of the Senate and the Princeps. Both of these were high courts of voluntary jurisdiction, and no appeal was permitted from one to the other.[252] Voluntary jurisdiction is by its nature difficult to define; but custom tended to limit the Senate's cognisance to certain classes of cases. These classes were determined either by the position of the accused or the nature of the offence. The Senate tried ordinary crimes, such as murder, adultery, incest, when they were committed by the members of the upper classes in society,[253] and there was a growing feeling, which subsequently obtained something like legal recognition, that a senator should be tried by his peers.[254] But the character of the offence was the chief determinant of the Senate's jurisdiction. Any offence of a directly political character, even in the early Principate a breach of a treaty by a foreign prince,[255] tended to come before it. It was the usual court for extortion or other misuse of powers by provincial governors;[256] it judged offences against the majesty of the state;[257] and when the majesty of the Princeps had become identified with that of the state, it might be employed as a convenient engine of judicial tyranny.[258] Its utility was assisted by the unlimited and arbitrary character of its jurisdiction. It interpreted while it judged; it might extend the incidence of a law and frame new penalties; it might even punish in cases where no penalty was fixed by law;[259] and the principle, forbidden in the quaestiones, of uniting several crimes in the same charge, was here admitted.[260] This jurisdiction was technically, perhaps, a cognitio of the consuls.[261] But the Senate was their constant advising body, and the sentence took the form of a senatus consultum. We shall soon see how the Emperor's presence at the board enabled him to influence a jurisdiction which was technically independent of his control.
The voluntary jurisdiction of the Princeps in criminal matters was theoretically unlimited, and could be exercised at any time or in any place. It rested with him whether he would undertake the cognisance (cognitionem suscipere) at the request of one of the parties,[262] or refer the case to the ordinary courts that is, to the quaestio competent to try it. The relations of the two high courts of voluntary jurisdiction to the ordinary court of necessary jurisdiction, are admirably exemplified by the procedure adopted in the trial of Piso for the murder of Germanicus (A.D. 19-20). It is at the outset assumed that the case, which is one of poisoning, will come before the special commission established by the lex Cornelia de veneficis. But the Emperor's cognisance is sought by the prosecutor, and Tiberius and his consilium actually listen to the preliminaries of the trial. But the Emperor soon sees how invidious it will be to pronounce judgment in a case in which the murder of his own nephew and adopted son is the subject of investigation, and he, therefore, sends the matter unprejudiced to the Senate with a request that they should exercise their voluntary jurisdiction—a request which, coming from the Princeps, it was practically, although not legally, impossible for the Senate to decline.[263]
But, although any request for cognisance might be listened to, the Princeps usually confined his personal jurisdiction to certain spheres. These included serious crimes committed by members of the upper ranks in society, but especially offences committed by imperial servants or by the officers of the army.[264] The Emperor might, of course, delegate this jurisdiction, although the delegation of special cases seems to have been unusual.[265] On the other hand, the regular delegation of certain kinds of offences is frequent enough, and is the basis of the criminal jurisdiction of the Emperor's servants, the various praefects who presided over the city, the praetorian guard, the corn-supply, and the watch.[266]
A peculiar right of the Princeps to try cases from the provinces in which the lives of Roman citizens were involved may, perhaps, have grown up during the Principate. It certainly does not exist during the early portion of this period. Instances of the maintenance of the Republican principle, that capital charges against Roman citizens should be sent to Rome, are indeed furnished by such cases as those of the Bithynian Christians in the reign of Trajan,[267] and perhaps of St. Paul's appeal in the reign of Nero;[268] and perhaps such a demand for a trial at Rome was accompanied by a request, usually accepted, to be tried before the Princeps; but there are as many instances which prove the unlimited jurisdiction of the provincial governor, at least when dealing with ordinary crimes. Thus Marius Priscus scourged and strangled a Roman knight in the province of Africa, and Galba, when governor of Tarraconensis, crucified a guardian, who was a Roman citizen, for poisoning his ward.[269] There are, however, signs that the right to kill (jus gladii), if this expression refers to ordinary as well as to military jurisdiction, was specially given by the Emperor at least to the administrators of his own provinces,[270] which shows that the frequent requests of one who stood "before Caesar's judgment seat" to be tried by Caesar had issued in some standing rule. At a later time, when the universal criminal appeal to Caesar had grown up, certain persons—senators, officers, and decurions—are exempted from capital or severe penalties pronounced by provincial governors,[271] and this jurisdiction, reserved for the Princeps, was exercised by the praefectus praetorio without appeal.
The Princeps was (especially in the early Principate) by no means a universal court of criminal appeal for the whole Roman world. There was no appeal to him from the quaestiones perpetuae, although he may have had some right of rescinding the inequitable judgments of such courts (in integrum restitutio); nor is there theoretically any appeal from the Senate, although the Princeps possesses, through the tribunicia potestas, a practical power of rescinding the judgments of that body.[272] In the matter of jurisdiction delegated to his praefects, the appeal lies unless he wills it away, as he does in favour of the praefectus praetorio. With respect to the provinces, the principle of the dual control, which we have illustrated with reference to civil jurisdiction,[273] must have originally been supposed to hold good with reference to criminal jurisdiction as well; but the dyarchy was, in this particular, ultimately dissolved. By the end of the second century Caesar, represented in most cases by his inappellable praetorian praefect, was the highest court of criminal appeal for the whole Roman world.
Besides the right of appeal, there is in most political societies a power residing somewhere which is, or approximates to be, a power of pardon. It is sometimes regarded as a signal attribute of sovereignty, but somewhat improperly, since the power of rescinding sentences or of ordering a new trial may reside in a mere executive authority, such as a court of cassation, which possesses none of the other attributes which we usually associate with a sovereign. In the constitution of the Principate it is certainly not regarded as a sovereign right, for the power is limited and, like most of the manifestations of public life, is theoretically divided between the organs of the Republic and the Princeps.
The Senate possessed no general power of pardon beyond the right, inherited from the Republic, of annulling charges and thus releasing people, who are on their trial, on certain public and festal occasions.[274] This right of declaring abolitiones publicae was one expression of its right of amnesty.[275] But the Senate had besides, as a high court, the right of rescinding its own former sentences (in integrum restitutio).[276] It might also be occasionally consulted by the Princeps on the advisability of his rescinding the sentences of the imperial courts—those, as a rule, which had been pronounced by former Emperors.[277] But such consultation was not a right of the Senate, but merely a concession of the Emperor.
The Emperor, in his relation to the courts of Rome, possessed the full power of restitutio only over his own sentences and those of his predecessors in office.[278] He had no right of interference in the way of restitutio with the judgments of the Senate, for the power which he possessed, of preventing the reception of the charge[279] or the execution of the judgment, was merely a practical and accidental consequence of the application of the tribunician power to a decree of the Senate.[280] Nor is there any distinct evidence of his possessing the power of rescinding the sentences of the quaestiones perpetuae, although interference with these on equitable grounds is not improbable, and seems, where permitted, to have taken the form of consent to a new trial (retratactio).[281] With respect to the ordinary civil courts, the praetor possessed the power of equitable restitution,[282] but there is evidence that the Princeps, also as a court of equity, might rescind inequitable sentences both of ordinary judices and of centumviri.[283]
The Princeps also possessed a power of quashing indictments (abolitio), which does not seem to have been confined to his own jurisdiction, but to have been extended to other criminal courts as well.[284] Its origin may be explained on two grounds. The first depends on the fact that it was possible to have any case brought to the Emperor's court, on the request either of the prosecutor or of the accused. The Emperor might, after listening to the preliminaries, refuse to hear such a case without "remitting" it to another court,[285] and it is very improbable that any other authority would listen for a moment to a prosecution to which the Emperor had declined to attend. The dismissal of the case by the Princeps was practically a power of abolition; but the right might have been exercised even more directly. Republican history furnishes an instance of a tribune prohibiting the president of a quaestio from receiving a charge,[286] and it is obvious that the tribunicia potestas of the Princeps might have been exercised in the same way to impede the first step in the jurisdiction of every criminal court.
With respect to the provinces, just as the criminal appeal finally passes to the Emperor,[287] so the revision of the sentences of the local courts, where revision is suggested by the judge,[288] as well as the infliction of punishments denied to the judge—such as the capital penalty on decurions or deportation on any one[289]—centre finally in the hands of the Princeps. All right of revision and restitution is not, indeed, denied to the provincial governor,[290] but while this was finally restricted by certain well-defined rules, the Emperor's power of restitution appears ultimately to have been unlimited. "This power might be so employed by the Emperor as to take the form of a free pardon,[291] but theoretically it was merely an equitable assistance. As a legally unlimited power of rescinding sentences, it approaches very nearly to a power of pardon; but it is an executive duty rather than a sovereign right, and we search in vain in the Principate for a power of pardon regarded as an admitted constitutional right of a sovereign."[292]
(iii.) Administration.—The principle of a dual control is as manifest in administrative matters as in any other. The spheres of administration are Rome, Italy, and the Provinces. With respect to the first two it is clear that one of the few justifications for the maintenance of Republican government was that, by leaving the ordinary administrative duties connected with Rome and Italy to the Senate and ordinary magistrates, it enabled the Princeps to concentrate his attention on his proper sphere, the foreign and provincial world. But even the provinces did not deserve the undivided attention of the Princeps. Those whose administration presented no special difficulties, and which required no military force, might still be left to the care of the Roman people. This division of responsibility might have continued a reality had the Principate continued to be what it was in origin—a provisional government by an individual who had little personal assistance at his command. But as this rule gradually assumed the form of a huge government department, overshadowing all others, with an organised civil service which replaced the assistance furnished by freedmen and slaves, it not unnaturally tended to encroach on the Republican spheres of administration. The motive for the tendency was chiefly the fact that the Princeps was, in the eyes of all men, not the head of a department but of the state, and a responsibility, which he would gladly have disclaimed, for the acts of all officials, even those of Republican departments, was thus thrust upon him.[293] There is no particular ground for believing that the Princeps managed departments such as Rome or Italy better than the Republican officials. The important fact was that public opinion forced him to manage them, whether for good or ill.
(iv.) Finance.—Finance at Rome was always so intimately bound up with provincial control, that the division of the provinces into public and imperial implied of itself the existence of two separate financial departments. The Senate still asserts control over the aerarium, and gives instructions to the guardians of the chest. The qualification of these guardians varied from time to time. The dictator Caesar had in 45 B.C. given the charge to two aediles, but quaestors seem again to have been the presidents of the treasury[294] until Augustus in 28 B.C. instituted two praefecti aerarii Saturni, chosen yearly from the ex-praetors by the Senate.[295] Even this change was short-lived, and the praefects were soon replaced by two of the praetors of the year who received their provincia by lot.[296] Claudius in 44 A.D. restored the Republican method of administration through quaestors; but these were no longer to be annual officials designated by lot, but to be chosen by the Emperor for a period of three years.[297] Finally under Nero (56 A.D.) the elements of the Augustan and the Claudian arrangements were combined[298] in the provision that two ex-praetors should be appointed as praefects of the treasury, but that these should be named, generally for three years, by the Princeps.[299] The fact that the Princeps appointed the guardians of the public chest was by no means an assertion that he controlled its funds, and, although his indirect influence on the aerarium was unquestionably great, this treasury still remained in principle under the direction of the Senate alone. Even in the second century it voted a loan to Marcus Aurelius for carrying on a war.[300]
The Princeps was rendered financially independent of the Senate through the possession of his own treasury (fiscus or fiscus Caesaris),[301] into which flowed the revenues from his own provinces, certain dues owed by the public provinces, and some extraordinary revenues, such as the confiscated goods of condemned criminals or lapsed inheritances (bona damnatorum, bona vacantia), in the claim to which the fiscus finally replaced the aerarium. The Princeps was the owner of the fiscus, but was regarded as a trustee of the wealth which it contained. To sue the fiscus was to sue the Princeps; but, although he was the sole subject of rights in relation to this treasury, he did not regard the money which it contained as though it were his own private property. Even in the early Principate there is evidence of the existence of crown property (patrimonium or patrimonium privatum), the use of which for private purposes was vested in the Princeps.[302] The patrimonium doubtless commenced by being the strictly personal property of the first family of Caesars, and much of it was acquired by bequest;[303] but, when the Principate had ceased to be hereditary in the Julian line, it seems to have been looked on as crown property, which was heritable only by the successor to the throne. The bequeathal of this property, which was implied when the Princeps selected an heir, might thus be regarded as a mode of designation; although, if the destined heir did not succeed, the patrimonium passed to his successful rival. It was probably due to the uncertainty of the tenure of the patrimonium that with Septimius Severus we find the creation of a new aggregate of private property, the res privata,[304] the administration of which was kept quite distinct from that of the patrimonium. All Caesar's property, whether held in trust for the state or for the crown, or applied to the needs of his family, was equally administered by his own private servants. Of these we shall speak when we deal with the functionaries of the Princeps as a whole.
Another treasury under imperial control, which served a public purpose, was that established for supplying pensions to discharged soldiers. The want of it had been severely felt in the last years of the Republic, when the mercenary army looked for its final rewards to plunder or the political influence of its generals; and, when Augustus created a professional army by the introduction of the long-service system, he found it necessary to establish a pension fund for those who had given twenty of the best years of their life to the practice of arms. The result was the aerarium militare, which the Emperor endowed with a large capital,[305] and to which, as fixed sources of revenue, the two taxes of the vicesima hereditatum and the centesima rerum venalium were assigned.[306] The administration of this chest was given to three praefects (praefecti aerarii militaris), who remained three years in office, and were chosen from ex-praetors, originally by lot but later by the Princeps.[307]
(v.) Cultus.—In matters of religion and worship the dyarchy is again apparent. So far as the state had a religious head, the Princeps, in virtue of the chief pontificate, occupied this position, and we have seen the influence which this headship gave him.[308] But the Senate had not lost all its control over the cultus of the community or its right to pronounce on foreign worships, when their social merits or their legality were in question. It is the Senate that is consulted on the growth of Egyptian and Jewish worship at Rome,[309] and on the right of asylum in the provinces.[310] Claudius questions it on the subject of the restoration of the college of haruspices,[311] and Aurelian asks it for a pontifex to dedicate the great temple of the sun-god at Palmyra.[312] So far as the appointment to the great priestly colleges was not controlled by the Princeps, the gift of this honour was now in the hands of the Senate.
(vi.) Coinage.—The right of coinage, although its possession by a state may be taken as a mark of sovereign rights being enjoyed by that community, is scarcely a significant mark of the sovereignty within a state. Whether the Senate or the Princeps possessed this right would make little difference to the theory of the constitution. As a fact, the right was possessed by both powers, and was an additional illustration of the principle of the dyarchy. From the year 15 B.C. the Princeps undertakes the gold and silver coinage, the Senate that of copper. The possession of the latter was a privilege in so far as the exchange value of copper was higher than its intrinsic value, and payments of any amount could be made in what was really a token currency.[313]
We have now exhibited the system of dual control as it existed in all the chief departments of the state. It would be easy to prove that in almost every particular it might be made a fiction. The senatorial power of legislation is directed to so large an extent by the imperial initiative that the oratio of the Princeps is sometimes cited in place of the decree of the Senate to which it gave birth;[314] the independence of senatorial jurisdiction is often infringed by the tribunician power of the Emperor, while his authority is directly or remotely in conflict with that of the other courts at every turn; his praefects tend to usurp the administration of Rome and Italy, while his procurators are a check on the activity of the proconsuls of the public provinces; his influence over the aerarium can be asserted whenever he cares to take the trouble to initiate or support in the Senate the proposal of a grant of money to himself.[315] But such a control of departments, if wisely asserted, by no means rendered the dyarchy nugatory. Under a judicious prince the Republican constitution was sufficient for its own sphere in perhaps ninety-nine cases out of every hundred; because in the hundredth some pressure was felt from the head of the state, we cannot pronounce the dyarchy to be a fiction. If the control by the Princeps is brutally and unwisely, however legally, asserted, he is by common consent not a Princeps but a tyrant. We must judge the Principate by its best names, by a Nerva, a Trajan, a Marcus Aurelius, an Alexander, a Decius. In the reigns of all these princes the dyarchy is a living thing. If it is objected that it becomes a living thing merely through a concession of the Princeps, the answer is that this concession was certainly not pictured by these Emperors to themselves as an act of grace, but was regarded as mere obedience to the constitution; and to maintain the theory that a constitution which demands obedience from the wise is a palpable fiction because it cannot enforce obedience on the headstrong, is to wring a strange admission from political science.
