PRINCEPS
PRINCEPS (Gk.
ἡγεμών:
Mon. Anc. Gr. 7.9,
ἐμοῦ
ἡγεμόνος), the title of courtesy customarily given to the Roman
emperors of the first century, and less commonly to those of the second and
third. The use of the term, as one which conveniently expressed the
pre-eminence of a single citizen, was familiar to the writers of the later
Republic, and the term itself is thus applied to both Pompey and Caesar.
[The ideal “princeps civitatis” sketched by Cicero (Augustin.
de Civ. Dei, 6.13), in a lost book of the
de Republica, was evidently drawn with a direct
reference to Pompey: cf.
ad Att. 8.11. Comp. also
ad
Att. 8.9, “nihil malle Caesarem quam principe Pompeio sine
metu vivere” ; Sallust,
Hist. iii.
fr. 81, ed. Kritz, “Pompeium malle principem volentibus vobis esse,
quam illis dominationis socium.” And for Caesar,
Cic. Fam. 6.6, “esset hic quidem clarus
in toga et princeps” ;
Suet. Jul.
26, “difficilius se (Caesarem) principem civitatis a primo
ordine in secundum detrudi.” ] Its significance as accorded by
popular consent to Augustus and his successors was the same. It was not an
official title, and formed no part of the official designation of the
emperors. It did not connote the tenure of any special office or
prerogative, nor was it conferred by any formal act of senate or people. It
was a title of courtesy pure and simple; marking out its bearer as the
“first citizen” (
princeps
civium, Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.733, note 3), or rather
as the “foremost man of the state” (
princeps
civitatis; see the passages quoted above), and
[p. 2.484]implied not only a general pre-eminence, as
distinct from a specific magisterial authority (
Tac. Ann. 3.53, “non aedilis aut praetoris aut consulis
partes sustineo, majus aliquid et excelsius a principe
postulatur” ), but a constitutional pre-eminence among free citizens
as opposed to despotic rule. (
Tac. Hist.
4.3, “ceterum ut princeps loquebatur, civilia de se, de
republica egregia;” Plin.
Paneg. 55, “sedem
obtinet principis ne sit domino locus;”
D. C. 57.8,
δεσπότης τῶν
δούλων, αὐτοκράτωρ τῶν στρατιωτῶν, τῶν δὲ δὴ λοιπῶν πρόκριτός
εἰμι.) For the objections to the view, once commonly held,
that the title is only an abbreviation of “princeps senatus,”
see Mommsen,
Staatsrecht, 2.733, notes; Pelham in
Journ. Phil. viii. p. 323. This view is, however,
restated in a modified form by Herzog,
Gesch. u. System d.
röm. Verfass. ii. p. 133.
Principatus.--The title princeps exactly
expressed the characteristic features of the position occupied by the
emperor, under the Augustan system--a position which depended, not on the
tenure of any one great office, still less of any newly-created office, but
on the fact that certain powers had been conferred upon an individual
citizen by senate and people, in virtue of which he was for the time raised
above the heads of his fellows. It was moreover a position created by
constitutional means for each holder in turn, and involved an explicit
recognition of the continued existence of a free commonwealth.
The principate dates, properly speaking, from January B.C. 27. The summer of
B.C. 29 found Octavian the undisputed master of the Roman world (
Mon.
Ancyr. 6.14); nor probably by any section of Roman society was
it considered either desirable or possible that he should literally resign
the wide authority he wielded. But while the experience of the last fifty
years had amply shown that some concentration of the executive authority was
imperatively necessary, if the empire was to hold together, it was scarcely
less important in the interests of peace and order that this authority
should be legitimised, and as far as possible harmonised with republican
institutions and traditions. After twenty years of anomalous or provisional
rule, public opinion demanded a government which should be not only strong,
but outwardly at least regular and constitutional. The first step towards
satisfying this demand was taken by Octavian, when in his sixth consulship
(B.C. 28) he put an end by edict to the provisional régime of the
triumvirate, laid down the extraordinary authority he had held since B.C.
43, and formally gave back the government of the Commonwealth to the senate
and people (
Mon. Ancyr. Lat. 6.13;
Tac. Ann. 3.28;
D. C. 53.2; cf.
Suet. Aug. 28). This restoration of the
Republic was followed in Jan. B.C. 27 by a settlement of Octavian's own
position, a settlement planned unquestionably by himself. By a vote of the
senate and people, he was legally re-invested with the essential elements of
his former authority. He was given a command, limited indeed both in area
and duration, but which yet in both points was unprecedentedly wide. The
“province” now assigned to him included with one exception
the important frontier provinces. It carried with it the sole command of all
the armies of Rome, and the exclusive right of levying troops, of concluding
treaties, and of making war and peace (
D. C.
53.12,
17;
Suet.
Aug. 47, “provincias validiores ipse suscepit, ceteras
proconsulibus permisit;” Lex Vespasiani, Wilmanns, 917: cf.
Strabo, p. 840;
PROVINCIA).
Finally, it was given to him for a period of ten years, at the expiry of
which it was renewable (
D. C. 53.13,
16). But had Octavian rested content with this
“consulare imperium” alone, he would have been merely a
powerful proconsul, with wider powers indeed than even those held by Pompey
under the Gabinian and Manilian laws, but still only a proconsul. As such he
would have had no
locus standi in Romle, and
would have been only the equal and not the superior of the proconsular
governors of the provinces not included within the area of his own imperium.
Nor could the old difficulties arising from the separation between the chief
military command abroad and the highest magistracies at home have failed to
reappear. (The proconsul lost his imperium on re-entering the city,
Cic. Fam. 1.9;
Dig. 1,
16,
16; cf. also Veil.
Pat. 2.31, of Pompey's imperium in B.C. 67, “imperium
aequum in omnibus provinciis cum
proconsulibus.” ) These disadvantages and difficulties Octavian
escaped by retaining the consulship, and by wielding his imperium as consul.
