Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/794

Rh 770 ROME provinces " were to be assigned by lot in the old way to ex-consuls and ex-praetors, and to be nominally under the 34. control of the senate ; but in 23 even their governors were declared to be generally subordinate to Octavian as the holder of a higher authority (" majus imperium)." 1 In addition to this control, direct and indirect, of all the pro- vinces, Octavian received also the sole and supreme com- mand of all the military and naval forces of the empire. He alone henceforth levies, pays, and dismisses soldiers, equips fleets, and orders the movements of both army and navy, and he was granted in addition full authority to wage war and conclude treaties with whom he would. 2 81, 727. Finally, in 23, if not in 27, he was exempted from the law which required the proconsul to lay down his "im- periuin " on entering Rome, and was allowed to exercise it within the sacred limits of the pomoerium, 3 a privilege which facilitated the introduction into the city of the pre- fects, praetorian guard, and summary jurisdiction proper to the proconsul in the province. This " proconsular imperium " was granted in the first instance for ten years, 4 but was renewed for periods of five, five, and ten years successively, and the fiction of its temporary duration and periodic renewal was maintained under Augustus's suc- cessors by the celebration every ten years of the " decen- nalia." 5 The supreme importance attached to its posses- sion as the mainstay of the imperial power is sufficiently indicated by the fact that the man on whom it is con- ferred becomes thereby " princeps," and the day on which he receives it (" dies imperii ") marks the beginning of his reign. 6 ribuni- The proconsular imperium not only carried with it the a potes- control of the army and the provinces, but in Rome itself it gave its holder a position of precedence. In virtue of it he took his seat between the consuls, was preceded by lictors, 7 and wore the laurel wreath, paludamentum, and sword of the imperator. But as yet Rome could not be governed like a subject provincial city by proconsular authority ; and, for the necessary direction and regulation of the constitutional machinery which he had restored, Augustus contented himself 8 with the authority which traditionally invested its holder with a popular leadership, that of the tribunes of the plebs. The "tribunicia [8. potestas " had been granted him for life in 36, 9 and his 51. tenure of it was confirmed in 23. 10 Thenceforward it ranked as a constituent element of the principate, second in importance only to the proconsular authority. With but few exceptions it was conferred for life upon all succeeding emperors, and the years of their reigns are reckoned by the years of their tribunician power. It was conferred, as all special " potestas " had been conferred under the republic, by a decree of the senate and vote of the assembly. 11 It gave its holder all the prerogatives of 1 Dio, liii. 32. 2 See the so-called " lex de imperio Vespasiani," C. I. L.. vi. 930. 1 Dio, liii. 17. * Dio, liii. 13. 6 Dio, liii. 16 ; Ivii. 24 ; Mommsen, Staatsr., ii. 751, 752. 6 See the passages from the A eta Fratrum Aroalium (ed. Henzen, Berlin, 1874), p. 63. Tiberius received it when associated with Augustus as his colleague ; Tac., Ann., i. 3 ; Suet., Tib., 21. 7 Dio, liv. 10, connects these privileges with the bestowal of con- sular power for life, but it is doubtful whether any such power was formally conferred. Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 813 ; Mon. Ancyr., ii'- 9- 8 Tac., Ann., i. 2. Mon. Ancyr., ii. 21. 10 Dio, liii. 32. The years of the "tribunicia potestas" are reckoned by Augustus from this year. See Mommsen, Staatsr., ii. 753, 754. 11 References are found in the Acta Fratrum Arvalium to the comitia in which it was conferred ; Acta F. A., ed. Henzen, p. 65. [t is possible, as Mommsen thinks, that the extant fragmentary law " de imperio Vespasiani " may be a part of the " lex " conferring the tribunicia potestas"; see his Staatsr., ii. 818. The "tribunicia potestas" was, like the " proconsular imperium," conferred on the chosen colleague or destined successor ; Tac., Ann., i. 2, of Tiberius, "consors tribuniciae potestatis." the tribunate, without the restrictions which hampered the tribunes themselves. Augustus and his successors were unimpeded in its exercise by the presence of colleagues ; and both their personal inviolability and their right of interference held good outside the pomoerium. It enabled them, as representing the acknowledged protectors of the plebs, to control in the name of the people the whole administrative machinery, to introduce laws, to convene the senate, to protect ths aggrieved, and to interfere with any exercise of authority by other magistrates. In short, it gave to the man who already wielded an authority abroad more absolute than that granted to Pompey by the Gabinian law all and more than all the power possessed by a Gracchus in Rome. It was on these two powers that Augustus's position as Othe/ princeps rested. In virtue of these he was chief magistrate P wei of the Roman state, and all other offices and privileges ot conferred upon him are comparatively of secondary import- pr ance. The consulship which he held continuously from 31 up to 23 he never accepted again but on two occa- 723-5 sions, in 5 B.C. and in 2 B.C., 12 though he was tsvice invested 749, ! with " consular authority " for the purpose of taking the census (8 B.C., 14 A.D.). 13 That he ever received an extra- 746. ordinary " morum legumque regimen," as stated by Sue- tonius and Dio, 14 is extremely doubtful, and his language in the Ancyran monument implies that for this purpose, as for many others, he found the tribunician authority sufficient. 15 In 22 B.C. he was invested with the "cura732. annonae," 16 the supervision of the corn supply and the corn largesses at Rome. On the death of Lepidus in 12 742. B.C. he succeeded him as " pontifex maximus," and he was also a member of the augural and other priestly colleges. 17 Lastly, at various times, and probably by decree of the senate, he was granted a number of special exemptions and privileges. 18 In theory at least, the Roman world was governed Char according to the "maxims of Augustus" 19 clown to the in th time of Diocletian. Even in the 3d century there is j^ 8 still, in name at least, a republic, of which the emperor the j is in strictness only the chief magistrate, deriving his cipat authority from the senate and people, and with preroga- tives limited and defined by law. The case is quite different when we turn from the theory to the practice. The division of authority between the republic and its chief magistrate became increasingly unequal. Over the provinces the princeps from the first ruled autocratically ; and this autocracy reacted upon his position in Rome, so that it became every year more difficult for a ruler so absolute abroad to maintain even the fiction of republican government at home. The republican institutions, with the partial exception of the senate, loss all semblance of author- ity outside Rome, and even in their altered position as the municipal institutions of the chief city of the empire they retain but little actual power. The real government even of Rome passes gradually into the hands of imperial pre- fects and commissioners, and the old magistracies become merely decorations which the emperor gives away at his pleasure. And at the same time the rule of the princeps assumes an increasingly personal character, and the whole work of government is silently concentrated in his hands and in those of his own subordinate officials. Closely connected with this change is the different aspect pre- sented by the history of the empire in Rome and Italy on 12 Suet., 26. 13 Mon. Ancyr., ii. 5. 8. 14 Suet., 27 ; Dio, liv. 10, 30. 15 Mon. Ancyr. Or., iii. 15, and Mommsen's notes, pp. 28-30, 36-38. 18 Mon. Ancyr. Lat., i. 32, 33. 17 Mommsen on Mon. Ancyr. Lat.,. 45, p. 32. 18 Dio, liii. 18. In the "lex de imperio Vespasiani" several such exemptions are mentioned ; Mommsen, Staatsr., ii. 711 sq. 19 Suet., Nero, 10, "ex Augusti praescripto."