§ 6. The Senatorial and the Equestrian Nobility
Although the authority of the Princeps rested virtually on the support of the army, his position might have been unsafe, and would have been embarrassing, had he not secured for the work of administration at home and abroad an official class, that was dependent to some extent on imperial creation and, therefore, worked in harmony with himself. The old Republican nobility, so far as it had not been extinguished, might be utilised; but it could be employed only by being kept in fetters, and by power being given to the Princeps to recruit its ranks at his will. We have already considered his control of office, his right of adlectio, and his power of creating Patricians. But a wider power, cognate to the gift of the Patriciate, was needed, to make him the patenter of a nobility from which alone senators and magistrates were to be chosen. Such a power had been usurped by Augustus, and the recognition of a "senatorial order" was its result. Perhaps in the later Republic society had already recognised the right of the prospective senator to wear the broad scarlet stripe (latus clavus) on his tunic, but the right became more clearly defined with the commencement of the Principate; and the laticlavii are prospective senators and holders of Republican offices, either recognised as such by the Princeps or endowed by him with the symbol of senatorial rank. The senator's son possesses the right to wear the latus clavus and to attend the meetings of the curia, in which he will one day take an active part;[316] the eques to whom the symbol has been given may qualify for the Senate through the vigintivirate and the quaestorship. The first steps to office and to the Senate were, as we have seen, usually through the army; but the young soldier who was destined for the Senate differed, in service and in title, from his purely equestrian compeer. The tribuni laticlavii[317] are a special class of officers, who may often have started their service, as mounted officers of the legions, with the brevet rank of tribune, and whose service was shorter than that of the other equites in order that they might be qualified for the quaestorship by the age of twenty-five.[318] The possessors of the latus clavus must always have been expected to pursue a senatorial career;[319] by the time of Claudius they might be compelled to this course, the penalty of refusal being the deprivation of the broad stripe, but sometimes of equestrian rank as well.[320]
Great care was taken to preserve the dignity and purity of this senatorial order. The latus clavus was granted only to those who could trace free birth through four generations, and Claudius was forced to excuse his conduct in giving it to a freedman's son.[321] The Julian marriage laws prohibited marriage with freed-women or actresses, not only to senators, but to their sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons.[322] "The order" was reckoned to include the wives of senators and all descendants in the male line,[323] together with adoptive children, until they were emancipated, and even those natural children who had been emancipated.[324] The commercial disabilities of senators were perpetuated and sharpened. The Republican prohibition that they should not be purchasers of public contracts[325] was renewed by an edict of Hadrian.[326] They were permitted to invest capital at a moderate rate of interest, but at times even this was disallowed.[327]
These disabilities were, however, to some extent compensated by privileges. As the senators ceased to be purely Roman, the question of their duties to their native states had to be considered, and the rule was fixed that, while they were allowed to retain their domicile of origin (origo), they owed no public duties (munera) to the cities of their birth.[328] We have already mentioned the growth of the principle which reserved criminal jurisdiction on a senator to the senatorial court.[329]
In the early Principate there was no distinct title reserved for the order, but after the close of the first century the epithet clarissimus came to be applied to its members, and the title clarissima is even given to women of senatorial rank.[330] A distinction in office and dignity but no distinction in rank separates the Princeps from the senators. They are his "peers" (ὁμότιμοι),[331] and this peerage is chiefly shown in their sole participation in Republican offices. They might, indeed, be delegates of the Princeps, but not his servants in the sense in which the procurators were. Besides filling the regular offices of state, senators possessed a monopoly of provincial government, where the country governed was a true provincia and not a department assigned temporarily or permanently to a procurator or praefect; they were the sole commanders of the legions, and, as Caesar's nominees, they filled the office of praefect of the city and the various commissionerships (curationes) for duties which he had undertaken, such as the care of the water-supply, of the roads, of public works, and of the banks and channel of the Tiber (curatores aquarum, viarum, operum publicorum, alvei et riparum Tiberis).[332]
We have already spoken of the military training and attitude of this nobility,[333] and also of its gradually increasing provincial character.[334] Both these characteristics were in harmony with its sphere of duties, which were mainly provincial. A successful member of the order could have seen but little of Rome or Italy until his declining years. If his early military service was real and not nominal,[335] he spent most of the years between eighteen and twenty-five in the camps and on the frontiers. If he had shown military ability, he might be sent back as an ex-quaestor to take command of a legion, although such a legateship was usually reserved to men of praetorian rank.[336] The praetorship and consulship qualified him for long terms of service in successive Caesarian provinces, and for the annual governorship of those still under the control of the Senate.[337] This identification with provincial life was an identification with the Principate, for there were few Republican associations to impress the mind when the bounds of Italy had been passed. The principles of selection, training, and habituation to which this nobility was subject were thus directed to inspire it with a belief in, if not with an enthusiasm for, the accepted order of things.
The second order which supported the throne and did the work of the Empire was that of the Equites. The word eques has now, as in the Republic, a dual signification. Tacitus employs it to describe the capitalist class, presumably the possessors of a census of 400,000 sesterces,[338] and it is obvious that current terminology did not accept the restrictions which the Principate may have wished to impose on the use of the term. It is uncertain what these restrictions were, for literature and inscriptions mention two methods of conferring equestrian rank, and it is not known whether these methods—the gift of the rank through the gold ring and through the public horse—were sometimes alternative or always concurrent. But the grant of knighthood to freedmen is described as having been effected by the gift of the gold ring[339]—a gift which, as early as the time of Hadrian, had come to confer free birth (ingenuitas) merely and not equestrian rank,[340] and it cannot be shown that the public horse was always given to members of this class when they were endowed with the insignia of knighthood.[341] It is not improbable, however, that when the gold ring had lost its earlier signification and become merely a means of conferring free birth, only one order of official equites was recognised, and that the title in its proper sense was restricted to the order whose members had, from the time of Augustus, been pre-eminently the bearers of the name. This order was the old one of the equites equo publico, which was reorganised and vastly extended in scale at the very beginning of the Principate. We are told that even under Augustus the annual parade might witness the appearance of five thousand knights,[342] and these could have been but a portion of the order, for many members of the corps must have been detained on financial, administrative, and military duties in the provinces. This increase in numbers seems to have led to the abandonment of the old centuriate organisation, for the equites of the Principate are grouped in turmae and commanded by seviri.[343] Selection for the order was entirely in the hands of the Princeps,[344] and probably any one with the requisite qualifications—free birth, good character, and a property of 400,000 sesterces—could get this patent of nobility from the Emperor's hands. At the times when the censorship was revived in the person of the Princeps,[345] the selection and elimination of equites may have followed the rules prevailing under the Republican system of revision;[346] but, as the censorship was no part of the constitution of the Principate, some department must have existed from the first for the purpose of registering the names of applicants. We find a permanent bureau eventually established for this purpose. It bore the title a censibus equitum Romanorum, and seems to have been a branch of the general department of petitions (a libellis).[347] Although this office was concerned primarily with the duty of admission to the order, yet its holders must have pointed out to the Princeps cases where the qualifications requisite for knighthood had ceased to exist, and they must thus have acted as the board that really controlled the tenure of the rank. The formal control in this particular was, however, effected, now as in the Republic, by a solemn and public act. The act, although a Republican survival, was not employed with its Republican meaning. The parade of the knights (transvectio equitum) on the Ides of July had, during the Republic, been a mere procession; it was now given the significance of the censorian review in the Forum,[348] and became the means of testing the qualifications of members of the order (probatio equitum).[349] The knights now passed on horseback, not on foot; they could not ask for their discharge (missio), for the tenure of their rank was no longer conditioned by military service, although Augustus finally permitted all members of the age of thirty-five, who were unwilling to continue in the corps, to return their public horses;[350] but the knights were still questioned and made to give an account of their conduct,[351] and those whose answers were unsatisfactory were dismissed from the ranks.[352] That Augustus took this duty seriously is shown by the fact that he more than once asked the Senate for committees, whether of three or ten members, to assist him in the work.[353] But, although this parade is found in the reigns of subsequent Emperors,[354] and can be traced as late as the fourth century A.D.,[355] the serious duty of rejection was probably exercised more and more by the permanent bureau which admitted to the order.
The eighteen centuries of Roman knights had, even at the end of the Republic, never lost touch with the army. They had ceased to be the citizen cavalry, but they were composed of the young nobility who furnished the mounted officers of the legions. This secondary military character was retained by the corps in the Principate; but it had an additional significance as well. There can be no doubt that it was from the equites equo publico that the Emperors chose those members of the official hierarchy—procurators and praefects—who were of equestrian rank. It is less certain whether this corps furnished all the judices during the early Principate. Jurisdiction, whether civil or criminal, was a burden (munus), and this may have been imposed on all who possessed the requisite census, whether they had made profession for the order or not.[356]
It was natural that an order thus definitely constituted, and which became more rigid as time went on, should end by enjoying titles of honour peculiar to itself. This stage had been attained by the second century; but the titular designations are not strictly those of the equestrian order, but of the grades of office to which it led. After the reign of Marcus Aurelius the equestrian hierarchy was divided into three classes; the first contained only the praefect of the praetorian guard who was called vir eminentissimus; the second the other equestrian praefects and higher procurators, who bore the title perfectissimi; the third—the possessors of all other equestrian posts—were egregii.[357] The equestrian officers of the army were not graduated on a similar scale of rank, and the municipal knights of Italy are designated only by the old Republican and non-official epithet of splendidi.[358] The more definite, but equally non-official, epithet of illustris may have been applied to individuals who possessed the senatorial census and the latus clavus, but who were passing through the equestrian service in the army (equestris militia), which was preparatory to entrance into the Senate.[359] But the name more particularly designated men who, possessed of a senatorial fortune, preferred to retain their equestrian rank, and even perhaps any equites of fortune and dignity such as the holders of the great praefectures.[360]
§ 7. The Functionaries of the Princeps
The Princeps, since he is not a king, has neither magistrates nor ministers subject to his will; but he possesses a number of delegates and servants who assist in the performance of his vast duties of administration. Some of these, such as the legates, praefects, and curators, find analogies in the Republican constitution; others, such as the procurators and secretaries of departments, are borrowed from the organisation of a Roman household and are transferred from the life of the palace to that of the state. We may neglect for the moment the legates and provincial praefects, who will be considered in the section dealing with the organisation of the provinces, and fix our attention on the offices of the central government, which are either peculiar to Rome and Italy or common to them and the provincial world.
(i.) The Praefects.—The four great praefectures, which were concerned originally with the administration of Italy and Rome, were those of the city (urbi), the praetorian guard (praetorio), the corn-supply (annonae), and the watch (vigilum). Of these the first stands entirely out of relation to the others so far as the career and qualification of its holders were concerned; for, while the praefecture of the city was a senatorial post, all the others were, during the greater part of the Principate, equestrian. Of the three latter offices the praefecture of the praetorian guard was the highest in rank, next came that of the corn-supply, and thirdly that of the watch.[361]
The praefecture of the city was the continuation in name, and to some extent in functions, of one of the oldest offices in Rome;[362] but the historical continuity is rendered somewhat imperfect by the fact that the ancient praefecture, which had originated with the kings and had ceased to be a reality only with the appointment of the first praetor,[363] still continued in a shadowy form during the Principate as the praefecture created when the days of the Latin festival drew the magistrates away from Rome.[364] But the new office of the Principate was, in a sense, a continuation of the old one of the monarchy. Both were products of personal rule and were based on the theory of delegation; the later office was suggested by the earlier, and both had much the same sphere of administration. The link between the Republican office and that of the Principate is found in the arrangements of the dictator Caesar and in the earlier procedure of Augustus. The link was broken when, under Tiberius, the praefecture became a permanent and not an occasional office. In 46 B.C. Caesar had left six praefecti in Rome to administer the affairs of the city during his absence;[365] Maecenas had had a similar, though less definite, position given him by Augustus;[366] and when the latter became Princeps, the praefecture between the years 27 and 24 B.C. became a more regular, although still an occasional office, and was renewed from time to time by Augustus during his absences from the capital.[367] Tiberius' long periods of retirement made it practically perpetual,[368] and under subsequent reigns the praefect remains in office even when the Princeps is present in Rome.[369] It was, perhaps, due to its associations with the Republican magistracy that this office was filled by a senator and a consular.[370] The same associations may account for the facts that the praefect of the city, although a delegate of the Princeps and nominated by him for an indefinite period,[371] is yet accounted a magistrate, and is even credited with imperium.[372]
One of the early occupants of the office[373] sent in his resignation six days after his appointment on the ground that he had held an incivilis potestas; and indeed the scope of the praefect's duties and the extent of summary jurisdiction and coercive power which they involved, might easily lead a sensitive mind to shrink from such un-Republican authority. The praefect was briefly the guardian of the city (custos urbis), and nothing that could be construed as a part of that tutela[374] was exempt from his control. It was his duty to keep order everywhere, at the games as in the market, and for this purpose he had at his disposal the city cohorts (cohortes urbanae) established by Augustus,[375] three divisions of which were quartered in Rome during the reign of Tiberius.[376] But the preservation of order implied interference with a great many departments of civic life. The praefect controlled the theatre, the money-changers, the sale of meat, the trading and religious guilds; he listened to the grievances of slaves, or to the complaints of patroni about their freedmen, and finally even had cognisance of serious offences committed by guardians.[377] The criminal jurisdiction, which was the complement of his authority, was so indefinite that at a very early period it crossed that of the quaestiones perpetuae,[378] and, as the tendency of the Principate was to make the latter give way before the former, we are not surprised at the unlimited criminal jurisdiction described by Dio Cassius and recorded in the Digest as vested in the praefect in the third century A.D.[379] He might at this time inflict the severest punishments, even deportation or condemnation to the mines.[380] His police control and criminal jurisdiction extended to the limit of a hundred miles from Rome.[381] Within the city he might judge in person; jurisdiction in Italy he exercised through delegates.[382] He also possessed a certain civil jurisdiction connected with his functions of preserving order,[383] and finally became the court of appeal, in civil cases, from officials in Rome.[384] But he was not a final court, for a further appeal lay from the praefect to the Emperor.