As consul he was chief magistrate of the state, with precedence, not only
over all other magistrates at home, but over all proconsuls and propraetors
abroad (
Cic. Phil. 4.4,
9;
ad Att. 8.15); while unlike
any consul of later times, excepting only Pompey in B.C. 52, the province of
his imperium was not confined to Rome and Italy, but extended over a great
portion of the Empire. It was a return, in a sense, to the practice of the
early Republic, when the consuls were at once the highest civil and the
highest military authorities of the state. His control of the administration
at home was further confirmed by his retention of the
tribunicia potestas, granted to him for life in B.C. 36
(
D. C. 49.15), though it is doubtful what
use, if any, he made of the prerogatives attached to it at this stage (
Tac. Ann. 1.2, “posito iiiviri nomine,
consulem se ferens, et ad tuendam plebem tribunicio jure
contentum” ). Finally, in recognition of his great services, and to
mark his pre-eminent dignity, he was invested by senate and people with the
cognomen of Augustus (
Mon. Ancyr. Lat. 6.16;
C. I.
L. i. p. 384;
Ov. Fast. 1.590).
For four years Augustus continued to exercise the primacy at home and abroad
assigned to him in the restored Republic, under the old constitutional form
of the consulship. But in B.C. 23 a change was made which gave to the
principate a somewhat different shape, and one which in the main it retained
down to the time of Diocletian. (See esp. Herzog,
op.
cit. ii. p. 141; Pelham, in
Journ. Phil. xvii. p.
27.) On June 27 in that year Augustus laid down the consulship which he had
held year after year since B.C. 31 (
D. C.
53.32;
C. I. L. 6.2014). His “consulare
imperium,” with its wide province, he still retained, but he now
held it only
pro-consule; and it therefore
ceased at once to be valid in Rome and Italy, i. e. within the sphere
assigned to the actual consuls. He further lost both the precedence
(
majus imperium)
[p. 2.485]over all other magistrates and pro-magistrates which a consul enjoyed, and
the various rights in connexion with senate and assembly attached to the
consulship. He had, lastly, no further claim to the consular dignity and
insignia. These losses, which would have seriously impaired the reality and
completeness of his “primacy,” were now made good by the
following measures:--(
a) He was exempted from
the disability attaching to proconsular tenure of the imperium, and was
allowed, though no longer consul, to retain consular imperium in Rome (B.C.
23) as proconsul. (
b) His imperium was to rank
as “majus” over that of proconsuls abroad (B.C. 23). (
c) He was given the consul's prior right of
convening the senate (B.C. 22), and of introducing business (B.C. 23),
though the latter extended only to one “relatio,”
περὶ ἑνός τινος (Dio Cass.), “jus
primae relationis.” (
d) He was granted
(B.C. 19) equal rank in Rome with the actual consuls by the bestowal of the
twelve fasces, and by the permission given him to sit between the consuls on
an official seat (
D. C. 53.32;
Liv. 3.10; Lex Vespasiani (Wilm. 917), ll. 4
sqq.;
Dig. 1,
16,
8). But Augustus seems to have been unwilling openly
to rest his position in Rome on that “proconsular imperium”
which, until the exemption made in his own favour, had only been exercised
abroad, and was associated with the absolute methods of rule prevalent in
the camps and the provinces. Hence he brought forward into special
prominence his
tribunicia potestas. This now
appears for the first time among his titles, and appears sometimes alone (
“summi fastigii vocabulum: qua cetera imperia praemineret;”
Tac. Ann. 3.56;
D. C.
53.32; Cohen,
Médailles, i. Nos. 342
sqq.; Mommsen,
Staatsr. 3.752). A
number is appended indicating for how many years it has been held, and the
thirty-seven years of the tribunician power of Augustus are reckoned from
B.C. 23 (
Mon. Anc. Lat. 1.29;
Tac.
Ann. 1.9). On this power Augustus declared that he relied for
carrying out the administrative reforms pressed for by the senate, and on
this ground refused the extraordinary offices which were offered him
(
Mon. Ancyr. Gr. 3.19). Henceforward the tribunician
power ranked highest among the prerogatives voted to the princeps; higher
even than the imperium itself (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.1050;
D. C. 53.32,
54.12). To sum up the results of these changes. The “consulare
imperium” voted in B.C. 27 gave Augustus the immediate and
exclusive control of the frontier provinces, the troops, and the foreign
relations of the Empire. From B.C. 27 to B.C. 23 he wielded this imperium as
consul, and thus united with this military command that general primacy in
the state which belonged of right to the consuls. From B.C. 23 onwards he
held it not as consul, but
pro-consule; and
hence the designation of it afterwards current, as
imperium proconsulare. But he was nevertheless allowed to
hold it in Rome, and was, moreover, specially granted the consul's rights of
precedence over other magistrates. As if, however, to conceal the startling
fact, that there was now in Rome, by the side of the annual consuls, a
holder of consular imperium, fully their equal in rank and power at home,
and vested besides with a wide command abroad, the
tribunicia potestas was put forward as the outward sign and
symbol, at least in Rome, of the pre-eminence of the princeps. The new form
thus given to the principate it retained as long as it lasted: for the
future the position of princeps is only occasionally and accidentally
connected with the tenure of what continued to be in theory the chief
magistracy of the state; and the princeps is, strictly speaking, not a
magistrate at all; he stands by the side of the consuls and over the heads
of all other magistrates, with a definite province of his own, but vested
also with a pre-eminent authority in all departments of state. One more
result of importance may be assigned to this resettlement of the principate
in B.C. 23: the prerogative of Augustus was now determined by a series of
grants conferring upon him various powers, privileges, and exemptions; and
so in the case of each succeeding princeps, the question was not one of
electing him to an established office with well-understood prerogatives, but
of conferring upon him certain powers. Of these a customary list was
gradually formed; and embodied in a single statute, under the terms of which
the citizen designated for the principate received from the hands of the
senate and people the powers, honours, and privileges once voted to
Augustus, and after him to each successor in turn. (Of this statute a
fragment survives in the so-called Lex Vespasiani: see Pelham in
Journ. Phil. xvii. pp. 45-51.)
