Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/796

Rh 772 ROME [HISTORY. suffered perhaps less change than any other of the old offices. It still kept its place as the first step on the ladder of promotion, and there was still a quaestor attached to each governor of a senatorial province, to the consuls in Rome, and to the princeps himself as proconsul. 1 he The senate alone among republican institutions retained inate - some importance and influence. The virtual abolition of the comitia, and the degradation of the magistracies left the senate to stand alone as the representative of repub- licanism, and it thus came to be regarded as sharing the government of the empire with the princeps himself. The magistrates elected by the senate are contrasted with the legates, prefects, and procurators appointed by the emperor. It is to the senate, in theory, that the supreme power reverts in the absence of a princeps. It is by decree of the senate that the new princeps immediately receives his powers and privileges, 2 though he is still supposed to derive them ultimately from the people, and is as a rule actually the nominee of the soldiers. After the cessation of all legislation by the comitia, the only law-making authority, other than that of the princeps by his edicts, was that of the senate by its decrees. 3 Its judicial authority was parallel with that of the emperor, and at the close of the 1st century we find the senators claiming, as the emperor's " peers," to be exempt from his jurisdiction. 4 But in spite of the outward dignity and importance of this position, and of the politic deference with which it was frequently treated, the senate became gradually almost as powerless in reality as the comitia and the magistracies. The two great supports of its authority under the republic its identification with the interests of a powerful aristocracy and the subserviency of the magistrates both fell away under the empire. The senators continued indeed to be taken as a rule from the ranks of the wealthy, and a high property qualifica- tion was established by Augustus as a condition of member- ship, but any effect which this may have had in giving in- dependence to the position of a senator was counterbalanced by the facilities it afforded to the emperors for securing their own ascendency by subsidizing those whose property fell short of the required standard, and who thus became simply the paid creatures of their imperial patrons. 5 Admission to the senate was possible only by favour of the emperor, as at once controlling the elections to the magistracies, which still as of old gave entrance to the curia, and as invested with the power of directly creating senators by " adlectio," a power which from the time of Vespasian onwards was freely used. 6 As the result, the composition of the senate rapidly altered. Under Augustus and Tiberius it still contained many represen- tatives of the old republican families, whose prestige, influence, and ancestral traditions were some guarantee for their independence. But this element soon disappeared. The ranks of the old nobility were thinned by natural decay and by the jealous fears of the last three Claudian emperors. Vespasian 7 flooded the senate with new men from the municipal towns of Italy and the Latinized provinces of the West. Trajan and Hadrian, both pro- 1 Momnisen, Staatsrecht, ii. 532. Pliny was himself " quaestor Caesaris," Epp., vii. 16. 2 Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 818 ; Tac., Ann., xii. 69, Hist., i. 47. In the 3d century the honours, titles, and powers were conferred en bloc by a single decree; Vit. Sev. Alex., 1. 3 Gaius, i. 4 ; Ulpian, Dig., i. 3, 9. 4 Under Domitian ; Dio Cass., Ixvii. 2. Even Septimius Severus pledged himself " non inconsulto senatu occidere senatorera " ; Vita Seven, 7. 8 Suet., -Nero, 10; Vesp., 17. 6 Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 879 sq. The power was derived from the censorial authority. Domitian was censor for life ; Suet, Dom. , 8. After Nerva it was exercised as falling within the general autho- rity vested in the princeps ; Dio, liii. 17. 7 Suet., Vesp., 90; Tac., Ann., iit. 55 vincials themselves, carried on the same policy, and by the close of the 2d century even the Greek provinces of the East had their representatives among the senators of Rome. Some, no doubt, of these provincials, who con- stituted the great majority of the senate in the 3d century, were men of wealth and mark, but many more were of low birth, on some rested the stain of a servile descent, and all owed alike their present position and their chances of further promotion to the emperor. 8 The procedure of the senate was as completely at the mercy of the princeps as its composition. He was himself a senator and the first of senators; 9 he possessed the magisterial prerogatives of convening the senate, of laying business before it, and of carrying senatus consulta ; 10 above all, his tribunician power enabled him to interfere at any stage, and to modify or reverse its decisions. The share of the senate in the government was in fact determined by the amount of administrative activity which each princeps saw fit to allow it to exercise, and by the extent to which he chose to use it as an instrument of government. And this share became steadily smaller. The jurisdiction assigned it by Augustus and Tiberius was in the 3d century limited to the hearing of such cases as the emperor thought fit to send for trial, and these became steadily fewer in number. Its control of the state treasury, as distinct from the imperial h'scus, and of the so-called senatorial provinces passed in fact to the emperor and his officials, and was only occasionally revived by the special favour of emperors who, like Marcus Aureltus, 11 were sincerely attached to old traditions, or, like Severus Alexander and Tacitus, hoped by close alliance with the senate to escape from the evils of a military despotism. 12 Even in Rome and Italy its control of the administration was gradually transferred to the prefect of the city, and after the reign of Hadrian to imperial officers (juridici) charged with the civil adminis- tration. 13 The part still played by its decrees in the modification of Roman law has been dealt with elsewhere (see p. 704 supra), but it is clear that these decrees did little else than register the expressed wishes of the emperor and his personal advisers. The growing impotence of all other authority than that of the princeps inevitably altered the character of the principate. Even under Augustus, Tiberius, and the Claudian emperors, there is a silent and steady concentra- tion of all authority in the hands of the princeps ; not only the army and the provinces, but even Rome and Italy, are in reality governed by him, though still with a lingering respect for the traditional prerogatives of the senate and the senatorial magistrates ; in the reigus of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero the politic disguise under which Augustus and Tiberius had endeavoured to conceal the extent of their power was thrown contemptuously aside. In the administration of justice and in finance, as well as in military and foreign affairs, the authority of the princeps is paramount ; and his own personal subor- dinates legates, prefects, procurators, and even his freed- men u divide between them the real work of government. This increase of power was accompanied by a correspond- ing elevation of the princeps himself above the level of all other citizens. The comparatively modest house- hold and simple life of Augustus were replaced by a more 8 See on this point Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms, i. 197 sq. 9 Mon. Ancyr. Or., iv. 3, irp&Tov at<afj.aTos T&irov. 10 Lex de imp. Vesp., C. I. L.,i. 930 : "Senatum habere, relationem facere, remittere ; Seta, per relationem discessionemque facere." 11 Dio Cass., Ixxi. 10. 2 Vit. Sev. Alex., 3 ; Vit. Tac., 12, 18. 13 Vit. Hadr., 22. " Juridici " were appointed by Marcus Aurelius, Vit. Ant., 11; Marquardt, i. 72, 73. 14 For the position of the imperial freedmen under Claudius, see Friedlaender, i. 63 sq. ; Tac., Ann., xii. 60, xiv. 39, Hist., ii. 57, 95. Alter positic of the prince centra, izatiou autho- rity in his hands. Outwr splen- dour.