The praefectus praetorio was in origin the commander of the Emperor's bodyguard. This corps d'élite, which even in the Republic had grouped itself round a commander in the field, was given a definite existence and organisation in the year 28 B.C.,[385] and became the police of Italy, the selected home force composed, unlike the legions, mainly of Italian citizens,[386] and the protector, often the transmitter, of the throne. Its praefects at this early stage represent the military character of the despotism perhaps more purely than any other officials, and even the reign of the second Caesar could show in Sejanus one of the most formidable of those praefects who were almost partners of the throne. The danger threatened by the office illustrates its power, and this was recognised when Vespasian sought security by giving the praefecture to his own son Titus,[387] or Severus married his elder son to the daughter of his praefect Plautianus.[388] A more favourite method was to increase the number of its holders. Two were frequently appointed, and three are found on two occasions since the time of Commodus.[389] Gradually the military functions of the office ceased to be the most important, although its military history had determined its character. The praefect of the guard had always been the man who stood next the throne; he was a truer alter ego of the Princeps than the praefect of the city, for his activity was not confined to Rome and Italy. It was he who issued rapid injunctions for the organisation of the army or for the guidance of the civil service throughout the Empire, and at times we find two praefects, such as Adventus and Macrinus in the reign of Caracalla, representing respectively the military and civil spheres. But jurisdiction, the most constant of the Emperor's cares, and the framing of legal decrees, also demanded the attention of the praefect, and hence it was necessary to entrust the office to the first jurists of the Empire. Papinian, Ulpian, and Paulus were all praefects of the guard. The change in the character of the office perhaps began with Hadrian; it was carried on during the reigns of the Antonine Emperors, and finally achieved in that of Septimius Severus. The judicial aspect of the office was now paramount. The praefect has become the highest criminal judge in Italy outside the hundredth mile-stone;[390] he is the court of appeal in criminal cases from all provincial governors,[391] and judges in those cases which the provincial governor was not competent to decide.[392] He is also the court of appeal from provincial governors in civil cases.[393] This extensive jurisdiction was a result of the centralisation of judicial power in the Emperor, which we have already traced.[394] It had to be delegated, and no fitter delegate could be found than the praefect. Convenience also dictated that the delegation should be final, and the principle was finally arrived at that there should be no appeal from the praefect to the Emperor.[395] This did not mean that the Emperor ceased to judge; for at any moment he might displace his praefect and hear the case himself. As the praefect judged vice principis, it is natural to suppose that he presided over the imperial consilium,[396] which attained a definite organisation in the reign of Hadrian;[397] and this probability is scarcely shaken by the fact that we find special consiliarii nominated for the praefect,[398] for he exercised a varied jurisdiction and might be holding a court at the same time as the Emperor. Apart from jurisdiction, his general mandates and ordinances had legal force, provided that they did not conflict with laws or imperial constitutions.[399]
During the greater part of the Principate equestrian rank was a necessary qualification for this praefecture. Senators first began to hold this office from the time of Severus Alexander, who gave his praefects senatoria dignitas and the title clarissimus,[400] for it was held that one who pronounced judgment on a senator should himself be of senatorial rank.[401] At the time when the praefect was a knight, dismissal from office often took the form of making him a senator or a member of the senatorial order.[402]
The praefectus annonae was the final product of a question that had never ceased to agitate Rome from the close of the Punic wars. Anxiety about the supply of corn to the capital had raised Pompeius to an extraordinary position in 57 B.C.,[403] and in 43 the Senate, alarmed at the possible designs of Antonius and Octavian, had agreed that no individual curator for corn should again be appointed.[404] In the early Principate the duty belonged technically to the aediles cereales instituted by Caesar;[405] but epochs of scarcity led to its being taken over by the Princeps. Augustus accepted the task in 22 B.C.,[406] but whether as a permanent cura is uncertain,[407] and in 18 B.C. and 6 A.D. experiments were made to carry it through by the appointment of curatores of praetorian or consular rank.[408] Finally, as a definite cura of the Princeps, it was given to a praefect. The cura annonae as undertaken by the Princeps involved two charges; firstly, the gratuitous distribution of corn to the poorer classes at Rome, and secondly, the placing of corn on the Roman market for purchasers as well as recipients. It was with the latter of these duties that the praefect was chiefly, perhaps exclusively, concerned.[409] He had to see that the requisite mass of grain was brought to the market, and that it was sold at a moderate and stable price.[410] Assistance was furnished him by subordinate officials in Rome itself, in the harbours of Italy, and in the provinces, senatorial as well as imperial; but the number of these procurators was not large, since the lower departments of the corn-supply were managed by guilds, such as those of the mensores and navicularii,[411] "associations that originally leased their services to the state and finally became its instruments."[412] The praefect possessed a jurisdiction arising from his administrative duties. He listened to criminal informations touching the public supply of corn,[413] and seems even to have heard certain civil actions arising out of the corn trade.[414] The appeal from his judgment went immediately to the Emperor.[415]
The institution of the praefectus vigilum was equally the result of the Emperor's undertaking a special department of administration that had formerly belonged to Republican magistrates. The guardianship of the town against fires and nocturnal disturbances had belonged chiefly to the triumviri capitales,[416] and in a more general way to the aediles. But the Republican appliances were found insufficient, and Augustus formed an early scheme for giving the curule aediles a fire-brigade of six hundred slaves.[417] Even this did not prove satisfactory, and in A.D. 6 he undertook the new cura—an undertaking which was followed by the establishment of seven cohorts of vigiles, one for every two of the fourteen regions of the city, and the creation of a praefect set over the tribunes who were commanders of these divisions.[418] This praefecture was, like that of the corn-supply, equestrian, and the two differ little in rank; for, although the praefectura annonae was reckoned superior, direct promotion from the command of the vigiles to that of the praetorian guard is found.[419] The praefect protected the town and patrolled the streets by night, and he exercised a jurisdiction closely connected with his police functions, and resembling, in a lower degree, that of the praefect of the city. He tried cases of arson, robbery, burglary, and thefts in baths;[420] but the higher jurisdiction in such cases belonged to the praefectus urbi, and the praefect of the watch could not try Roman citizens on capital charges.[421] In the third century he possessed some civil jurisdiction in matters connected with leases and house-rent.[422]
(ii.) The Curators.—There were certain curae undertaken by Augustus which he did not give to equestrian praefects, but to senatorial curatores. These curae of the roads of Italy, of the public works, of the public water-supply, and of the channel and banks of the Tiber (viarum, operum publicorum, aquarum publicarum, alvei et riparum Tiberis), were filled by nomination of the Princeps, but their holders were perhaps, like the praefects of the aerarium, regarded as officials of the people or of the Senate rather than of the Emperor; the reason for this view probably being that the care of the roads, opera publica, and the like was concerned with solum publicum, and "the public soil in Rome and Italy was, even after the foundation of the Principate, not the property of the Emperor but of the people or the Senate."[423] Hence in the early Principate the pecuniary means for this administration was guaranteed from the aerarium, the fiscus merely contributing.[424] Hence too the occupation of these posts by senators and their method of appointment. In 11 B.C. Augustus nominated curatores aquarum with the consent of the Senate (ex. consensu senatus, ex senatus auctoritate);[425] the curatores operum publicorum and viarum were perhaps nominated in the same way, and the curatores of the Tiber were in Tiberius' reign appointed by lot.[426]
(iii.) The Procurators.—The quasi-magisterial position of the occupants of the higher imperial posts could not be reflected in the lower grades of office. So far as the detailed ministeria principatus[427] were concerned, the Princeps adopted the analogy of the Roman house, not of the Roman state, and employed either general agents (procuratores) or assistants designated by the secretarial or other duty which they performed (ab epistulis, a rationibus, etc.). There was always a distinction between the two classes, which was still preserved now that they had become official. The agent of domestic life might indeed approximate to the condition of a mere bailiff, and might be a slave; but the necessity for representing the absent dominus in courts of law had made it convenient that the procurator should be a free man; and the idea of agency, usually of general agency (procuratio omnium rerum),[428] was closely associated with the word. On the other hand, the slaves and freedmen of the household who copied and kept accounts, were not agents; and, in accordance with this distinction, the officials of the Principate who bear such titles as ab epistulis, a libellis, a rationibus, are not spoken of as procurators, although one of these posts might rise to the dignity of a procuratorship, as that a rationibus did.
Although from the point of view of functions the two classes must be kept distinct, from that of qualification they may be discussed together. In both we observe the tendency for the household to become a bureau, for the freedman and slave to give place to the Roman knight. Tiberius' household consisted mainly of freedmen,[429] and their influence reached its zenith in the reign of Claudius. An Emperor who sought popularity might, like Vitellius, transfer the ministeria of the Principate to Roman knights;[430] but no comprehensive attempt seems to have been made to reorganise the bureaucracy on this footing until the time of Hadrian.[431] Henceforth the higher grades were held as a rule by knights, only the lower being possessed indifferently by equites or freedmen.[432] The procuratorship was the patent of equestrian nobility (equestris nobilitas),[433] and we have seen that titles were finally devised to express the differences in procuratorial rank.[434] The civil service now became closely connected with the army, and the occupants of civil posts were mainly retired officers, men who had held at least one of the three positions in the equestrian service,[435] and who, after the second century, had generally filled every grade before they took the procuratorship.[436] This militarising of the administrative service is one of the most curious features of the Principate. It gave that service its precision, its rigidity, its tendency to work as a smooth machine almost independently of personal control. This tendency was a blessing in so far as it was calculated to diminish the influence due to the idiosyncrasies of the Princeps, or of any individual holder of office; but one cannot help suspecting that a great deal of the administrative tyranny, which darkened the closing years of the Principate and weakened the Empire, was due to the ineradicable habits of routine inspired by a military life, and that the Greek or Graeco-Asiatic freedman, although a more corrupt, was, on the whole, a more capable administrator. The military supply was not, however, altogether sufficient, and from the time of Hadrian a civil career was also open, which gave a chance to the aspiring lawyer.
Theoretically the procurator's duties were those of mere agency, and he had little discretionary authority and no general official power. Tiberius' emphatic statement that his procurator's business was merely to manage the Emperor's slaves and personal property[437] is echoed in the language of the Digest, which tells us that the duties of these servants of the Emperor were strictly defined, that they were accountable to their master for the use made of the finances or property under their care, that they could not give, sell, or transfer it, and that "careful management" was the limit of their power.[438] It was only when they kept within these bounds that their acts had all the authority of those of the Princeps himself.[439] But the extending spheres of their operations rendered it impossible for these limits to be rigorously preserved. Claudius asked and obtained that his procurators should be permitted jurisdiction within their own financial departments[440]—an almost necessary result of the fact that in the provinces (and especially in those under senatorial management) there was no convenient court of arbitration to decide when money was or was not owing to the Princeps.[441] The consent of the Princeps, also, to the procurator's acts must eventually have meant the consent of the chief bureau at Rome; for, in spite of the extraordinary capacity for personal government possessed by the Roman Emperors, the fiscal system was too complicated for every detail to reach their ears.
The chief duties of the procurators were financial, and most of these agents can be summed up under the title procuratores fisci. A number of titles are met with which clearly have reference to the central department at Rome. Such are procurator summarum found in an inscription of Nero's time and borne by a freedman,[442] procuratores rationum summarum,[443] rationalis summae rei,[444] dispensator or dispensator summarum,[445] and vilicus summarum.[446] The titles belong to different epochs, and it is difficult to establish their precise import. It is generally agreed that from the time of Claudius the title a rationibus was reserved for the chief controller of the fiscus. After the reign of Hadrian this post was reserved for equites,[447] and the members of the central bureau had a higher standing than the financial agents in the provinces. The title procurator rationum summarum, which belongs to the second century, denotes some highly placed official connected with this central chest; but, as it does not seem to be identical with the title a rationibus, it has been thought to represent a subordinate controller perhaps instituted by Marcus Aurelius.[448] The title rationalis, which was often identical with procurator,[449] seems at some period within the third century to have replaced a rationibus as the designation of the chief officer of the fiscus.[450]
Amongst provincial procurators we may enumerate first those who were confined to the imperial provinces. The procurator here occupied the position which the quaestor held in the public provinces; he was the chief officer of the provincial fiscus, collected the taxes due to it, and managed the disbursement of its funds. There was also a treasury connected with the military station in the province (fiscus castrensis), and at the head of it a procurator castrensis, who superintended the payments made to the soldiers,[451] and military expenses in general. Other procurators were common to all the provinces; for even those that were "public" paid certain dues to the Emperor.[452] Such were lapsed legacies and the goods of the condemned (bona caduca and damnatorum), after the fiscus had asserted its claim to these revenues,[453] and the taxes owed by Roman citizens everywhere, such as the vicesima hereditatum and the centesima rerum venalium. But the public provinces owed more direct dues to the Princeps as well. Thus Africa, a corn-supplying but not an imperial province, was brought into the closest relation with his cura annonae, and even the most peaceful districts must have defrayed the expense of the necessary military protection, and surrendered certain revenues to be collected by imperial officials.
Common, too, to all the provinces were the agents who managed the imperial estates (procuratores patrimonii or patrimonii privati).[454] We have already noticed that after the time of Severus a distinction was drawn between the res privata and the patrimonium of the Emperor.[455] From this time onward the procurator rerum privatarum is distinct from the procurator patrimonii.[456]
The non-financial procurators, who were actually governors of districts, will be discussed when we are dealing with the organisation of the provinces.
The tenure of office by a procurator was indefinite, and depended on the imperial pleasure. Technically their posts expired when the Princeps who had appointed them died,[457] and the renewal of their office by his successor, although it must have been the rule, was treated as a new appointment. The posts were well paid and procurators bore the titles trecenarius, ducenarius, centenarius, and sexagenarius, according as their salaries varied from 300,000 to 60,000 sesterces. The salaries of the procurators at Rome were probably higher than those belonging to the same departments in Italy and in the provinces. Thus the procuratio rationis privatae was probably in Rome a trecenaria, in the provinces a ducenaria, in Italy, where it would be merely a branch of the central office, a centenaria procuratio.[458] Promotion seems to have been determined chiefly by merit, and one of the strong points of the system was that there was no mechanical system of advancement. It was possible for a secretary, who had never been a procurator proper, to be appointed to a praefecture,[459] but, as a rule, several procuratorships were passed through before this summit of equestrian ambition was attained.[460]
(iv.) Personal Assistants.—The secretariate of the Principate was, as we have seen, but the business side of the organisation of a Roman household, but so rapidly did the importance and official aspect of these posts develop that already by Nero's reign a Roman noble, who kept assistants with such titles as ab epistulis and a libellis, might be suspected of treasonable designs.[461] These: secretaryships became, in fact though not in law, great offices of state. They required more highly trained ability than most of the procuratorships, and, as they brought their holders into close relations with the Princeps, the influence and the power of patronage which they conferred must have been enormous.
The official ab epistulis put into shape all the decisions of the Princeps which took the form of letters, so far as these were not written personally by the Princeps himself. The answers to the consultationes of officials, to the despatches of generals and provincial governors, or to deputations from foreign communities, together with the nomination of officials and officers and the conferment of privileges, passed through his hands.[462]
The official a libellis drew up the answers to petitions (preces, libelli)[463] made by private individuals to the Emperor. The answer was generally given in a short subscriptio appended to the document.[464] The framing of such replies required considerable legal knowledge; hence it is not surprising to find that jurists like Papinian and Ulpian held this post.
The official a cognitionibus was the adviser of the Emperor on legal points, which were settled by imperial decree. The points on which advice was given were perhaps wholly those of civil jurisdiction, and were probably such as did not need to come before the imperial consilium.[465] The office was in existence at the beginning of the third century,[466] but is thought to have been subsequently merged in that a libellis.[467]
The official a memoria is first mentioned about the time of the Emperor Caracalla. His function was probably to put into form and reduce to writing (often by dictation to a secretary)[468] such speeches and verbal decisions of the Emperor as did not fall under the competence of the other officials.
(v.) The Consilium.—The consilium of the Princeps[469] was merely a renewed manifestation of that eternal principle of Roman public life which directed that a magistrate should seek advisers. A council was necessary for public confidence, but an imperial consilium was originally no part of the constitution of the Principate. Tiberius imitated Augustus in seeking advice before coming to a decision on important matters;[470] yet when he sat as a high court of criminal jurisdiction, his board of assessors could be described as consisting of a "few friends."[471] The board may have become more determinate in succeeding reigns, but the first Princeps whom we hear of as giving it a definite organisation was Hadrian. That Emperor, we are told, when he held a court of justice, summoned as his advisers jurisconsults approved by the Senate.[472] It is only a judicial council that is here described, and there is nothing to show that these legal experts were necessarily consulted on administrative matters. The basis, however, was laid for a permanent council of state, and the consiliarii Augusti of this period became a definite and salaried class.[473] They included both senators and equites,[474] and some bore the title jurisperiti.[475] Others may not have been gifted with special knowledge of the law, and may have been employed in cases where general ability or experience may have been of more value than juristic training. Actual jurisdiction was not, however, the only occasion on which legal knowledge was indispensable in an adviser. The help of the jurist had to be sought in the framing of the imperial constitutiones,[476] and we are told that for this purpose Severus Alexander was assisted by twenty jurisperiti out of a consilium numbering seventy in all.[477] A difference of personnel for different branches of administration is easily comprehensible, for it is improbable that the Emperor needed to summon all his councillors on every occasion on which he took advice.[478] The mode of consultation was wholly informal and depended on the discretion of the Princeps. Augustus in the exercise of his jurisdiction distributed voting tablets (tabellae) to his councillors, on which they could inscribe acquittal or condemnation or a modified verdict.[479] We cannot imagine that the votes were reckoned as in the jury system. The tabellae were for the enlightenment of the Princeps, and he may have decided according to the weight of the names of those who handed them in. Nero, we are told, took opinions on paper, and, after reading them, gave his own judgment as though it were that of the majority of his advisers.[480] Under Severus Alexander opinions were given verbally and taken down in short-hand.[481]
We have already shown that it is probable that the imperial consilium in its developed form was employed by the praefect of the praetorian guard when he gave judgment vice the Princeps.[482]
- ↑ Dio Cass. liii. 32.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liv. 10.