This “Augustan settlement” was in form, possibly in intention, a
compromise, which aimed at securing the needed centralisation of the
executive authority with the least possible disturbance of the traditional
machinery of the Republic. But it was a compromise, which was from the first
unreal. The powers vested in Augustus were too wide to make the existence of
any other substantial authority possible, and the independence of consuls
and senate was even in his own lifetime a fiction, which it became
increasingly difficult to respect. Though, however, there is from the first
a gravitation of all administrative work towards the princeps as the one
real power in the state, yet even in the latter half of the third century
the original theory of his position was not entirely discarded. The princeps
of the time of Ulpian was still in strictness only a citizen invested by
senate and people with certain powers. His position remained always
extra-magisterial, and was created only for each princeps for his life. No
constitutional provision was ever made for the transmission of his powers to
any successor, nor was any one method of selecting a successor legally
recognised. The principate died with the princeps: necessity alone
determined that some citizen must be selected to fill the position first
given to Augustus: accidents, such as kinship by blood or adoption to the
last princeps, military ability, or popularity with the senate, determined
the selection; and even the invitation “suscipere imperium”
might come indifferently from distant legions, from the praetorian guards,
or from the senate. Once, however, selected and designated, the citizen
received the powers which legally made him princeps, from senate and people,
according to the form handed down from the days of Augustus (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.1038;
Vita Hadr. 6, “esse
respublica sine imperatore non potest;”
[p. 2.486]Vit. Taciti, 3, “imperator
est deligendus quia cogit necessitas:” cf.
Tac. Hist. 1.16; Mommsen,
l.c. 1039;
Journ. Phil. 17.47).
But, although the principate remained so far true to its original character,
it underwent in other respects important changes during the three centuries
which separated the accession of Augustus from that of Diocletian. These
changes may be conveniently summed up under the following heads:--(1) The
enlargement of the area placed directly under the control of Caesar: (2) the
transformation of his
majus imperium into a
direct control even over those departments of administration not properly
included within his province: (3) the subordination to him of the originally
co-ordinate authority of the regular magistrates and the senate: (4) the
increasingly monarchical character not only of the methods of government
employed by Caesar, but also of the outward accessories of his position. Of
these changes the first two were mainly brought about by the necessities of
administration, and are sufficiently explained by the words of Ulpian when
describing the institution of the
praefectura vigilum.
Dig. 1,
15, “Salutem
reipublicae tueri nulli magis convenire. . . nec alium sufficere ei rei
quam Caesarem.” The two last were the inevitable result of this
process of centralisation which at once rendered impossible the existence of
any independent-authority by the side of that possessed by Caesar, and
elevated Caesar himself to a position where the limitations imposed by
republican usage and tradition fell away of themselves.
To the “consulare imperium” as held by Augustus was assigned,
according to established custom, a definite area or province, within which
he was as exclusively supreme as Cicero in Cilicia, or Pompey in Asia. It
included (
a) the command-in-chief of all the
forces of the state, and with this the sole right to levy troops and promote
or discharge soldiers. [That the taking of a census in the provinces was
from the first a prerogative of Caesar is almost certain (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.945), and it was probably directly connected
with the levying especially of auxiliary troops (ib. 2.393; Henzen, 6453;
Plin. Nat. 3.28).] (
b.) The sole right to declare war and peace, and to conclude
treaties. (
c.) The right to coin gold and silver.
(
d.) The “jus edicendi” :
Lex de Imp. Vesp. 6. (
e.）
The government of certain specified previnces.
The distinction between the department properly belonging to Caesar, and
those left to the care of other authorities, had not wholly disappeared even
by the close of the third century: but Caesar's province from the first
steadily increased in extent. After the transference of Illyricum to
Augustus in B.C. 11, and the separation of Numidia from the proconsular
province of Africa in 37 A.D. (Strabo, p. 840;
D. C.
53.12,
59.20;
Tac. Hist. 4.48), even the immediate command
of regular troops passed absolutely into the hands of Caesar's officers. The
senatorial provinces are with Tacitus the “provinciae inermes.”
In the time of Dio Cassius the proconsuls were even forbidden to wear the
military
paludamentum (
D.
C. 53.17), and Gallienus finally excluded senators from all posts
in the army (Aurel. Vict.
Caes. 33). There is some reason for
thinking that under the earlier emperors, a census, though ordered by
Caesar, was in provinces other than his own carried out by the proconsul;
but after Hadrian there is no trace of this distinction, and the whole work
throughout the Empire is in the hands of Caesar's servants. The unimportance
of the copper coinage was probably the reason why in this case the limits
originally imposed upon the emperor were retained until the time of Aurelian
(Schiller,
Gesch. d. Kaiserzeit, 1.867).
The number of provinces originally assigned to Caesar was eight. But inasmuch
as all provinces created subsequently were also placed under his authority,
the number rose rapidly.: At the close of the first century there were,
already twenty-five provinces of Caesar, including the most populous and
wealthy districts of the Empire, and stretching in an almost unbroken line
along its frontiers. Outside this area, in the so-called senatorial
provinces, and in Rome and Italy, Caesar laid his hand on one department
after another. In the case of the former, Caesar possessed from the first
exclusive control over the troops, over foreign relations, and over the
census. But the proconsul's area of authority was further limited by the
appropriation to Caesar of a certain portion of the revenues drawn from his
province; and the amount of these steadily increased [
FISCUS]. Their collection and
management were entrusted to imperial procuratores [
PROCURATOR], who from being
at first merely private agents, with no official status or powers, gradually
came to form a distinct financial executive, virtually independent of the
proconsul, with which he is recommended by Ulpian (
Dig.