- ↑ ib. liii 32.
- ↑ C.I.L. vi. n. 930. It describes itself as a law and is generally known as the lex de imperio Vespasiani. But its wording bears more analogy to that of a senatus consultum. See Mommsen Staatsrecht ii. p. 878.
- ↑ Vitae Macrini 7; Alexandri 8; Probi 12; Maximi et Balbini 8.
- ↑ "Dato imperio" (Vita Veri 4), "accepit imperium" (Vita Alexandri 1). It is possible, however, that these are references merely to the reception of the title imperator; cf. Vita Juliani 3 "imperator est appellatus"; Vita Probi 12 "nomen imperatorium." For the view that there was always a lex de imperio see Karlowa Römische Rechtsgeschichte i. pp. 493 ff.
- ↑ Gaius Inst. i. 5 (on the imperial constitutio) "nec unquam dubitatum est quin id legis vicem obtineat, cum ipse imperator per legem imperium accipiat"; Ulpian in Dig. 1, 4, 1 "Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem: utpote cum lege regia, quae de imperio ejus lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat." The view that these passages are interpolations is possible but hazardous. A genuine expression of belief in the lex regia appears in Justinian (Cod. i. 17, l. 7).
- ↑ For the monopoly of the sacramentum possessed by the Princeps compare the charge brought against Agrippina after her death (59 A.D.), "Adiciebat crimina . . . quod consortium imperii juraturasque in feminae verba praetorias cohortes . . . speravisset" (Tac. Ann. xiv. 11).
- ↑ "Romae ruere in servitium consules, patres, eques" (Tac. Ann. i. 7).
- ↑ Tac. Hist. i. 55 "Inferioris tamen Germaniae legiones sollemni Kalendarum Januariarum sacramento pro Galba adactae." For the renewal of the oath on the anniversary of accession see Plin. ad Traj. 52.
- ↑ Cf. Tac. Hist. iii. 58 (Vitellius) "vocari tribus jubet, dantes nomina sacramento adigit."
- ↑ Lex de imp. Vesp. 1 "foedusve cum quibus volet facere liceat." These powers are summed up by Dio Cassius liii. 17 (as imperators the Emperors have the right) [Greek: katalogous te poieisthai . . . polemous te anaireisthai kai eirênên spendesthai.]
- ↑ p. 283.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lx. 23 (after Claudius' conquest of Britain) [Greek: epsêphisthê tas symbaseis hapasas, hosas an ho Klaudios ê kai hoi antistratêgoi auton pros tinas poiêsôntai, kyrias, hôs kai pros tên boulên ton te dêmon einai].
- ↑ Lex de imp. Vesp. 15 "utique ei fines pomerii proferre promovere cum ex republica censebit esse, liceat ita, uti licuit Ti. Claudio Caesari Aug(usto) Germanico." Cf. Tac. Ann. xii. 23.
- ↑ p. 240.
- ↑ Gaius Inst. i. 96.
- ↑ Gell. xvi. 13, 5.
- ↑ Gaius Inst. iii. 72 and 73.
- ↑ This was effected, either indirectly by the gift of the gold ring (jus aureorum anulorum), or directly by the fiction of a natalibus restitutio. See Dig. 2, 4, 10, 3; 40, 11, 2; Plin. ad Traj. 72 and 73.
- ↑ Dio Cass. xlix. 15; li. 19; liii. 32. See pp. 338, 340.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iii. 56 "id summi fastigii vocabulum Augustas repperit, ne regis aut dictatoris nomen adsumeret ac tamen appellatione aliqua cetera imperia praemineret."
- ↑ Dio Cass. xlix 15 [Greek: kai to mete ergô mete logô ti hybrizesthai; ei de me, tois autois ton toiouto ti drasanta enechesthai oisper epi tô demarchô etetakto].
- ↑ The additional rights granted to the Emperor in connexion with the Senate (see p. 348) assume a right of intercourse with it.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liii. 17 (the tribunician power) [Greek: didôsi sphisi ta te gignomena hyph' heterou tinos, an me synepainôsi, pauein].
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iii. 70 "recipi Caesar (Tiberius) inter reos vetuit . . . perstititque intercedere"; xiv. 48 "credebaturque haud perinde exitium Antistio quam imperatori gloriam quaeri ut condemnatum a senatu intercessione tribunicia morti eximeret" (Nero).
- ↑ [Greek: amynein] (Dio Cass. li. 19); cf. Tac. Ann. i. 2 (of Augustus) "ad tuendam plebem tribunicio jure contentum."]
- ↑ p. 340.
- ↑ The statement of Suetonius (Aug. 27 "Recepit et morum legumque regimen aeque perpetuum") is not borne out by the Monumentum Ancyranum or by Augustus' titular designations.
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 35; Mon. Anc. ii. 5 "consulari cum imperio lustrum solus feci."
- ↑ Dio Cass. lxvii. 4 [Greek: timêtês de dia biou prôtos dê kai monos kai idiôtôn kai autokratorôn echeirotonêthê].
- ↑ ib. liii. 17 [Greek: kai tous men katalegousi kai es tên ippada kai es to bouleutikon, tous de kai apaleiphousin, hopôs an autois doxê].
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xi. 25 "Isdem diebus in numerum patriciorum adscivit Caesar (Claudius as censor) vetustissimum quemque e senatu aut quibus clari parentes fuerant . . . exhaustis etiam quas (familias) dictator Caesar lege Cassia et princeps Augustus lege Saenia sublegere." Cf. Suet. Otho 1; and for Vespasian's censorship Vita Marci 1 "Annius Verus . . . adscitus in patricios . . . a Vespasiano et Tito censoribus."
- ↑ p. 14.
- ↑ Vita Juliani 3 "in patricias familias relatus"; Macrini 7 "senatus . . . Macrinum . . . in patricios allegit novum hominem." Cf. Dio Cass. lxxviii 17.
- ↑ Lex de imp. Vesp. l. 3 "utique ei senatum habere, relationem facere, remittere, senatus consulta per relationem discessionemque facere liceat." In l. 7 we find the right of the Princeps to summon the Senate ex mandatu.
- ↑ Jus tertiae relationis (Vita Probi 12), quartae (Vita Pertinacis 5), quintae (Vita Marci 6, Alexandri 1).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i. 14 "candidatos praeturae duodecim nominavit (Tiberius), numerum ab Augusto traditum, et hortante senatu ut augeret jure jurando obstrinxit se non excessurum."
- ↑ This practical effect seems sometimes to have been obviated by the Emperor's selecting his candidates for nomination by lot (Dio Cass. lviii. 20). See Mr. Strachan-Davidson in Smith Dict. of Antiq. ii. p. 237.
- ↑ Lex de imp. Vesp. l. 10 "utique quos magistratum potestatem imperium curationemve cujus rei petentes senatui populoque Romano commendaverit, quibusque suffragationem suam dederit promiserit, eorum comitis quibusque extra ordinem ratio habeatur." Cf. Tac. Ann. i. 15 "sine repulsa et ambitu designandos." For the precedent set by Caesar's use of it see Suet. Caes. 41.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i. 15 "moderante Tiberio ne plures quam quattuor candidatos commendaret, sine repulsa et ambitu designandos."
- ↑ e.g. praetor, tribunus, quaestor candidatus (Wilmanns Index pp. 551 ff.).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i. 81 "plerumque eos tantum apud se professos disseruit, quorum nomina consulibus edidisset: posse et alios profiteri, si gratiae aut meritis confiderent." It may have been a person so appointed who inaccurately describes himself as "per commendation(em) Ti. Caesaris Augusti ab senatu co(n)s(ul) dest(inatus)" (Inscr. Reg. Neap. n. 4762; C.I.L., ix. n. 2342).
- ↑ C.I.L xiv. n. 3608 "hunc . . . Caesar Aug. Vespasianus iterum cos. fecit"; Plin. Paneg. 77 (of Trajan) "praestare consulibus ipsum qui consules facit." Mommsen (Staatsr. ii. p. 925) thinks that the change came with Nero.
- ↑ Lex de imp. Vesp. l. 22 "utique quibus legibus plebeive scitis scriptum fuit, ne divus Aug(ustus), Tiberiusve Julius Caesar Aug(ustus), Tiberiusque Claudius Caesar Aug(ustus) Germanicus tenerentur, iis legibus plebisque scitis imp(erator) Caesar Vespasianus solutus sit."
- ↑ Tac. Hist. i. 15 (Galba to Piso on the latter's adoption) "si te privatus lege curiata apud pontifices, ut moris est, adoptarem."
- ↑ Paulus in Dig. 40, 1, 14, 1.
- ↑ Ulpian in Dig. 1, 3, 31.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liii. 17 [Greek: en pasais tais ierôsynais ierôsthai].
- ↑ Lex de imp. Vesp. l. 17 "utique quaecunque ex usu rei publicae majestateque divinarum . . . rerum esse censebit, ei agere fecere jus potestasque sit."
- ↑ p. 254.
- ↑ Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 31.
- ↑ Dio Cass, liii. 17. In the decrees to Maximus and Balbinus the pontificatus maximus is mentioned (Vita 8), and it is possible that it was held by both these emperors conjointly.
- ↑ Zosimus iv. 36.
- ↑ Suet. Dom. 8 "Incesta Vestalium virginum . . . varie ac severe coercuit: priora capitali supplicio; posteriora, more veteri."
- ↑ Ulpian in Dig. 11, 7, 8.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liii. 17; Tac. Hist. i. 77 "Otho pontificatus auguratusque honoratis jam senibus cumulum dignitatis addidit"; Plin. ad Traj. 13 (8) "rogo dignitati, ad quam me provexit indulgentia tua, vel auguratum vel septemviratum, quia vacent, adicere digneris."
- ↑ Cic. ad Att. viii. 9, 4 "nihil malle Caesarem quam principe Pompeio sine metu vivere"; ad Fam. vi. 6, 5 "esset hic quidem (Caesar) clarus in toga et princeps." Cf. Vell. ii. 124 "una tamen veluti luctatio civitatis fuit, pugnantis cum (Tiberio) Caesare senatus populique Romani, ut stationi paternae succederet, illius, ut potius aequalem civem quam eminentem liceret agere principem."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iii. 53 (Tiberius says) "non aedilis aut praetoris aut consulis partes sustineo, majus aliquid et excelsius a principe postulatur."
- ↑ Dio Cass. lvii. 8 (see note 5); Ovid Fasti ii. 142 "Tu (Romule) domini nomen, principis ille (Augustus) tenet."
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 53.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lvii. 8 [Greek: despotês men tôn doulôn, autokratôr de tôn stratiôtôn, tôn de dê loipôn prokritos eimi]. Cf. Tac. Ann. ii. 87.
- ↑ See Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 760.
- ↑ Caesar had been imperator since his first salutation in Gaul; but the right to use the title as a nomen seems first to have been granted him in 45 B.C. after the victory of Munda (Dio Cass. xliii. 44 [Greek: ekeinô tote prôtô te kai prôton, hôsper ti kurion, prosethesan]). It does not seem, however, that he employed it as a praenomen, as is stated by Suetonius (Caes. 76). Cf. p. 337.
- ↑ Dio Cass. l.c.
- ↑ p. 156.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liii. 16 [Greek: Augoustos hôs kai pleion ti ê kata anthrôpous ôn epeklêthê].
- ↑ Karlowa Rechtsgeschichte i. p. 508.
- ↑ Vita L. Veri, 2.
- ↑ Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 1140.
- ↑ App. B.C. ii. 7 [Greek: oude gar toisde kaiper ousi basileusin euthys ap' archês hama tais allais epônymiais, alla syn chronô molis êde hôs entelês epi megistois dê martyria psêphizetai]: Vita Hadriani 6 "patris patriae nomen delatum sibi] statim, et iterum postea, distulit quod hoc nomen Augustus sero meruisset." It was declined altogether by Tiberius (Suet. Tib. 26 and 67) and was not borne by the transitory emperors Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. See Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 780.
- ↑ See Mommsen Staatsr. ii. pp. 782-786. As typical instances we may cite an inscription of Vespasian giving the praenomen imperatoris: "Imp. Caesar. Vespasianus Aug. pontif. max. tribunic. potest, vi. imp. xiiii. p.p., cos. vi. desig. vii. censor" (Wilmanns n. 855), and one of Caracalla showing the title proconsul: "M. Aurellius Antoninus Pius Felix Augustus . . . pontif. max., trib. pot. xviii. imp. iiii. cos. iiii. p.p. procos." (ib. n. 2868). Pater patriae appears sometimes before, sometimes after consul.
- ↑ Dio Cass. xlix. 15.
- ↑ On Gordian's revolt in Africa the laurelled fasces were immediately assumed (Herodian vii. 6; Vita Maximini 14).
- ↑ Originally twelve, later twenty-four (Dio Cass. lxvii. 4).
- ↑ Dio Cass. li. 19.
- ↑ ib.
- ↑ For the reverence to the statue of the deified Emperor see Suet. Tib. 58 "genus calumniae (sc. majestatis) eo processit ut haec quoque capitalia essent: circa Augusti simulacrum servum cecidisse, vestimenta mutasse, nummo vel annulo effigiem impressam latrinae aut lupanari intulisse." For the right of asylum attaching to the living Emperor's image see Tac. Ann. iii. 36; Gaius Inst. i. 53.
- ↑ Tertull. Apol. 28 "citius . . . apud vos per omnes deos quam per unum genium Caesaris pejeratur." In the official oath taken by the magistrates of Salpensa and Malaca the deified Caesars and the genius of the living Caesar come between Jupiter and the di Penates. (Bruns Fontes.)
- ↑ On Seneca's question with reference to Agrippina (59 A.D.) "an militi imperanda caedes esset," the answer is "praetorianos toti Caesarum domui obstrictos . . . nihil . . . atrox ausuros." Caligula specifically included the names of his sisters in the sacramentum (Dio Cass. lix. 9)
- ↑ Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 831.
- ↑ Mon. Ancyr. iii. 5; Dio Cass. lix. 8.
- ↑ The name Augusta as assumed by Victorina in Gaul (A.D. 268) certainly meant that she claimed to be Empress.
- ↑ Plin. Paneg. 84.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iii. 49-51.
- ↑ Gibbon ch. iii.
- ↑ Seneca de Ben. vi. 34, 2 "Apud nos primi omnium Gracchus et mox Livius Drusus instituerunt segregare turbam suam et alios in secretum recipere, alios cum pluribus, alios universos. Habuerunt itaque isti amicos primos, habuerunt secundos, numquam veros."
- ↑ Seneca de Clem. i. 10 "cohortem primae admissionis"; Vita Alex. 20 "moderationis tantae fuit . . . ut amicos non solum primi aut secundi loci sed etiam inferioris aegrotantes viseret."
- ↑ Hence such titles as "comes divi Hadriani in oriente," "comes Imp. Antonini Aug. et divi Veri bello Germanico" (Wilmanns nn. 1184, 637).
- ↑ p. 147.
- ↑ Interregnum might be used metaphorically of the interval between the death of one Princeps and the accession of another. See Vita Taciti 1.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i. 12 "dixit forte Tiberius se ut non toti rei publicae parem, ita quaecumque pars sibi mandaretur, ejus tutelam suscepturum."
- ↑ p. 343.
- ↑ Henzen Act. Fr. Arv. p. 64. Hadrian, after his salutation by the soldiers, wrote to the Senate that he had been praepropere addressed as imperator (Vita Hadriani 6). Pertinax, after his appointment had been accepted by the praetorian guards, laid down his power in the Senate and was elected again (Dio Cass. lxxiii. 1).
- ↑ Suet. Vesp. 6.
- ↑ Vita Taciti 2 (after the murder of Aurelian) "exercitus, qui creare imperatorem raptim solebat, ad senatum literas misit . . . petens ut ex ordine suo principem legerent. Verum senatus, sciens lectos a se principes militibus non placere, rem ad milites rettulit, dumque id saepius fit, sextus peractus est mensis."
- ↑ In 13 B.C. Agrippa received tribunicia potestas for five years (Dio Cass. liv. 12). For Tiberius' claims see Tac. Ann. i 3 "filius, collega imperii, consors tribuniciae potestatis adsumitur."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i 14 (Tiberius on his accession, A.D. 14) "Germanico Caesari proconsulare imperium petivit"; iii 56 (A.D. 22) "Tiberius mittit literas ad senatum quis potestatem tribuniciam Druso petebat." For Trajan see Plin. Paneg. 8 "ante pulvinar Jovis optimi maximi adoptio peracta est . . . simul filius, simul Caesar, mox imperator et consors tribuniciae potestatis"; Vita Pii 4 "adoptatus est (Pius) . . . factusque est patri et in imperio proconsulari et in tribunicia potestate collega"; Vita Marci 6 (Marcus before he came to the throne) "tribunicia potestate donatus est atque imperio extra urbem proconsulari."
- ↑ Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 1158.
- ↑ Vell. ii. 121 "cum . . . senatus populusque Romanus postulante patre ejus, ut aequum ei jus in omnibus provinciis exercitibusque esset quam erat ipsi, decreto complexus esset."
- ↑ Agrippa twice declined a triumph offered him by Augustus (Dio Cass. liv. 11 and 24), and the Senate conferred the title of Imperator only on the proposal of the Princeps (Tac. Ann. i. 58, Germanicus in A.D. 15, "exercitum reduxit nomenque imperatoris auctore Tiberio accepit").
- ↑ Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 1154.
- ↑ Suet. Gaius 24 "(Gaius Drusillam) heredem quoque bonorum atque imperii aeger instituit."
- ↑ ib. 14. Compare Domitian's contention after the death of Vespasian "relictum se participem imperii sed fraudem testamento adhibitam" (Suet. Dom. 2).
- ↑ Tac. Hist. i. 15 (see p. 350); i. 17 (of the adoption of Piso by Galba) "consultatum inde pro rostris an in senatu an in castris adoptio nuncuparetur"; Suet. Galba 17 "(Galba Pisonem) perduxit in castra ac pro contione adoptavit." Nerva proclaims on the Capitol his adoption of Trajan (Dio Cass. lxviii. 8).
- ↑ See p. 360, n. 2.
- ↑ p. 354.
- ↑ Plut. Galba 7 (a messenger announces that) [Greek: ho dêmos kai hê sunklêtos autokratora ton Galban anagoreuseien]: Herodian ii. 12 (the Senate) [Greek: psêphizetai ton men (Ioulianon) anairethênai, apodeichthênai de monon autokratora ton Seouêron]: Vita Maximini 15 "Ubi haec gesta sunt (i.e. after the recognition of the Gordians) senatus magis timens Maximinum aperte ac libere hostes appellat Maximinum et ejus filium."
- ↑ This was the case with Caligula, although the damnatio was incomplete. See Suet. Claud. 11 "Gaii quoque etsi acta omnia rescidit, diem tamen necis, quamvis exordium principatus sui, vetuit inter festos referri."
- ↑ The deposed Nero was thus treated as a traitor (Suet. Ner. 49 "codicillos praeripuit legitque se hostem a senatu judicatum et quaeri ut puniatur more majorum").
- ↑ The acta of Tiberius were not sworn to (Dio Cass. lix. 9), although his memory was not condemned. His reign appears amongst the legitimate precedents for the authority of Vespasian in the lex de imperio, those of Gaius, Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius being omitted.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lvii. 8 (Tiberius) [Greek: epi tais tou Augoustou praxesi tous te allous pantas ôrkou kai autos ômnue].
- ↑ Tiberius characteristically enough would not have his acta sworn to during his lifetime (Tac. Ann. i. 72; Suet. Tib. 67), and some thought the motive was "ne mox majore dedecore impar tantis honoribus inveniretur" (Suet. l.c.). His objection to his own deification was interpreted by some as a sign "degeneris animi" (Tac. Ann. iv. 38).
- ↑ Dio Cass. iii. 20. Here it is made the age for entrance into the Senate; but the completion of the twenty-fifth year is meant. Cf. Quintil. Inst. Or. xii. 6, 1 "quaestoria aetas."
- ↑ Dio Cass. l.c. Dispensations from these rules might be given by the Senate, in accordance with the jus liberorum ("ut singuli anni per singulos liberos remittantur" Dig. 4, 4, 2), or to members of the imperial house (Tac. Ann. iii. 29 "Per idem tempus (A.D. 20) Neronem e liberis Germanici jam ingressum juventam (Tiberius) commendavit patribus, utque munere capessendi vigintiviratus solveretur et quinquennio maturius quam per leges quaesturam peteret . . . postulavit").
- ↑ Dio Cass. liv. 26; cf. Tac. Ann. iii. 29, quoted in the last note.
- ↑ In inscriptions of the early Principate the vigintivirate is sometimes not found in the list of honores. But it is more probable that it is omitted than that it was an alternative to the military tribunate. See Mommsen Staatsr. i. p. 544 n. 4.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lii. 20.
- ↑ Its use by Macrinus in the third century excited opposition (Dio Cass. lxxviii. 13). See Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 942.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liv. 19 (of Tiberius in 16 B.C.) [Greek: estratêgêse gar, kaiper tas stratêgikas timas echôn] (Tiberius had received the ornamenta praetoria in 19 B.C., see c. 10); c. 32 Drusus [Greek: agoranomos . . . kaiper tas stratêgikas timas echôn apedeichthê]: cf. c. 22.
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 35; Dio Cass. lviii. 12.
- ↑ Mommsen Staatsr. i. p. 458.
- ↑ The consular insignia were granted to Nymphidius and to Crispinus under Nero (Tac. Ann. xv. 72; xvi. 17); the praetorian insignia to Sejanus and to Macro under Tiberius (Dio Cass. lvii. 19; lviii. 12).
- ↑ Quaestorian insignia were granted to Laco under Tiberius (Dio Cass. lviii. 12).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xii. 21 "consularia insignia Ciloni (procurator of Pontus) . . . decernuntur"; Suet. Claud. 24 "ornamenta consularia etiam procuratoribus ducenariis indulsit."
- ↑ As the praetorian insignia to Pallas, the quaestorian to Narcissus (Tac. Ann. xii. 53; xi. 38). Cf. Suet. Claud. 28.
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 35 (Augustus) "quosdam ad excusandi se verecundiam compulit: servavitque etiam excusatis insigne vestis et spectandi in orchestra epulandique publice jus."
- ↑ p. 156.
- ↑ In an exceptional case, such as Junius Blaesus' command in Africa, the proconsul might be saluted imperator on the permission of the Princeps (Tac. Ann. iii. 74), and the first condition of a triumph be fulfilled. But this incident, dating from A.D. 22, was the last of its kind on record.
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 38 "super triginta ducibus justos triumphos et aliquanto pluribus triumphalia ornamenta decernenda curavit"; Wilmanns n. 1145 l. 19 "senatus . . . triumphalibus ornamentis honoravit auctore imp. Caesare Augusto Vespasiano"; Index p. 609.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lix. 9. The obligation to swear in acta Caesaris had, with reference to the acts of the first Caesar, begun in 45 B.C. (App. B.C. ii. 106), and had been renewed during the triumvirate (Dio Cass. xlvii. 18), the formula running se nihil contra acta Caesaris facturum. For the obligation as continued in the Principate cf. p. 363.
- ↑ Herodian (ii. 12), with reference to the downfall of Didius Julianus, speaks of the consuls [Greek: hoi ta tês Rhômês dioikein eiôthasin hopênika an ta tês basileias meteôra hê].
- ↑ Plut. Galba 8.
- ↑ Tac. Hist. iii. 68.
- ↑ Plin. Paneg. 77 "comitia consulum obibat ipse (Trajanus); tantum ex renuntiatione eorum voluptatis quantum prius ex destinatione capiebat. . . . Adibat aliquis ut principem; respondebat se consulem esse."
- ↑ On the consuls was laid the burden of certain newly-established festivals such as those celebrating the Natalia of Augustus and the victory of Actium (Dio Cass. lvi 46; lix. 20).
- ↑ See Mommsen Staatsr. ii pp.84-87. The climax was reached with twenty-five consulships in a single year (189 A.D.) under Commodus (Dio Cass. lxxii. 12; Vita Commodi 6).
- ↑ Vita Alexandri 43.
- ↑ Pompon. in Dig. 1, 2, 2, 32.
- ↑ Marini Atti Arvali p. 784.
- ↑ Dio Cassius, lii. cc. 20, 21 (speech of Maecenas), may mean to imply their existence in his own time. Geib (Criminalprocess pp. 392-397) assigns their disappearance to the end of the first century.
- ↑ Pompon. in Dig. 1, 2, 2, 32 "divus Claudius duos praetores adjecit qui de fidei commisso jus dicerent, ex quibus unum divus Titus detraxit: et adjecit divus Nerva qui inter fiscum et privatos jus diceret."
- ↑ See last note.
- ↑ Vita Marci 10 "praetorem tutelarem primus fecit, cum ante tutores a consulibus poscerentur, ut diligentius de tutoribus tractaretur."
- ↑ See § 5.
- ↑ On the condemnation of the history of Cremutius Cordus in A.D. 25 "libros per aediles cremandos censuere patres" (Tac. Ann. iv. 35).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iii 52-55 (A.D. 22).
- ↑ We hear of Vespasian during the reign of Caligula [Greek: agoranomountos te . . . kai tês tôn stenôpôn kathareiotêtos epimeloumenou] (Dio Cass. lix. 12). Cf. Suet. Vesp. 5.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. ii. 85 (A.D. 19) "Vistilia praetoria familia genita licentiam stupri apud aediles vulgaverat."
- ↑ ib. xiii. 28 (A.D. 56) "cohibita artius et aedilium potestas statutumque quantum curules, quantum plebei pignoris caperent vel poenae inrogarent."
- ↑ Gaius Inst. i. 6 (of the jus edicendi) "amplissimum jus est in edictis duorum praetorum . . . item in edictis aedilium curulium." Their edict was codified under Hadrian, and appears in Dig. 21, 1.
- ↑ Karlowa (Rechtsgesch. i. p. 532) thus distributes them—two urban, four of the consuls, twelve for the public provinces, and two attached to the Emperor.
- ↑ See § 5.
- ↑ See chap. xi.
- ↑ The practice first began in 38 B.C. (Dio Cass. xlviii. 43). Cf. Tac. Ann. xvi, 34 Tum ad Thrasean in hortis agentem quaestor consulis missus." They were selected by the consuls themselves (Plin. Ep. iv. 10, 8).
- ↑ Dig. 1, 13, 1, 2 and 4 "sane non omnes quaestores provincias sortiebantur, verum excepti erant candidati principis... qui... epistulas ejus in senata legunt."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xi. 22 (A.D. 47) "quaestura. velut venundaretur."
- ↑ The obligation imposed in 47 was modified in 54 A.D. (Tac. Ann. xl. 22; xiii. 5), but was renewed under Domitian (Suet. Dom. 4).
- ↑ Vita Alexandri 43 "quaestores candidatos ex sua pecunia jussit munera populo dare . . . arcarios vero instituit, qui de arca fisci ederent munera eademque parciora."
- ↑ The tribunate is to the younger Pliny "inanis umbra et sine honore nomen" (Ep. i 23).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i. 77 (A.D. 15, on the proposal of jus virgarum in histriones) "intercessit Haterius Agrippa tribunus plebei increpitusque est Asinii Galli oratione, silente Tiberio, qui ea simulacra libertatis senatui praebebat."
- ↑ Tac. Hist. iv. 9 (A.D. 69, on the praetors of the aerarium announcing a deficit) "cum perrogarent sententias consules, Volcatius Tertullinus tribunus plebis intercessit, ne quid super tanta re principe absente statueretur." This is the last recorded instance of the intercessio (Momms. Staatsr. ii. p. 309 n. 1).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. vi. 47 [53] (in A.D. 37 a woman was accused of majestas) "qua damnata cum praemium accusatori decerneretur, Junius Otho tribunus plebei intercessit, unde . . . mox Othoni exitium." Rusticus Arulenus, a flagrans juvenis, offered to veto the decree of the Senate which condemned Thrasea Paetus in A.D. 66 (xvi. 26).
- ↑ ib. xiii. 28 "inter Vibullium praetorem et plebei tribunum Antistium ortum certamen, quod immodestos fautores histrionum et a praetore in vincla ductos tribunos omitti jussisset."
- ↑ Tac. Hist. ii. 91 (Vitellius, when Emperor, attacked by Helvidius Priscus in the Senate) "commotus . . . non tamen ultra quam tribunos plebis in auxilium spretae potestatis advocavit."
- ↑ In A.D. 56 they were forbidden "vocare ex Italia cum quibus lege agi posset" (Tac. Ann. xiii. 28). See Appendix.
- ↑ Tac. l.c.
- ↑ Juvenal vii. 228 "Rara tamen merces, quae cognitione tribuni Non egeat." The words doubtless mean "which does not lead to the appellatio." In such a case even the Republican tribunes took "cognisance" of the merits of the appeal. The explanation that the tribunes were now given some extraordinary jurisdiction in civil cases is unnecessary.
- ↑ p. 365.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liv. 26.
- ↑ ib. lx. 11.
- ↑ e.g. Cod. 6, 60, 1 (A.D. 319) "Imp. Constantinus A. consulibus, praetoribus tribunis plebis senatui salutem."
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 40 "Comitiorum quoque pristinum jus reduxit."
- ↑ p. 344.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lvi. 40 (Augustus) [Greek: ek . . . tou dêmou to dyskriton en tais diagnôsesin es tên tôn dikastêriôn akribeian metastêsas].
- ↑ e.g. the Julian laws passed by Augustus in the concilium plebis, the lex Junia Norbana of the reign of Tiberius, plebiscita of Claudius. The last known lex is an agrarian law of Nerva (Dig. 47, 21, 3, 1).
- ↑ Dio Cass. liii. 21 (when the election was entrusted to the people, Augustus) [Greek: epemeleito hopôs mêt' anepitêdeioi mêt' ek parakeleuseôs hê kai dekasmou apodeiknyôntai]. Cf. Tac. Ann. i. 15 "potissima arbitrio principis, quaedam tamen studiis tribuum fiebant."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i. 15. The change was, we are told by Velleius (ii. 124), in accordance with the instructions of Augustus.
- ↑ p. 188.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lviii. 20.
- ↑ p. 349. In C.I.L. vi. 10213 we find a notice of "improbae comitiae in Aventino, ubi (Sej)anus cos. factus est." We find Vitellius canvassing for his candidates in the circus (Tac. Hist. ii. 91 "comitia consulum cum candidatis civiliter celebrans omnem infimae plebis rumorem in theatro ut spectator, in circo ut fautor adfectavit"). On the other hand, we have ab senatu destinatus in the inscription quoted on p. 349 n. 6. Dio Cassius (lix. 20), in speaking of the temporary restoration of popular elections by Caligula, mentions them in connexion with the consulship.
- ↑ Dio Cass. xxxvii. 28.
- ↑ p. 369.
- ↑ p. 364.
- ↑ p. 365.
- ↑ p. 364. Hence the expression "nondum senatoria aetate" (Tac. Ann. xv. 28; Hist. iv. 42).
- ↑ Dio Cass. liv. 17, 30; Tac. Ann. i. 75, ii. 37.