1,
16,
9) to have as
little as possible to do. To Caesar lastly belonged the right, even in
senatorial provinces, of founding colonies, of granting charters. of
incorporation to communities, of raising or lowering their status, and of
conferring both. Latin rights and the Roman franchise. (See
CIVITAS and Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.828
sqq. That in the
first century questions affecting the status of communities had not yet
passed wholly into Caesar's hands may be inferred from the occasional
mention of senatusconsulta and of discussions in the senate respecting them:
Suet. Tib. 37;
Tac. Ann. 11.23,
12.58,
61.)
Rome and Italy lay, like the senatorial provinces, outside; the proper
province of Caesar, but here too one department of administration after
another was brought within the area of his authority, at the cost either of
the magistrates. in Rome or of the municipal officials. In some cases the
transfer was made directly, in others; the change was broken by the creation
in the first instance
ex senatusconsulto of
senatorial
curatores. But these curatores were
all sooner or later either replaced by imperial praefecti and procuratores,
or made so dependent upon Caesar as to differ only in name from his actual
servants. The care of the corn supply (ANNONA;
Hirschfeld,
Verwaltungsgesch. 139), of the aqueducts (Id.
164), of the public buildings, the banks of the Tiber, and the cloacae (Id.
149-161), had all by the time of Claudius passed into Caesar's hands. The
praefectura vigilum [
PRAEFECTUS] dates from A.D. 6. The far more
important
praefectura urbis became a permanent
[p. 2.487]office in the reign of Tiberius; and as early
as the reign of Domitian, its holder exercised a wide criminal jurisdiction
in Italy as. well as. within the city [
PRAEFECTUS URBI].
In Italy the area of direct Imperial government widened more slowly than in
Rome. The exclusive military authority vested in Caesar from the first made.
him, it is true, responsible not, only for the levying of troops (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.797) and for the protection of the Italian
coasts and harbours (the fleets at Misenum and Ravenna date from Augustus,
and Ostia and Puteoli were special objects of imperial care:
Suet. Cl. 25), but also for the suppression of
such disorders as required the intervention of military force. (Cf.
milites stationarii,
Suet. Aug. 32,
Tib. 37;
Tac. Ann. 14.17.) But, Septimius Severus
first quartered a legion (II. Parthica) in Italy; and the imperial
correctores, for the maintenance of order in the
various districts of the peninsula, do not appear as a regular institution
before the reign of Aurelian. [For further details on this subject, see
PROVINCIA] Closely connected
with the maintenance of order in Italy was the care of the main roads [
VIAE], the lands of Caesar, and
other revenues accruing to him [FISCUS;
PROVINCIA]: as regards his control by means of the
curatores reipublicae over the local government of Italian towns,
see
PROVINCIA and
COLONIA
Enough, has been said to show how enormously the area assigned; to the direct
imperium of Caesar had expanded since B.C. 23. Outside the limits, wide. as
they were, of the imperial provinces, in the provinces of the senate and
people, and in Rome and Italy, there were prerogatives reserved exclusively
for Caesar, and departments of administration controlled absolutely by
himself and his. own officials.
The settlement of B.C. 23 declared that the
imperium of Augustus should rank as
majus over that exercised by all other holders of imperium;
excepting only, it is probable, the consuls; and the use made of this
majus imrperium did even more than the extension of
Caesar's own proper domain to make him absolute, and to render little more
than nominal the distinction between Caesar's department and those of the
regular magistrates of the state. The possession of this “greater
authority” entitled Caesar to claim from the. praetors and lower
magistrates in Rome, and from the proconsuls abroad, the deference due in
republican times to the consul; and as Caesar became stronger, and the need
for administrative unity increased, this deference was easily transformed
into a complete subordination, which placed praetors and proconsuls almost
as entirely under Caesar's control, as his own legates, prefects, and
procurators. The effectiveness of this weapon is.best illustrated by the
relations between the emperor and the proconsular governors of the
senatorial provinces. The proconsul, as holding an independent magisterial
authority, derived ultimately from. senate and people, was in theory and at
first: in practice. in a wholly different position to the imperial legate.
In particular he was responsible not to Caesar,, but, like Caesar himself,
to the consuls, senate, and people of Rome. And there are instances in which
the earlier emperors almost ostentatiously abstain from exercising authority
over proconsuls, and. proconsular provinces outside the limits of the,
rights specially reserved to them. Deputations from such provinces sent to
Caesar are by him referred to consuls and senate (
Suet. Tib. 31). Administrative questions affecting them are
discussed in the senate, and decided by senatusconsulta (
Tac. Ann. 2.47,
3.60; Plin.
Ep. ad Traj. 72; Mommsen,
Staatsr. 3.1211). Nero declared that appeals from these
provinces should go to the judgment-seat of the consuls (
Tac. Ann. 13.4). A proconsul charged with
extortion was as late as the reign of Trajan ordinarily tried by consuls and
senate; and finally the instances in which the maladministration of a
proconsular province led to its transference to Caesar, or to the sending
thither of a special imperial legate, indicate that down at least to the end
of the 1st century Caesar's control over these provinces was less absolute
and direct than over his own (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.227;
Plin. Ep. 8,
24;
C. I. L. 3.567; Wilmanns,
Exempla, 874). But in the course of the second century the
distinction, though retained in form, gradually ceased to. have any
practical importance; and on the strength of his
majus
imperium Caesar's control over proconsuls was virtually as
complete as his control of his own legates. The appeal to consuls and senate
disappeared in favour of the appeal to Caesar. Instances of the trial of a
proconsul before the senate are rare after the time of Trajan (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.110). Dio Cassius, represents the exercise of
this jurisdiction by the senate as a concession on the part of the emperor
(
D. C. 71.28;
Vita
Marci, 10). Under Commodus, a proconsul of Sicily was tried by
the imperial praefectus praetorio. Septimius Severus heard such cases
himself (
Vit. Sev. 4, 8), and Ulpian clearly contemplates
Caesar's tribunal as the only one in question. It is no less certain that at
least after Hadrian the proconsul was, equally with the imperial legate,
controlled, directed, and instructed in. the work of administration by the
rescripts, edicts, and constitutions of Caesar. The right to do so, derived
from the
majus imperium, and confirmed
apparently by a special clause of the Lex de Imperio (see
Lex. de
Imp. Vespas. 6;
C. I. L. 6.930; Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.843
sqq.), was both
possessed and exercised by Augustus; but while by the earlier emperors it
was sparingly used, in the, second and third centuries there is a marked and
rapid increase in the numbers of imperial edicts, and in the Digest they are
the authorities mainly quoted on points affecting the.government of
senatorial no less than imperial provinces (
D. C.
70.3; Euseb.