- ↑ He declared "non lecturum se senatorem nisi civis Romani abnepotem" (Suet. Claud. 24).
- ↑ Vita Commodi 6 "ad cujus (Cleandri) nutum etiam libertini in senatum atque in patricios lecti sunt"; Vita Elagabali 11 "Fecit libertos praesides, legatos, consules, duces."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iii. 4 "simul novi homines e municipiis et coloniis atque etiam provinciis in senatum crebro adsumpti"; Suet. Vesp. 9 "Amplissimos ordines . . . purgavit supplevitque, recenso senatu et equite . . . honestissimo quoque Italicorum ac provincialium adlecto."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xi 25; Prof. Pelham in Classical Review ix. p. 441.
- ↑ Plin. Ep. vi. 19.
- ↑ Vita Marci 11.
- ↑ For the infliction of such a nota by Domitian see Suet. Dom. 8, "quaestorium virum, quod gesticulandi saltandique studio teneretur, movit senatu."
- ↑ p. 347.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iv. 42 (Tiberius) "Apidium . . . Merulam, quod in acta ilivi Augusti non juraverat, albo senatorio crasit."
- ↑ ib. iii. 17; vi. 48.
- ↑ ib. iv. 21; xii. 59.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lv. 3; Tac. Ann. iv. 42.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liii. 1 (Augustus in 28 B.C. during the censorship of himself and Agrippa) [Greek: en autais (tais apographais) prokritos tês gerousias epeklêthê]: cf. lxxii. 5, where Pertinax [Greek: prokritos . . . tês gerousias kata to archaion epônomasthê]: an expression which seems to show that it was not a constant designation of the Princeps at this period.
- ↑ ib. liv. 13, 14.
- ↑ ib. lv. 3; Suet. Aug. 35; Merkel ad Ovid. Fast. p. vi
- ↑ Lex de imp. Vesp. l. 9 "ac si e lege senatus edictus esset habereturque."
- ↑ Vita Gordianorum, 11; Vita Hadriani, 7; Dio Cass. liv. 3.
- ↑ For the summons by a praetor see Tac. Hist. iv. 39; by tribunes, Dio Cass. lvi. 47, lx. 16, lxxviii. 37; by tribunes and praetors, ib. lix. 24.
- ↑ The doubt is raised by Piso's address to Tiberius during a trial for majestas, "quo . . . loco censebis, Caesar? Si primus, habebo quod sequar: si post omnes, vereor ne imprudens dissentiam" (Tac. Ann. i 74). Dio Cassius also says of Tiberius (lvii. 7) [Greek: kai gar autos psêphon pollakis edidou]. But neither writer may be using strictly technical language; and it is not certain that the Princeps could be asked his opinion. On the other hand, when Caesar put the question, the other magistrates gave sententiae (Tac. Ann. iii. 17). The question is not of much importance for the Principate as a whole, as in its later period the Emperor usually consulted the Senate by letter. See p. 369.
- ↑ See Tac. Ann. i. 74, quoted in the last note.
- ↑ p. 348
- ↑ p. 359.
- ↑ p. 350.
- ↑ The formula for the formation of a collegium legitimum runs 'quibus senatus c(oire) c(onvocari) c(ogi) permisit e lege Julia ex auctoritate Augusti" (C.I.L. vi n. 4416).
- ↑ p. 372.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lxviii. 29.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iii. 60; xii. 62.
- ↑ ib. xiii 48.
- ↑ "de legendo vel exauctorando milite, ac legionum et auxiliorum descriptione" (Suet. Tib. 30).
- ↑ Tac. Hist. iv. 61; Dio Cass. lxviii. 9, 10. In 49 A.D. during the reign of Claudius we also read of a reception of Parthian envoys in the Senate (Tac. Ann. xii. 10).
- ↑ p. 358.
- ↑ p. 358.
- ↑ p. 372.
- ↑ p. 275.
- ↑ Thus the S. C. Velleianum, which limited the obligations which women might incur, begins, "Quod Marcus Silanus et Velleus Tutor consules verba fecerunt . . . quid de ea re fieri oportet, de ea re ita censuere" (Dig. 16, 1, 2, 1); cf. Dig. 36, 1, 1, 2 (S. C. Trebellianum), 14, 6, 1 (S. C. Macedonianum), and see Kipp Quellenkunde des röm. Rechts p. 27.
- ↑ The jurists refer to them by the names of their proposers; hence such designations as Velleianum, Trebellianum (see last note). But such designations are not official. The S. C. Macedonianum is called after the offender who had been the occasion of the decree.
- ↑ Gaius i. 4 "Senatus consultum est, quod senatus jubet atque constituit: idque legis vicem obtinet, quamvis fuerit quaesitum."
- ↑ Dig. 1, 1, 7; 1, 3, 9.
- ↑ Lex de imp. Vesp. 1. 17 "utique quaecunque ex usu rei publicae majestateque divinarum humanarum publicarum privatarumque rerum esse censebit, ei agere facere jus potestasque sit, ita uti divo Augusto . . . fuit."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i. 77 "divus Augustus immunes verberum histriones quondam responderat, neque fas Tiberio infringere dicta ejus."
- ↑ p. 363.
- ↑ Paulus in Dig. 28. 2, 26 "Filius familias, si militet . . . aut heres scribi aut exheredari debet, jam sublato edicto divi Augusti, quo cautum fuerat ne pater filium militem exheredet."
- ↑ It was sometimes used in a more general sense for constitutio principis, as when Papinian says "Jus . . . civile est quod ex legibus, plebis scitis, senatus consultis, decretis principum, auctoritate prudentium venit" (Dig. 1, 1, 7).
- ↑ Dig. 4, 2, 13 "Exstat enim decretum divi Marci in haec verba, etc. . . . Caesar dixit, etc."
- ↑ "Rescript" is properly an answer to a letter, but it soon came to be used as exquivalent to epistola. See Kipp op. cit. p. 37.
- ↑ Cf. Dig. 1, 16, 4, 5 "imperator noster Antoninus Augustus ad desideria Asianorum rescripsit" (on the mode in which the proconsul should arrive at the province of Asia).
- ↑ Gaius i. 5 "Constitutio principis est, quod imperator decreto vel edicto vel epistola constituit; nec unquam dubitatum est quin id legis vicem obtineat." Cf. Ulpian in Dig. 1, 4, 1, 1 "Quodcumque . . . imperator per epistulam et subscriptionem statuit vel cognoscens decrevit . . . vel edicto praecepit, legem esse constat. Haec sunt quas vulgo constitutiones appellamus."
- ↑ Thus the soldier's testament was created by a series of mandates: "divus Julius Caesar concessit . . . divus Titus dedit: post hoc Domitianus: postea divus Nerva plenissimam indulgentiam in milites contulit: eamque et Trajanus secutus est et exinde mandatis inseri coepit caput tale. Caput ex mandatis, etc." (Ulpian in Dig. 29, 1, 1).
- ↑ Gell. xii. 13, 1 "Cum Romae a consulibus judex extra ordinem datus pronuntiare . . . jussus essem."
- ↑ Dio Cass. li. 19 (in 30 B.C. it was decreed) [Greek: ton Kaisara tên te exousian tên tôn dêmarchôn dia biou echein . . . ekklêton te dikazein.] . It is probable that the last words only describe the establishment of the Princeps as a high court of voluntary jurisdiction. See Greenidge in Classical Review viii. p. 144.
- ↑ p. 368.
- ↑ Paulus in Dig. 5, 1, 58 "Judicium solvitur vetante eo qui judicare jusserat vel etiam eo qui majus imperium in eadem jurisdictione habet." The veto in virtue of par potestas is here omitted on account of its disappearance in the time of Paulus (circa 200 A.D.). See Merkel Gesch. der klassichen Appellation ii. p. 19.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i. 75 "judiciis adsidebat in cornu tribunalis, ne praetorem curuli depelleret; multaque eo coram adversus ambitum et potentium preces constituta"; Dio Cass. lvii. 7 [Greek: epephoita de kai epi ta tôn archontôn dikastêria, kai parakaloumenos hyp' autôn kai aparaklêtos, kai . . . elegen hosa edokei autô, hôs paredros.] The civil courts are here meant, or at least included; but it is possible that Tiberius may often have appeared in them as a self-constituted adviser, not as an authority to be appealed to; cf. Suet. Tib. 33 "magistratibus pro tribunali cognoscentibus plerumque se offerebat consiliarium; adsidebatque juxtim vel exadversum in parte primori." According to Suetonius (l.c.) he exercised a similar influence over the jurisdiction of the quaestiones.
- ↑ p. 178.
- ↑ p. 382.
- ↑ Cic. pro Tullio 16, 38 "quid attinuit te tam multis verbis a praetore postulare ut adderet in judicium 'INJURIA,' et, quia non impetrasses, tribunos plebis appellare et hic in judicio queri praetoris iniquitatem quod de injuria non addiderit?" So the tribunician veto might be employed to elicit an exception. Cic. Acad. Prior. ii. 30, 97 "Tribunum aliquem censeo adeant [al. videant
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xiii. 28 (A.D. 56). See Appendix.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lix. 8 [Greek: ho men gar Tiberios houtôs auton]: a me istam exceptionem nunquam impetrabunt."](Silanus) [Greek: etimêsen, hôste mêt' ekklêton pote ap' autou dikasai ethelêsai, all' ekeinô panta authis ta toiauta encheirisai]. We do not know what position Silanus held. If, as is generally supposed, he was consul, the reference may be to appeals from jurisdiction in fidei commissa delegated by the Princeps to the consul.
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 33 "Appellationes quotannis urbanorum quidem litigatorum praetori delegabat urbano: at provincialium consularibus viris, quos singulos cujusque provinciae negotiis praeposuisset." That the conjecture praefecto delegabat urbis is untenable has been pointed out by Mommsen (Staatsr. ii. p. 985 note 1).
- ↑ For the delegation to praetors see p. 368; for that to consuls cf. Quint. Inst. Or. iii. 6, 70 "Non debes apud praetorem petere fidei commissum sed apud consules, major enim praetoria cognitione summa est."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xiii. 4 "teneret antiqua munia senatus, consulum tribunalibus Italia et publicae provinciae adsisterent."
- ↑ Cic. in Verr. iii. 60, 138; ad Fam. xiii. 26, 3; Fragmentum Atestinum (Bruns Fontes) l. 10.
- ↑ When the Senate granted the proconsulare imperium to Augustus in 23 B.C. [Greek: en tô hypêkoô to pleion tôn hekastachothi archontôn ischuein epetrepsen] (Dio Cass. liii. 32). Cf. Ulpian in Dig. 1, 16, 8 ["(proconsul) majus imperium in ea provincia habet omnibus post principem"] and in 1, 18, 4. It is a passive rather than an active majus imperium that is here contemplated. The whole scheme of the provincial dyarchy rested on the assumption that there should be no relations between the proconsul and the Princeps.
- ↑ p. 368.
- ↑ Ulpian in Dig. 49, 2, 1, 2 "sciendum est appellari a senatu non posse principem, idque oratione divi Hadriani effectum." It was doubtless the original principle, confirmed and not created by Hadrian.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iii. 14, xvi. 8; Suet. Aug. 5.
- ↑ There was no legal principle of the kind. According to Dio Cassius (liii. 17) the monarchical power extended so far [Greek: hôste kai entos tou pômêriou kai tous hippeas kai tous bouleutas thanatoun dynasthai], and a senator, like Calpurnius Piso in 20 A.D., might be brought before the Emperor (Tac. Ann. iii. 10). But Septimius Severus permitted a senatus consultum to be passed that the Emperor should not be allowed to put a senator to death without the will of the Senate (Dio Cass. lxxiv. 2; Vita Severi 7). The principle had been stated earlier by Hadrian (Vita Hadriani 7 "juravit se nunquam senatorem nisi ex senatus sententia puniturum").
- ↑ Augustus in 29 B.C. brought Antiochus of Commagene, Tiberius in A.D. 17 Archelaus of Cappadocia before the Senate (Dio Cass. lii. 43, lvii. 17; Tac. Ann. ii. 42). In A.D. 19 Rhescuporis of Thrace was accused there (Tac. Ann. ii. 67).
- ↑ Cases of extortion are to be found in Tac. Ann. iii. 66, xii. 59; Hist. iv. 45. In A.D. 23 we find the imperial procurator (patrimonii) of Asia brought before the Senate for exceeding his powers (Tac. Ann. iv. 15).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iv. 13 (A.D. 23) "Carsidius Sacerdos, reus tamquam frumento hostem Tacfarinatem juvisset, absolvitur, ejusdemque criminis C. Gracchus."
- ↑ Amongst the prosecutions for treason against the Princeps which disfigure the reign of Tiberius we may mention those against Libo Drusus (Tac. Ann. ii. 27 ff.), against Cremutius Cordus (ib. iv. 34, 35), and against Sejanus (Dio Cass. lviii. 9, 10).
- ↑ In A.D. 37 we find that a mother, who had caused her son to commit suicide, "accusata in senatu . . . urbe . . . in decem annos prohibita est" (Tac. Ann. vi. 49). In A.D. 61 we find interdiction from Italy pronounced against a man for a kind of praevaricatio, "quod reos, ne apud praefectum urbis arguerentur, ad praetorem detulisset" (ib. xiv. 41).
- ↑ Quintil. Inst. Or. iii. 10, 1; vii. 2, 20. For instances see Tac. Ann. ii. 50, iv. 21; Plin. Ep. ii. 11, 3 ff. In the last passage we find the question of the legality of this procedure raised ("Respondit Fronto Catius deprecatusque est ne quid ultra repetundarum legem quaereretur. . . . Magna contentio, magni utrimque clamores, aliis cognitionem senatus lege conclusam, aliis liberam solutamque dicentibus").
- ↑ It is possible, however, that the Senate was held to continue the extraordinary criminal jurisdiction of the comitia. Tacitus certainly regards the cognitio as belonging to the Senate (Ann. ii. 28 "Statim corripit reum, adit consules, cognitionem senatus poscit").
- ↑ Plin. Ep. vi. 31, 8 (in a case of a forgery of a will) "Heredes, cum Caesar (Trajanus) esset in Dacia, communiter epistula scripta, petierant ut susciperet cognitionem."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. ii. 79 "Marsus . . . Vibius nuntiavit Pisoni Romam ad dicendam causam veniret. Ille eludens respondit adfuturum, ubi praetor, qui de veneficiis quaereret, reo atque accusatoribus diem prodixisset"; ib. iii 10 "petitum . . . est a principe cognitionem exciperet; quod ne reus quidem abnuebat, studia populi et patrum metuens . . . haud fallebat Tiberium moles cognitionis quaque ipse fama distraheretur. Igitur paucis familiarium adhibitis minas accusantium et hinc preces audit integramque causam ad senatum remittit." "Remittit" does not imply that the Senate was bound to take the case. For the technically voluntary nature of its jurisdiction cf. ib. iv. 21, xiii. 10, where we find the expressions "receptus est reus," "recepti sunt inter reos."
- ↑ Dio Cass. lii. 22, 33. A case of adultery of a centurion with a tribune's wife comes before the Emperor. Trajan stated the ground on which he tried this case (Plin. Ep. vi. 31, 6 "Caesar et nomen centurionis et commemorationem disciplinae militaris sententiae adjecit, ne omnes ejusmodi causas revocare ad se videretur").
- ↑ An instance is mentioned by Pliny (Ep. vii. 6, 8 "mater, amisso filio . . . libertos ejus eosdemque coheredes suos falsi et veneficii reos detulerat ad principem judicemque impetraverat Julium Servianum").
- ↑ See the section on the functionaries of the Princeps (p. 406 sq.).
- ↑ Plin. ad Traj. 96, 4 "quia cives Romani erant, adnotavi in urbem remittendos."
- ↑ It is not properly an appeal but a denial of jurisdiction. But on what ground the jurisdiction of the procurator was denied is not clear. The Roman citizenship, in virtue of which St. Paul claimed exemption from scourging at Philippi and Jerusalem, is not mentioned here. See Class. Rev. x. p. 231.
- ↑ Plin. Ep. ii. 11; Suet. Galba 9.
- ↑ For its attachment to procurators and to persons with extraordinary commands see the instances given by Mommsen (Staatsr. ii p. 270). So the praefectures of the guard, the vigiles and the fleet, are honores juris gladii (Vita Alex. 49). In the case of ordinary provincial governors it is, perhaps, safer to say that the jus gladii is possessed by them, or permitted to them, rather than that it was attached to them by the Princeps (Ulp. in Dig. 1, 18, 6, 8 "qui universas provincias regunt, jus gladii habent et in metallum dandi potestas iis permissa est").
- ↑ Dio Cass. lii. 22, 33; Dig. 48, 19, 27, 1 and 2.
- ↑ Even by Tiberius' reign this procedure had become so formal that a rule was framed for its exercise. A definite interval was prescribed within which the Princeps might consider the request for the intercession (Tac. Ann. iii. 51 [A.D. 21] "factum senatus consultum, ne decreta patrum ante diem decimum ad aerarium deferrentur idque vitae spatium damnatis prorogaretur"; cf. Dio Cass. lvii. 20; Suet. Tib. 75).
- ↑ p. 385.
- ↑ "Ob laetitiam aliquam vel honorem domus divinae vel ex aliqua causa, ex qua senatus censuit abolitionem reorum fieri" (Ulp. in Dig. 48, 16, 12; cf. 48, 3, 2, 1). Domitian by an edict declared that such abolitiones did not extend to slaves who were in custody awaiting trial (Dig. 48, 16, 16; cf. 48, 3, 2, 1).
- ↑ p. 249.
- ↑ Ulp. in Dig. 3, 1, 1, 10 "De qua autem restitutione praetor loquitur? Utrum de ea quae a principe vel a senatu? Pomponius quaerit: et putat de ea restitutione sensum, quam princeps vel senatus indulsit."
- ↑ It is said of Claudius (Suet. Claud. 12) "neminem exulum nisi ex senatus auctoritate restituit"; and of Antoninus Pius (Vita 6) "His quos Hadrianus damnaverat in senatu indulgentias petit, dicens etiam ipsum Hadrianum hoc fuisse facturum."
- ↑ Such acts are mentioned under Claudius (Dio Cass. lx. 4), Otho (Tac. Hist. i. 90; Plut. Otho 1), Vitellius (Tac. Hist. ii. 92), Vespasian (Dio Cass. lxvi. 9), Nerva (Plin. Ep. iv. 9, 2), Antoninus Caracalla (Vita 3), and Gordian (Herodian vii. 6, 4).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. ii. 50 "(Tiberius) liberavit . . . Appuleiam lege majestatis, adulterii graviorem poenam deprecatus."
- ↑ p. 390.
- ↑ Gordian is spoken of as [Greek: palindikian didous tois adikôs katakritheisi] (Herodian vii. 6, 4).
- ↑ Ulp. in Dig. 3, 1, 1, 10.
- ↑ Suet. Claud. 14 "(Claudius) iis, qui apud privatos judices pius petendo formula excidissent, restituit actiones"; Dom. 8 "(Domitianus) ambitiosas centumvirorum sententias rescidit."
- ↑ This power was employed by Augustus (Suet. Aug. 32 "Diuturnorum reorum . . . nomina abolevit"), Gaius (Suet. Calig. 15 "criminum . . . si quae residua ex priore tempore manebant, omnium gratiam fecit"; cf. Dio Cass. lix. 6), Vespasian (Dio Cass. lxvi. 9), and Domitian (Suet. Dom. 9).
- ↑ p. 388.
- ↑ Cic. in Vat. 14, 33.
- ↑ p. 390.
- ↑ Dig. 48, 19, 9, 11 "referre ad principem debet, ut ex auctoritate ejus poena aut permutetur aut liberaretur."
- ↑ The capital punishment of decurions was prohibited by Hadrian (Dig. 48, 19, 15), and the earliest mandata, directing the procedure of governors in such cases, proceed from the divi fratres (ib. 48, 19, 27, 1 and 2). The punishment of deportation had been confined to the Princeps and the praefects of the praetorian guard and the city by the time of Septimius Severus (ib. 48, 19, 2, 1 and 48, 22, 6, 1; cf. § 7).
- ↑ Pliny often raises this question in his correspondence with Trajan (31 [40], 4; 56 [64], 3; 57 [65], 1). The passages seem to show (i.) that there was at the time no fixed rule defining the governor's power of restitutio, at least in public provinces; (ii.) that restitutio by a governor was felt to be permissible in certain cases.
- ↑ A passage in Justinian's Code (9, 51, 1) shows us Antoninus (Caracalla) saying to a man, who had been deported to an island, "Restituo te in integrum provinciae tuae."
- ↑ Greenidge in Classical Review viii. p. 437.
- ↑ Cf. Tac. Ann. iii. 53 (quoted p. 352).
- ↑ Dio Cass. xliii. 48; Momms. Staatsr. ii. p. 557.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xiii. 29; Dio Cass. liii. 2; Suet. Aug. 36.
- ↑ Tac. l.c.; Dio Cass. liii. 32.
- ↑ Tac. l.c.; Dio Cass. lx. 24; Suet. Claud. 24. For the election by the Princeps see the inscription to Ti. Domitius Decidius "electo (Mommsen, "adlecto" Wilmanns) a T. Claudio Caesare . . . qui primus quaestor per triennium citra ordinem praeesset aerario Saturni" (Wilmanns n. 1135).
- ↑ Momms. Staatsr. ii. p. 559.
- ↑ Tac. l.c.; Mommsen l.c.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lxxi. 33 καὶ χρήματα ἐκ τοῦ δημοσίου ᾔτησε τὴν βουλήν.
- ↑ For the meaning of the word—the great basket in which money was kept in the state treasuries—see Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 998 n. 1. At the beginning of the Principate there were, perhaps, fisci rather than a fiscus (cf. Suet. Aug. 101), although there must always have been a central controlling department.
- ↑ Tiberius in 23 B.C. says of Lucilius Capito, procurator of Asia, "non se jus nisi in servitia et pecunias familiares dedisse" (Tac. Ann. iv. 15). He was doubtless a "procurator patrimonii." Cf. Tac. Ann. xii. 60 ("cum Claudius libertos, quos rei familiari praefecerat, sibique et legibus adaequaverit"); xiii. 1 "P. Celer eques Romanus et Helius libertus, rei familiari principis in Asia inpositi."
- ↑ Marquardt Staatsverwaltung ii. p. 256.
- ↑ Vita Severi 12 "interfectis innumeris Abani partium viris . . . omnium bona publicata sunt. . . . Tuncque primum privatarum rerum procuratio constituta est." The ordinarily accepted view of the relations of these two departments to one another is that of Hirschfeld and Marquardt, viz. that the patrimonium was the inalienable crown property, the res privata the strictly personal property of the Princeps. Karlowa (Rechtscgeshichte i. p. 505) takes an exactly oppositive view of their relations, based partly on the fact that extant inscriptions show the procurator rationis privatae to have had a higher rank than the procurator patrimonii.
- ↑ Mon. Anc. iii. 39 "HS milliens et septingentiens (170 million sesterces) ex patrimonio meo detuli."
- ↑ Dio Cass. lv. 25; Tac. Ann. i. 78.
- ↑ Dio Cass. l.c.; cf. Tac. Ann. v. 8 (vi. 3).
- ↑ p. 351.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. ii 85.
- ↑ ib. iii. 61.
- ↑ ib. xi. 15.
- ↑ Vita Aurel. 31.
- ↑ Mommsen Römisches Münzwesen pp. 742 ff. He shows that the transitory usurpation of the copper coinage by Nero was due to the same desire of making a profit as his reduction of the value of silver.
- ↑ Dig. 2, 15, 8 "divus Marcus oratione in senatu recitata effecit ne, etc." Cf. 24, 1, 23; 27, 9, 1.
- ↑ Tacitus (Ann. vi. 2 [8]) remarks, with reference to proposals carried in the Senate in 32 A.D., "et bona Sejani ablata aerario ut in fiscum cogerentur, tanquam referret."
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 38 "Liberis senatorum, quo celerius rei publicae assuescerent, protinus . . . latum clavum induere et curiae interesse permisit."
- ↑ Wilmanns Index p. 602; cf. Suet. Dom. 10.
- ↑ Augustus had given the post of praefectus alae as well as that of tribunus militum to senators' sons (Suet. Aug. 38). Mommsen (Staatsr. i. p. 548) thinks that after Tiberius these laticlavii, as a rule, filled the office of tribune alone. They could scarcely have been given a real command when they first joined the standards.
- ↑ The poet Ovid, who assumed the latus clavus by right of birth, took the first steps towards a senatorial career by filling two posts in the vigintivirate, but he went no further and subsided into equestrian rank (Ovid Trist. iv. 10, 29; Fasti iv. 383).
- ↑ Suet. Claud. 24 "Senatoriam dignitatem recusantibus equestrem quoque ademit."
- ↑ Suet. Claud. 24 "Latum clavum (quamvis initio affirmasset non lecturum se senatorem nisi civis Romani abnepotem) etiam libertini filio tribuit, sed sub conditione si prius ab equite Romano adoptatus esset." Claudius then appealed to the famous precedent set by his ancestor Appius Caecus.
- ↑ Dig. 23, 2, 44.
- ↑ ib. 1, 9, 8; 50, 1, 22, 5.
- ↑ ib. 1, 9, §§ 5, 6, 7, 10.
- ↑ Asc. in or. in Tog. Cand. p. 94.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lxix. 16 [Greek: enomothetêse de . . . hina mêdeis bouleutês mêt' autos mête di' heterou telos ti misthôtai].
- ↑ Severus Alexander at first forbade the taking of interest, but subsequently allowed 6 per cent (Vita 26). For investment by a senator at an earlier period cf. Plin. Ep. iii. 19, 8 "sum quidem prope totus in praediis, aliquid tamen fenero."
- ↑ Dig. 50, 1, 23 "municeps esse desinit senatoriam adeptus dignitatem, quantum ad munera; quantum vero ad honorem, retinere creditur originem." Cf. ib. 1, 9, 11; 50, 1, 22, 5; Cod. 10, 40 [39].
- ↑ p. 387.
- ↑ 'Friedländer Sittengesch. i. 3.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lii. cc. 7, 15, 31; lxvii. 2.
- ↑ See p. 413.
- ↑ p. 364.
- ↑ p. 374.
- ↑ Suet. Claud. 25 "stipendiaque instituit (Claudius) et imaginariae militiae genus, quod vocatur 'supra numerum,' quo absentes et titulo tenus fungerentur."
- ↑ In A.D. 16 a proposal was made in the Senate "ut . . . legionum legati, qui ante praeturam ea militia fungebantur, jam tum praetores destinarentur" (Tac. Ann. ii. 36).
- ↑ Galba's is a good instance of a distinguished senatorial career. He obtained office ante legitimum tempus; after the praetorship he governed Aquitania, after the consulship Upper Germany; he was then proconsul of Africa, and finally for eight years legate of Tarraconensis. See Suet. Galba 6, 7, 8.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iv. 6 "(the state contracts) societatibus equitum Romanorum agitabantur."
- ↑ Dio Cass. liii. 30. On Antonius Musa, who had saved Augustus' life, was conferred [Greek: to chrysois daktyliois (apeleutheros gar ên) chrêsthai
- ↑ A rescript of Hadrian is quoted with reference to the ingenuitas conferred by the gold ring (Ulp. in Dig. 40, 10, 6). For other references to this right see Dig. 38, 2, 3; Justin. Nov. 78.
- ↑ The usurpation of the gold ring by freedmen, which was repressed by Claudius (Suet. Claud. 25) and Domitian, and the inspection in the theatre instituted by the latter (Martial v. 8) seem to refer to a civil class; at least there is no evidence that such people claimed to be equites equo publico. When Dio Cassius (lvi. 42) speaks of [Greek: hoi te hippeis, hoi te ek tou telous kai hoi alloi]: ib. xlviii. 45 (Augustus, on the reception of Menas the former freedman of Sex. Pompeius) [Greek: daktylois te chrysois ekosmêse kai es to tôn hippeôn telos esegrapse]. These words may mean that Menas was made an eques equo publico as well.], it is not clear who "the others" are, but the passage shows that persons other than those in the corps were called "equites."
- ↑ Dionys. vi. 13.
- ↑ The seviri would seem to show that there were six turmae. See Hirschfeld Verwaltungsgesch. p. 243 n. 1.
- ↑ Hence such expressions as a divo Hadriano equo publico honoratus (Wilmanns 1825), equo publico exornatus ab Impp. Severo et Antonino Augg. (ib. 1595).
- ↑ p. 347.
- ↑ p. 225. It is probable that the revision of the knights described in Suet. Claud. 16, Vesp. 9 refers to the censorship of these emperors.
- ↑ a censibus equitum Romanorum (Wilmanns 1275), a censibus a libellis Aug. (ib. 1249 b), a libellis et censibus (ib. 1257).
- ↑ p. 225.
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 38 "equitum turmas frequenter recognovit, post longam intercapedinem reducto more transvectionis."
- ↑ ib. 38 "mox reddendi equi gratiam fecit eis, qui majores annorum quinque et triginta retinere eum nollent."
- ↑ ib. 39 "Unum quemque equitum rationem vitae reddere coegit."
- ↑ Suet. Calig. 16 "palam adempto equo, quibus aut probri aliquid aut ignominiae inesset."
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 37, 39.
- ↑ In those of Caligula (Suet. Calig. 16) and Nero (Dio Cass. lxiii. 13), and perhaps in those of Vitellius (Tac. Hist. ii. 62) and Severus Alexander (Vita 15).
- ↑ Zosimus ii. 29.
- ↑ By the side of such titles as equo publico judex selectus ex V decuriis (Wilmanns 2110) and equum publicum habens adlectus in V decurias (ib. 2203) we find the title quin. decur. judi(cum) (inter) quatringenarios (Henzen 6469), in which a purely monetary qualification is expressed.
- ↑ Wilmanns nn. 1639, 2841, Index p. 564; Mommsen Staatsr. iii. p. 565.
- ↑ Wilmanns n. 2858; Mommsen ib. n. 3.
- ↑ These might have been included in the equites illustres whom Augustus forbade to set foot in Egypt (Tac. Ann. ii. 59 "vetitis nisi permissu ingredi senatoribus aut equitibus Romanis illustribus"), but the knights chiefly referred to here are doubtless distinguished permanent members of the order.
- ↑ The variants used by Tacitus would apply to both of these classes. He uses insignis (Ann. xi. 5) and speaks of primores equitum (Hist. i. 4). Two ex-*praefects of the praetorian guard are described as equites Romani dignitate senatoria (Ann. xvi. 17). Cf. note 3.
- ↑ For the promotions from one praefecture to another, see Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 1042 n. 1.
- ↑ p. 61.
- ↑ p. 120.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. vi. 11 [17] "duratque simulacrum, quotiens ob ferias Latinas praeficitur qui consulare munus usurpet."
- ↑ Suet. Caes. 76 "praefectos . . . pro praetoribus constituit, qui absente se res urbanas administrarent"; Dio Cass. xliii. 28 [Greek: polianomois tisin oktô, hôs tisi dokei, ê hex, hôs mallon pepisteutai, epitrepsas].
- ↑ Tac. Ann. vi. 11 [17].
- ↑ Tac. l.c.; cf. Dio Cass. liv. 19.
- ↑ In Tac. Ann. vi. 10 [16] it is said of L. Piso (died 32 A.D.) "praefectus urbi recens continuam potestatem et insolentia parendi graviorem mire temperavit."
- ↑ We find Maximus as praefect during Caligula's presence in Rome in 39 A.D. (Dio Cass. lix. 13).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. vi. 11 [17] "(Augustus) sumpsit e consularibus."
- ↑ Vita Commodi 14 "praefectos urbi eadem facilitate mutavit"; Vita Pii 8 "successorem viventi bono judici nulli dedit nisi Orfito praefecto urbi, sed petenti." For the frequent life-long tenure of the office see Dio Cass. lii. 24.