Hist. Eccl. 4, 8;
Dig.
1,
16,
4,
6,
10;
48,
6,
5,
8,
4, &c.). For the
recognition in earlier times of the quasi-independent authority of the
proconsul, see the decree of Norbanus (
J. AJ
16.6,
6).
The increasing intensity and force of Caesar's
majus
imperium, coupled with the rapid extension of the area placed
directly under his authority, told with equal effect upon the regular
magistratus cum imperio in Rome. Their
degradation from their original position as the chief executive officers of
the state to that of municipal officials of the city of Rome began under the
Republic, with the practice of assigning the commands of legions and
provinces to proconsuls and propraetors, and was only completed by the
transference to Caesar of one department of administration
[p. 2.488]after another even in Rome and Italy. But this process, the
converse of that which gradually raised Caesar's private servants to the
rank of state officials, scarcely involved so marked a departure from the
ancient constitution, or even from the principles of the Augustan system, as
the virtual transformation of these theoretically independent colleagues of
Caesar into subordinate officials. The two changes were indeed closely
connected; for, with the increasing restriction of consuls and praetors to
unimportant or purely departmental work, while the general administration
and to a great extent the higher jurisdiction both in the city and in Italy
was transferred to Caesar and to his officers, the theory of their supremacy
and even of their equality with Caesar became an untenable fiction.
The Augustan system left the consulship still the supreme magistracy of the
state, and this pre-eminence was formally recognised throughout the first
century (
Tac. Ann. 4.19, “consulis,
cujus vigiliis niteretur ne quod respublica detrimentum caperet:”
cf.
Suet. Tib. 31; Plin.
Pan.
59, “summa potestas” ). Even in the third century there was no
appeal to Caesar from the jurisdiction of consuls and senate (Ulpian,
Dig. 49,
2,
1), and one right at least attaching to their old position, that
of giving their names to the year, remained with the consuls (i. e. with the
consules ordinarii: see
CONSUL and Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.86) in post-Diocletian times. But the Augustan
system, in placing by the side of the consuls a holder of consular imperium,
brought the nominal supremacy of the consuls into unequal conflict with the
wide authority of the princeps. The course of events robbed the consuls of
all but purely domestic duties, while it entrusted to the princeps the
general guardianship and government of the Empire. Even Tiberius could claim
for the princeps a general control, distinct from the limited sphere
belonging to the consul (
Tac. Ann. 3.53). In
Pliny's panegyric the older and newer views of the relative position of the
two are both represented. On the one hand, the consulship is still regarded
as the “highest authority” and as on a level with that of
Caesar (
Pan. 59); on the other, it is merely the highest post
open to a private citizen (
Pan. 64;
Ep. 2.1)
as distinct from the sovereign dignity of the principate, and the limited
and domestic character of its duties is contrasted with the wider imperial
sphere belonging to Caesar (
Pan. 79). Rather more than a
century later in the Digest the subordination of the consulship is complete.
The consuls have only specific departmental duties to perform, and the
duties are not infrequently spoken of as assigned to them by the emperor
(Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.96;
CONSUL), while not only Caesar, but Caesar's prefect
of the city, ranks above them (Ulpian,
Dig. 49,
1,
1,
3; cf.
Dig. 5,
1,
12;
PRAEFECTUS). In the case of the praetorship there was from the
first no question of equality with Caesar, for to the consular rank and
imperium of Caesar the praetor owed deference as to the actual consuls. We
consequently find the praetors, even under the early emperors, filling a
strictly subordinate place. Their jurisdiction was gradually restricted to
certain well-defined departments marked out for them by Caesar (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.204, 206;
PRAETOR); and such titles as
praetor tutelaris and
praetor
hastarius clearly indicate the purely departmental nature of their
duties.
This transformation of the originally supreme “magistratus cum
imperio” into subordinate officials, with limited and almost entirely
municipal duties, was assisted by the control which the emperors obtained
over their appointment, and which reduced them to the position of imperial
placemen. This control, based as it was on the right of nomination, which
the emperor's consular imperium gave him co-ordinately with the consuls
(
Tac. Ann. 1.81), and on that of
“commendation” (ib. 1.15. It was formally granted to
Vespasian,
Lex de Imp. 4; whether it was ever used in the
case of the consulship is doubtful: Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.865
sqq.), was already well established and frankly
recognised in the time of Trajan. [Plin.
Pan. 77,
“ipsum (sc. Caesarem) qui consules facit:” cf. Id.
Ep. 4.15,
ad Traj. 12. The election of the
lower magistrates was still something of a reality, and involved canvassing
(Id.
Ep. 2.9), corruption (Id.
Ep. 6.19), and
even disorderly contests (Id.
Ep. 3.20).] In the third
century the whole business of appointing the “magistrates of the Roman
people” is treated by Ulpian as one which concerned Caesar alone
(
Dig. 48,
14).
The final change by which these magistracies were, with the exception of the
consulship, robbed of all imperial significance, by losing their value as
qualifications for high provincial and military commands, was not completely
carried out until after Diocletian.
For the gradual change in the relations of the emperor and the senate, see
SENATUS: by the end of the second century the
senate had lost all importance as Caesar's partner; by the end of the third
it was virtually discarded even as an instrument of his government.