- ↑ Paulus in Dig. 5, 1, 12, 1 "(Judicem dare possunt) hi quibus id more concessum est propter vim imperii, sicut praefectus urbi ceterique Romae magistratus"; contrast Pompon. in Dig. 1, 2, 2, 33 "nam praefectus annonae et vigilum non sunt magistratus, sed extra ordinem utilitatis causa constituti sunt."
- ↑ Messala Corvinus, praefect circa 25 B.C. (Jerome in Euseb. Chron. a. 1991).
- ↑ Seneca Ep. 83, 14 "L. Piso urbis custos . . . officium . . . suum, quo tutela urbis continebatur, diligentissime administravit."
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 49.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iv. 5.
- ↑ Dig. 1, 12.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xiv. 41 (A.D. 61) "pari ignominia (interdiction from Italy) Valerius Ponticus adficitur, quod reos, ne apud praefectum urbis arguerentur, ad praetorem detulisset, interim specie legum, mox praevaricando ultionem elusurus."
- ↑ Dio Cass. lii. 21 [Greek: kai tas dikas, tas te para pantôn hôn eipon archontôn ephesimous te kai anapompimous kai tas tou thanatou, tois te en tê polei, plên hôn an eipô, kai tois exô autês mechri pentêkonta kai heptakosiôn stadiôn oikousi krinê]: Ulp. in Dig. 1, 12, 1 "Omnia omnino crimina praefectura urbis sibi vindicavit [a praefectura urbis sibi vindicari, Momms.], nec tantum ea, quae intra urbem admittuntur, verum ea quoque, quae extra urbem intra Italiam [intra c̄ lapidem, Momms., cf. 1, 12, 1, 4] epistula divi Severi ad Fabium Cilonem praefectum urbi missa declaratur."
- ↑ Dig. 1, 12, 3; 48, 19, 8, 5.
- ↑ Collatio 14, 3, 2; Dig. 1, 12, 1, 4. Cf. note 5.
- ↑ Ulp. in Dig. 1, 12, 3 "Praefectus urbi, cum terminos urbis exierit, potestatem non habet: extra urbem potest jubere judicare."
- ↑ Dig. 1, 12, 1, 6 "Sed et ex interdictis quod vi aut clam aut interdicto unde vi audire [aut unde vi adiri, Momms.] potest."
- ↑ Dio Cass. li. 21 (quoted n. 5); Cod. 7, 62, 17 (Constantine, A.D. 322) "si apud utrumque praetorem, dum quaestio ventilatur, ab aliqua parte auxilium provocationis fuerit objectum, praefecturae urbis judicium sacrum appellator observet."
- ↑ Dio Cass. liii. 11.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iv. 5. Otho speaks of the corps as "Italiae alumni et Romana vere juventus" (Tac. Hist. i 84).
- ↑ Suet. Tit. 6.
- ↑ Vita Severi 14.
- ↑ Two are regarded as the normal number by Dio Cassius (lii. 24). Three are found under Commodus, Didius Julianus, and Severus Alexander. See Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 867.
- ↑ Collatio 14, 3, 2. The right was given by constitutions ("jam eo perventum est constitutionibus"). The citation is from Ulpian, and this jurisdiction had doubtless been attained before the time of Caracalla. Cf. Vita Alex. 21.
- ↑ Cod. 9, 2, 6, 1 (Gordian, A.D. 243, with reference to appeal against a praeses provinciae on the ground of condemnation in absence) "praefectos praetorio adire cura."
- ↑ ib. 4, 65, 4, 1 (Alexander, A.D. 222) "si majorem animadversionem exigere rem deprehenderit (praeses provinciae), ad Domitium Ulpianum praefectum praetorio et parentem meum reos remittere curabit"; cf. 8, 40 [41], 13.
- ↑ Dig. 12, 1, 40 "Lecta est in auditorio Aemilii Papiniani praefecti praetorio juris consulti cautio hujusmodi"; cf. 22, 1, 3, 3.
- ↑ p. 386.
- ↑ Dig. 1, 11, 1, 1 (Arcadius in early part of fourth century A.D.) "praefectorum auctoritas . . . in tantum meruit augeri ut appellari a praefectis praetorio non possit. Nam cum antea quaesitum fuisset an liceret . . . et extarent exempla eorum qui provocaverint, postea publice sententia principali lecta appellandi facultas interdicta est;" Cod. 7, 62, 19 (Constantine, A.D. 331) "a praefectis autem praetorio provocare non sinimus."
- ↑ Cf. Vita Marci 11 "habuit secum praefectos, quorum et auctoritate et periculo semper jura dictavit."
- ↑ See below on the consilium.
- ↑ Karlowa Rechtsgesch. i. p. 549. A knight of the third century is appointed in consilium praef. praet. item urb(i) ex sacra jussione (Henzen 6519). Cf. Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 1122 n. 1.
- ↑ Cod. 1, 26, 2 (Alexander, A.D. 235) "Formam a praefecto praetorio datam, etsi generalis sit, minime legibus vel constitutionibus contrariam, si nihil postea ex auctoritate mea innovatum est, servari aequum est."
- ↑ Vita Alex. 21.
- ↑ ib. "Alexander autem idcirco senatores esse voluit praef. praet., ne quis non senator de Romano senatore judicaret."
- ↑ ib. "si quis imperatorum successorem praef. praet. dare vellet, laticlaviam eidem . . . summitteret"; cf. Vita Commodi 4; Vita Hadriani 8 "cum Attianum ex praefecto praetorii ornamentis consularibus praeditum faceret senatorem."
- ↑ Cic. ad Att. iv. 1, 7; Dio Cass. xxxix. 9.
- ↑ Dio Cass. xlvi. 39.
- ↑ Dig. 1, 2, 2, 32.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liv. 1; Mon. Anc. Gr. iii. 6.
- ↑ Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 1038 n. 1; Hirschfeld Verwaltungsgesch. p. 130 n. 1; Karlowa Rechtsgesch. i. p. 553.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liv. 17; 1v. 26.
- ↑ Praefecti frumenti dandi are found, apparently for the purpose of distribution, as late as the second century. They were generally ex-praetors and appointed ex senatus consulto, probably because the aerarium bore or contributed to the cost. See Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 673; Karlowa Rechtsgesch. i. p. 553.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lii. 24; Seneca de Brev. Vitae 19, 1.
- ↑ Hirschfeld in Philologus 1870, pp. 79 ff.
- ↑ Karlowa Rechtsgesch. i p. 556.
- ↑ Dig. 48, 2, 13; cf. 48, 12, 1.
- ↑ ib. 14, 5, 8; 14, 1, 1, 18.
- ↑ ib. 14, 5, 8 "sententiam (praefecti annonae) conservavit imperator"; cf. Dio Cass. lii. 33.
- ↑ p. 235.
- ↑ Dio Cass. liv. 2.
- ↑ Paulus in Dig. 1; 15, 1 and 3.
- ↑ Karłowa Rechtsgesch. i. p. 558.
- ↑ Dig. 1, 15; cf. 12, 4, 15; 47, 2, 57 [56], 1.
- ↑ ib. 1, 15, 3 and 4; Cod. 1, 43, 1.
- ↑ Dig. 19, 2, 56; 20, 2, 9. Praefecti vigilum (one of whom is the jurist Herennius Modestinus) take part in a controversy which has come down to us known as the lis fullonum (Bruns Fontes; C.I.L. vi. n. 266). The case has been discussed by Bethmann-Hollweg Civilprozess ii. p. 767 n. 60 and Mommsen in C.I.L. l.c.; Staatsr. ii. p. 1058 n. 3.
- ↑ Karlowa Rechtsgesch. i. p. 539.
- ↑ Coins of 16 B.C. exist (Eckhel vi. 105) with the inscription "s. p. q. R. imp. Cae(sari), quod v(iae) m(unitae)s (unt) ex ea p(ecunia) q(uam) is ad a(erarium) de(tulit)"; cf. Vita Pert. 9 "aerarium in suum statum restituit. Ad opera publica certum sumptum constituit. Reformandis viis pecuniam contulit."
- ↑ Frontinus de Aquaed. 100 and 104.
- ↑ Dio Cass. lvii. 14.
- ↑ Tac. Hist. i. 58.
- ↑ Cic. pro Caec. 20, 57.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iv. 6 "intra paucos libertos domus."
- ↑ Tac. Hist. i. 58 "Vitellius ministeria principatus per libertos agi solita in equites Romanos disponit." In Otho's reign we find a mention of Secundus the rhetor [Greek: epi tôn epistolôn genomenos] (Plut. Otho 9).
- ↑ The evidence for Hadrian's change is mainly epigraphic. See Hirschfeld Verwaltungsgesch. i. p. 32. Two instances of it are found in Vita Hadr. 22 "ab epistulis et a libellis primus equites Romanos habuit."
- ↑ Dio Cass. lii. 25.
- ↑ Tac. Agric. 4 "Cn. Julius Agricola . . . utrumque avum procuratorem Caesarum habuit, quae equestris nobilitas est."
- ↑ p. 405.
- ↑ i.e. the posts of praefectus cohortis, tribunus militum, praefectus alae. See Suet. Claud. 25.
- ↑ Hirschfeld op. cit. p. 248.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iv. 15. See p. 395.
- ↑ Ulp. in Dig. 1, 19, 1, 1 "si venditionis vel donationis vel transactionis causa quid agat, nihil agit: non enim alienare ei rem Caesaris, sed diligenter gerere commissum est"
- ↑ Dig. 1, 19, 1.
- ↑ Suet. Claud. 12 "ut . . . rata essent, quae procuratores sui in judicando statuerent, precario exegit" (from the Senate). Tacitus exaggerates the nature of the change when he says that "Claudius libertos, quos rei familiari praefecerat, sibique et legibus adaequaverit" (Ann. xii. 60).
- ↑ Cf. Ulp. in Dig. 1, 16, 9 (with reference to the duties of a proconsul) "sane si fiscalis pecuniaria causa sit, quae ad procuratorem principis respicit, melius fecerit, si abstineat."
- ↑ Henzen 6525.
- ↑ Wilmanns 1259, 1262.
- ↑ Cod. 3, 26, 7.
- ↑ Suet. Vesp. 12; Henzen 6396.
- ↑ C.I.L. v. n. 737.
- ↑ Hirschfeld Verwaltungsgesch. i. p. 32.
- ↑ ib. p. 35
- ↑ Cf. the title of Dig. 1, 19 "De officio procuratoris Caesaris vel rationalis."
- ↑ Hirschfeld, op. cit. p. 37; Liebenam Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgesch. p. 32.
- ↑ Strabo iii. p. 167. The title a copiis militaribus is found in inscriptions (Orelli 2922, 3505)
- ↑ Tac. Ann. ii. 47. Here it is said of cities of Asia, "quantum aerario aut fisco pendebant, in quinquennium remisit (Caesar)." The procurator Asiae of Ann. iv. 15 is probably a procurator patrimonii. See p. 395.
- ↑ p. 395. For procurators ad bona damnatorum see Wilmanns 1278, 1291. For a procurator a caducis, C.I.L. iii. n. 1622.
- ↑ Wilmanns 1257, 1272, 1273, 1275, 1285.
- ↑ p. 396.
- ↑ Timesitheus, the father-in-law of Gordian, was proc. tam patrimoni quam rat. privatar. in one district, proc. ration. privat. in another (Wilmanns 1293).
- ↑ Herodian vii. 1 (Maximin) [Greek: tên te therapeian pasan, êsyngegonei tô Alexandrô tosoutôn etôn, tês basileiou aulês apepempse] cf. Vita Pert. 12 "Sane nullum ex eis, quos Commodus rebus gerendis imposuerat, mutavit, exspectans urbis natalem, quod eum diem rerum principium volebat esse."
- ↑ Liebenam op. cit. p. 55.
- ↑ Vita Nigri 7 "cum unus ad memoriam, alter ad libellos paruisset, statim praefecti facti sunt (Paulus et Ulpianus)."
- ↑ This may be illustrated by the careers of Burrus (proc. Augustae, proc. Ti. Caesaris, proc. divi Claudii, praefecto praetori, C.I.L. xii. 5842), of Vibianus Tertullus (ab epistulis Graecis, proc. a rationibus, praefectus vigilum>, C.I.L. iii. 6574) and of Sex. Var. Marcellus (proc. aquarum, proc. Brittaniae, proc. rationis privatae, vice-praefectus praetorio, Orelli 946).
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xv. 35 (under Nero, in A.D. 64, Torquatus Silanus was forced to death on various grounds) "quin eum inter libertos habere, quos ab epistulis et libellis et rationibus appellet, nomina summae curae et meditamenta"; cf. ib. xvi. 8 (A.D. 65) "Ipsum dehinc Silanum increpuit isdem quibus patruum ejus Torquatum, tanquam disponeret jam imperii curas praeficeretque rationibus et libellis et epistulis libertos."
- ↑ Dio Cass. lii. 33; Stat. Silv. v. 1, esp. 83-107; Justinus xliii. 5, 12; Suid. s.v. [Greek: Dionysios].
- ↑ Seneca Cons. ad Polyb. vi. 4 and 5.
- ↑ Vita Carini 16 "fastidium subscribendi tantum habuit ut inpurum quendam . . . ad subscribendum poneret." The Princeps himself may not have written more than his signature. See Vita Commodi 13 "ipse Commodus in subscribendo tardus et neglegens, ita ut libellis una forma multis subscriberet."
- ↑ Karlowa Rechtsgesch. i. p. 545.
- ↑ Dio Cass. Ep. lxxviii. 13.
- ↑ Karlowa l.c.
- ↑ Vita Carini 8 "Julius Calpurnius, qui ad memoriam dictabat." He attended the Princeps with the other secretaries; see Vita Alex. 31 "Postmeridianas horas subscriptioni et lectioni epistularum semper dedit, ita ut ab epistulis, a libellis et a memoria semper adsisterent."
- ↑ This consilium must not be confused with the committee of the Senate which had been employed by Augustus and Tiberius, but was subsequently discontinued. This board, composed of some of the magistrates and a number of senators chosen by lot, had given a preliminary consideration to the business to be submitted to the Senate (Suet. Aug. 35; Tib. 55; Dio Cass. liii. 21). Something like it was devised by Mamaea in the reign of Severus Alexander (Dio Cass. lxxx. 1; Herodian vi. 1).
- ↑ Dio Cass. lv. 27; lvii. 7.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. iii. 10 "paucis familiarium adhibitis" (in the trial of Piso, A.D. 20). In Nero's trial of Octavia in A.D. 62 his body of advisers ("amicos quos velut consilio adhibuerat princeps" Tac. Ann. xiv. 62) may have been regarded as a consilium domesticum.
- ↑ Vita Hadr. 18 "cum judicaret, in consilio habuit non amicos suos aut comites solum, sed juris consultos . . . quos tamen senatus omnes probasset."
- ↑ Hirschfeld Verwaltungsgesch. i. p. 215. Probably only the equestrian members of this board received salaries (Mommsen Staatsr. ii. p. 990).
- ↑ Cf. Vita Hadr. 8 "erat . . . tunc mos, ut, cum princeps causas agnosceret, et senatores et equites Romanos in consilium vocaret et sententiam ex omnium deliberatione proferret."
- ↑ e.g. "centenario consiliario Aug(usti) . . . juris perito" (Wilmanns 1286).
- ↑ p. 380.
- ↑ Vita Alex. 16 "neque ullam constitutionem sacravit sine viginti jurisperitis et doctissimis ac sapientibus viris isdemque disertissimis non minus quinquaginta."
- ↑ In Maecenas' supposed advice to Augustus, which in this, as in other respects, probably reflects the practice of the time of Dio Cassius, it is said of the consilium [Greek: alloi allote diaginôsketôsan] (Dio Cass. lii. 33).
- ↑ Suet. Aug. 33.
- ↑ Suet. Nero 15.
- ↑ Vita Alex. 16 "ut iretur per sententias singulorum ac scriberetur quid quisque dixisset."
- ↑ p. 410.