The changes described above, the extension of the area of government,
assigned directly to Caesar, and the complete subordination to him of all
other constituted authority within the state, brought about a corresponding
change in his personal position. The more absolute he became in fact, the
more difficult it was to treat him as anything but a monarch. This natural
tendency to clothe Caesar with the attributes and surround him with the
accessories of a legitimate monarchy shows itself even under Augustus; but
it was undoubtedly strengthened by a growing feeling that the exceptional
and provisional nature of his authority was a real source of weakness, both
at home and abroad. The organisation of the principate as a regular and
permanent office, with a settled mode of succession, was desirable not only
in the interests of good government, but as a check upon the ambition of
pretenders; while in the East, at any rate, it was important that the Roman
Caesar should be able to challenge comparison in personal splendour and
majesty with {he kings of Parthia or Persia. To secure the first of these
ends was the aim of the ablest emperors of the second century. The endeavour
to secure the second lies at the root of much in the policy of Aurelian and
Diocletian. It was a policy so far similar in its motives to that which
created the Queen of England Empress of Hindostan, and it was encouraged not
only by the
[p. 2.489]language and maxims of lawyers, like
Ulpian, of Eastern birth, but by the ever-increasing influence of Oriental
habits and beliefs in the imperial court and in Roman society.
The original theory that the princeps is nothing but a citizen on whom
definite powers have been conferred by senate and people for a limited,
time, was one never strictly carried out in practice; and by the close of
the third century little remained to witness to it, but the formal
“lex de imperio” and the absence of any recognised mode of
succession. The history of this change it is impossible to follow in detail,
and only the main outlines can be traced here.
The limitation of time, observed in form throughout the reign of Augustus,
disappeared at his death. Tiberius and his successors received the imperium
for life, and only the celebration of the decennalia preserved the memory of
the original arrangement [
IMPERIUM]. The distinction between the various powers and privileges
granted to the princeps, as well as the purely individual nature of the
grant, were easily obscured when, as was done first in the case of Gaius,
they were not only conferred
en bloc at one time,
but transferred with little or no alteration from one emperor to another
(Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.744, and the references given there).
The notion thus developed of a single and permanent authority wielded by
each emperor in turn, and consequently of a prerogative inherent in the
principate, was strengthened when the functions of the censorship were,
after the time of Domitian, exercised in virtue only of the general
authority belonging to the princeps (Mommsen,
Staatsr.
2.1013;
CENSOR). The authority
conferred upon Augustus was not only built up out of various distinct
powers, but was limited by the extent of these, and was subject to the laws,
except where its holder had been specially exempted from their operation. In
this latter respect also a change took place. At any rate at the close of
the second and in the third century the authority of the princeps was
regarded not only as single, but as plenary and absolute. The emperors are
exempted from the laws (
D. C. 53.18), and it is
their privilege to give laws, not receive them (
Vit.
Caracall. 10); a view springing naturally both from the virtual
irresponsibility of Caesar as a life ruler and from his monopoly of the work
of law-making, and which was finally and authoritatively adopted in the
fifth century (Justin.
Nov. 105, 4; Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.714, note. It appears, however, as early as Pliny,
Paneg. 65, “ipse te legibus subjecisti, quas nemo
principi scripsit” ).
But it is not only in this unrepublican theory of his prerogative that the
tendency to transform Caesar into a monarch is observable. It is as clearly
seen in the elevation of his family and friends above the level of private
persons, and of his personal servants and agents to that of state officials.
These changes, which involved a complete departure from republican
principles, commenced with Augustus and were completed in the fourth
century. The family of Caesar (
domus Caesaris）
had not properly, any more than that of an ordinary magistrate, any public
rank or privileges. Augustus set his face against attempts to pay them
honour as a royal house; and though provincials even in his reign coupled
with Augustus himself his wife, children and family (Wilm.
Ex. 104), there was no regular public recognition of
the
domus Caesaris till later. That in the time
of Nero the praetorian guards already took the oath to the “whole
house of Caesar,” is implied by Tacitus (
Tac. Ann. 14.7). Under the Flavian emperors the
domus is associated with Caesar in the
vota publica (Mommsen,
Staatsr.
2.776). The phrase “domus Augusta” occurs in an inscription of
the year 159 A.D (Orelli, 4092). “Domus
divina” appears first under Commodus (Wilm. 120), and is frequent
afterwards (see Orelli-Henzen,
Indices, p. 57).
A similar tendency is observable in the treatment of the individual members
of Caesar's house. In the case indeed of the males, republican usage was so
far adhered to, that for the most part they have only the rank which
followed legitimately from the tenure of public office, though permitted to
hold these offices at an earlier age and in more rapid succession than
ordinary citizens (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.772
sqq.). To the females, for whom these more legitimate marks of
distinction were out of the question, honours of a distinctly royal
character were given. The title of “Augusta,” first given to
Livia, was by the end of the first century commonly granted not only to the
wife of the reigning princeps, but to his sisters and daughters. The
“empress,” as she now became, was in the second century
further distinguished by the appellation “mater castrorum,”
first borne by the younger Faustina. Julia Mammaea in the third century is
“mater castrorum et senatus et patriae et universi generis
humani” (Wilmanns, 1005). The honour of deification, for which also
the first precedent was set in the case of Livia, was freely granted in the
second century (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.780, 781), and after the
time of Domitian the heads of the wife and even of other female members of
Caesar's house appear frequently on the coins. (For other marks of honour,
e. g. the special body-guard, the torchbearers, &c., see Mommsen,
Staatsr. 1.346, 2.775.)
More significant is the manner in which not only blood-relationship with
Caesar, but even the tie of friendship came in time to confer a definite
public status, and ultimately official authority. Augustus himself was
obliged to check the tendency to place his “friends” above the
laws (
Suet. Aug. 56: cf.
Tac. Ann. 2.34, of Urgulania, “supra
leges amicitia Caesaris extulerat” ). Under Tiberius the
“cohors amicorum” assumed a definite shape. It was divided
into classes, with varying privileges; admission to it was a formal act
(
Tac. Ann. 6.9), expulsion from it a
penalty equivalent in its consequences to exile (
Suet. Tib. 56;
Tac. Ann. 3.12,
24). At Rome it constituted a court,
with a regular ceremonial and scale of precedence (
Plin. Nat. 33.41; Sen.
de
Benef. 6.34,
de Clem. 1.10). From this body were
usually chosen the travelling companions (
comites) of Caesar, to whom fixed allowances were given (
Suet. Tib. 46), and also the trusted advisers
with whom Caesar took counsel (
Suet. Tib. 55,
Tit. 7).
V. Max. 9.15 uses
the phrase “cohors Augusta:” the office
a
cura amicorum existed as early as A.D. 51 (Orelli, 1588). In
the second century the term
amici denoted
broadly
[p. 2.490]the regular frequenters of the imperial
court, and more specially the innermost circle of these, whether chosen
confidants or high dignitaries whom the emperor honoured with, this title. A
more definitely official position was acquired by the
comites. These “companions” were carefully:
selected for each expedition; distinct quarters were assigned them in the
camp, and. in rank they stood above the provincial governors To have been
selected as a
comes was an honour duly recorded
on inscriptions along with the legitimate
honores, such as the consulship. Finally not only Caesar himself,
but other members of his family had also their circle of
“friends,” and their. retinue of chosen
“companions.” (See for a full discussion of the question,
Friedlaender,
Sittengeschichte, 1.118
sqq.; Mommsen,
Hermes, 4.120
sqq.) The
comites of
post-Diocletian times no doubt differed widely in position from those of the
second and third centuries; but the fact that high state officers bore this
as their distinctive title significantly marked. the complete identification
of the service of the state with the personal service of Caesar.
The monarchical tendency shown in the elevation of Caesar's family, friends,
and companions from a private to a public and quasi-official position,
reappears in the similar promotion which awaited both his household servants
and his subordinate agents. The household service of Caesar was, like that
of private persons, limited at first to slaves and freedmen. But even under
the early emperors, and especially under Claudius, some at least of the
household offices rose, as regards the extent and importance of the duties
connected with them, to the level of the highest magistracies of state (e.
g. the
liberti a rationibus, a libellis, ab
epistulis: see Friedl.
Sittengesch. 1.160;
Hirschfeld,
Verwalt.-gesch. 30). In the second century the
freedmen are replaced in the principal of these
ministeria principatus by free-born Roman knights [
PROCURATOR]; while among
those which still continued to be filled by “liberti,” one at
least, the post of chamberlain, acquired an importance, savouring strongly
of Eastern monarchies; and which grew, as Oriental fashions gained a greater
hold, till it reached its highest point in the “praepositus sacri
cubiculi” of the later Empire [
PRAEPOSITUS]. (Friedl. 1.99
sqq.) But no change did so much at once to consolidate Caesar's power,
and to invest his rule with a genuinely monarchical character, as the
gradual organisation and diffusion throughout the Empire of a strictly
imperial service, distinct from that of the state, and which finally ousted
the latter from all but an insignificant share in the administration of the
Empire. The history of the growth of this new official hierarchy has been
traced elsewhere. (PROCURATOR: see also
Hirschfeld,
Verwalt.-gesch. passim, esp. pp. 240
sqq.; Liebenam,
Die Laufbahn d.
Procuraturen, Jena, 1886.) But the fact must be noted here that by
the close of the second century we find spread over Rome, Italy, and the
provinces an army of officials, who are in the strictest sense the servants
only of Caesar. From this service senators were excluded; its members,
except in the lowest ranks, were “equites Romani.” There was a
regular system of promotion upwards from the less important
procurationes to the procuratorship
a rationibus, and finally to the coveted prefectures
of Egypt or the praetorian guard; and throughout promotion came from Caesar
alone. This theoretically private service constituted the really effective
part of the machinery of government. It attracted the ablest men; and even
emperors, as for instance Pertinax, rose from its ranks (
Vit.
Pertin. 1, 2).
It only remains to notice how even the outward attributes and accessories of
monarchy were gradually assumed. The designation of the early emperors
adhered tolerably closely to republican usage, except that the gentile nomen
was dropped by Augustus, Tiberius, and Gaius. But from the Flavian emperors
onwards the case was otherwise. On the one hand the personal majesty of
Caesar was magnified by the gradual multiplication of high-sounding
cognomina; and on the other there was an evident attempt to disguise the
real nature of the principate and to give it the appearance of a permanent
office, handed on in legitimate succession from one holder to another,
partly by the conversion of originally proper names into official titles (e.
g. Caesar, Pius), partly by the recitation of a fictitious descent through
several generations. Under the Flavian emperors “Imperator
Caesar” took the first place, and the only official cognomen was that
of Augustus. Trajan set the precedent of assuming cognomina commemorative of
his victories; “Pius,” originally the proper cognomen of
Antoninus, was subsequently adopted as part of the permanent titulature.
“Felix;” was added by Commodus. “Invictus”
first appears under Septimius Severus. By the middle of the third century
the regular form was “Imperator Caesar--Pius Felix Invictus Augustus.”
“Semper Augustus” is found on an inscription of Claudius
Gothicus, and towards the close of the third century “dominus
noster” frequently preceded “Imperator Caesar;” while
the addition of complimentary epithets, such as “pacificator orbis,”
“restitutor orbis,” &c., became more common. The
recitation of descent from preceding emperors began with Trajan, the adopted
son of Nerva, and had a basis in the fact of adoption, in the case of the
Antonine Emperors. It was continued as a useful fiction by Septimius Severus
and Caracalla. [With the simple “Imperator Caesar divi filius
Augustus,” compare the lengthy titles of Caracalla (Wilmanns,
994): “Imp. Caesar (M. Aurelius Severus Antoninus) pius felix Augustus
Parthicus maximus, Britannicus maximus, Germanicus maximus . . . divi
Septimi Severi . . . filius divi M. Antonini nepos divi Antonini Pii
pronepos divi Hadriani abnepos divi Trajani et divi Nervae adnepos
dominus noster invictissimus Augustus.” ] In the list of
honores the only change of importance was the
significant insertion, dating from Septimius Severus, of the title
“proconsul,” which occurs occasionally in inscriptions of
Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius (Mommsen,
Staatsr.
2.736, notes).: Diocletian first used it on coins: it emphasised the
extraordinary character of Caesar's imperium as distinct from that of the
regular magistrates, and, as used in Italy, implied that this imperium was
paramount there, as in the provinces.
The language used in addressing the emperor, or in speaking of him, departed
even more
[p. 2.491]rapidly and widely from republican
practice. The use of the term “dominus” as a mode of right of
address, against which Augustus and Tiberius protested, was rapidly becoming
common in the time of the younger Pliny. It first found its way into
official documents under Severus, and its use was definitely sanctioned by
Aurelian (Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.721, 722). By Greek writers and
on Greek inscriptions the emperor is not unfrequently styled
βασιλεύς, as early as the commencement of the
second century. The Graeco-Oriental training of Ulpian and a century later
of the Scriptores Hist. Augustae introduced such epithets as “regia,”
“regale” (imperium). into Latin literature (Mommsen, ib. 724,
note 3). The influence of Caesar-worship is seen in the phraseology even of
the time of the Antonines. Trajan is described as “sacratissimus
princeps” (Wilm. 693). Rescripts of Antoninus Pius are
“caelestes literae” (Wilm. 693). Somewhat later we find
“indulgentia sacra” (cf. Severus Alexander,
C. I.
L. 5.1837), “auctoritas sacra” (Wilm. 100, A.D. 244),
“appellationes sacrae” (Wilm. 1220, A.D. 253). But not
until the time of Aurelian was the emperor directly and officially styled
“deus” ( “deus et dominus” on coins: Eckhel,
7.482; Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.720, and note).
Even in the ceremonial and general arrangements of the court the emperors at
least of the third century approached very nearly to the semi Oriental state
of the age of Constantine. While the households of the earlier emperors
differed from those of great Roman nobles mainly by their greater numbers
and magnificence, the best emperors at any rate eschewed the elaborate
ceremonial with which Eastern monarchs fenced round their persons, the
courts of Caracalla, of Elagabalus, and even of Severus Alexander are
genuinely Oriental in character. We have already the host of court
officials, chamberlains, cup-bearers, keepers of the imperial robes,
&c., the jealously guarded royal chamber, with its hanging curtains
and attendant guards, and even the prostration of the subject before his
royal master. (Elagabalus suffered himself “adorari regum more
Persarum,”
Vit. Sev. Alex. 18. It is mentioned as a proof of Severus
Alexander's moderation that he allowed himself to be saluted “quasi
unus e senatoribus
patente velo admissionalibus
remotis,” ib. 4. He also limited the extravagance
of the imperial establishment, ib. 41: cf. generally Friedlaender, i. chap.
11, and the Appendix, pp. 177 ff.)
The dress and insignia of the emperors of the first two centuries are all of
republican origin, and only became distinctive in so far as the emperor was
exempted in the use of them from the restrictions which bound the regular
magistrate, or as their use was reserved for him alone. The consular chair
and lictors were granted to Augustus in B.C. 23. The right to wear the
ordinary magisterial toga was probably conferred at the same time, and down
to the close of the second century this was the regular dress of the emperor
when in Rome or Italy. (
Vit. Hadr. 22. In this point, as in
others, Severus Alexander returned to the practice of earlier times:
Vit. Sev. Alex. 40.) On the other hand, the triumphal
robes which Augustus was authorised to wear in Rome on special occasions
(
D. C. 53.26) became, with the celebrating
a triumph, the monopoly of Caesar, and were commonly worn by later emperors
at public festivals and games in the capital. Domitian wore them in the
senate (
D. C. 67.4). The purple
paludamentum belonged from the first to Caesar, in
virtue of his exclusive and supreme military authority; and this
“imperial purple” was in the first century distinctive of
the emperors In the third century it was frequently worn, even in Rome and
Italy, and its assumption was the recognised symbol of accession to the
principate (Herodian, 2.8;
Eutrop. 9,
26;, Mommsen
Staatsr. 1.349). The
laurel wreath; of the
vir triumphalis, was
possibly from the first reserved, like the triumphal robe, for Caesar alone;
and only he had the right to wear in Rome and Italy the; sword and dagger of
military authority. But not until the close of the third century did the
Roman Caesar openly copy in his dress the fashions of Eastern monarchs. The
corona radiata, occasionally found at an
earlier period, regularly appears on coins after the time of Aemilianus
(A.D. 249). The more distinctively Oriental diadem was, according to Victor:
(
Epit. 35), first worn by Aurelian [
DIADEMA]. Mommsen, however,
Staatsr. 1.345, rejects the statement: Caligula, the
Elagabalus of the first century, is credited with a premature attempt to
introduce both the
corona radiata and the
diadem (
Suet. Cal. 22). Gallienus anticipated
the Eastern splendour of the Byzantine emperors, by appearing in Rome with a
and barbaric display of gold and precious stones (
Vit. Gall.
16, “gemmatis fibulis aureisque, tunicam auratam, caligas
gemmeas” ), and much the same is said of Aurelian (Victor,
Epit. 35). By Eutropius, however (9.26), the introduction
of these unrepublican and un-Roman novelties is ascribed to Diocletian:
“Ornamenta gemmarum: vestibus, calceamentique indidit, nam prius
imperii insigne in chlamyde purpurea tantum erat”
[H. P.]
