Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/797

Rh DEVELOPMENT OP THE PRINCIPATE.] ROME rrfo / id icreas- fiy dlitary laracter ? the rind- ate. ever- nee of he con- nth lome. than regal splendour, and under Nero we find all the outward accessories of monarchy present, the palace, the palace guards, the crowds of courtiers, and a court ceremonial. In direct opposition to the republican theory of the principate, the members of the princeps's family share in the dignities of his position. The males bear the cognomen of Cassar, and are invested, as youths, with high office ; their names and even those of the females are included in the yearly prayers for the safety of the princeps 1 ; their birthdays are kept as festivals ; the praetorian guards take the oath to them as well as to the princeps himself. Finally, the growing practice of Caesar worship invested the chief magistrate of the Roman commonwealth with the divine attributes ascribed to Eastern monarchs. 2 The death of Nero was followed, it is true, by a partial reaction. Not only Galba and the Flavian emperors but Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines at once affected a certain simplicity in their personal habits, and discountenanced the excessive servility and adulation encouraged by Caligula and Nero. But this reaction served only to bring into clearer relief the con- tinued advance made towards the establishment of an autocratic and military rule. Caligula, Claudius, and Nero were all first saluted as imperatores by the soldiery and then invested with their powers by the senate, 3 but this reversal of the constitutional order was rendered less noticeable by the fact that the choice was still made in Rome, and that it fell in each case on one whose birth already marked him out as the natural successor to the purple. The salutation of Galba by the legions in Spain marks the opening of a new epoch. 4 Thenceforward, if the legions do not actually select the princeps, it is their acceptance of him which is the one essential condition of his tenure of power, and it is on their support that he relies. Vitellius and Vespasian were chosen by the legions of Germany and Syria, as Galba had been by those of Spain. Domitian emphasized the military character of his rule by entering the senate in the triumphal dress; 5 and under the great soldier Trajan, whose adoption by Nerva was a frank confession of the necessities of the case, the military title " imperator " was already superseding the older and more constitutional " princeps." Closely connected with the increasingly military char- acter of the emperor's position was the gradual severance of the old ties which connected the emperor, as chief magistrate, with Rome, as the traditional seat and centre of political power. Galba, Vitellius, and Vespasian were already de facto emperors when they entered Rome from their distant provinces to claim the legal confirmation by the senate. Trajan and Hadrian were both provincials by birth ; the former did not enter Rome for a full year after his accession, and Hadrian courteously apologized to the senate for taking up the imperium in Syria before his acceptance by that body. 6 The connexion between the emperors and Rome was further weakened by the increasing frequency and length of their absences from the city. Life in Rome was no doubt irksome to men trained in camps, as Trajan had been, and the state of affairs was such as imperatively to require the emperor's presence in the provinces and on the frontiers. The distant campaigns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, and the unwearying travels of Hadrian, were necessary for the safety and good govern- ment of the empire, but they involved the removal from 1 Ada Fr. Arval. (ed. Henzen) 33, 98, 99. 2 For Caasar worship, see Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 716 sq.; Boissier, La Religion Rmnaine,. 122-208 ; Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverw., in. 443-454 ; Preller, Rom. Mythologie, 770 sq. 3 Tac., Ann., xii. 69, of Nero, "sententiam militum secuta patrum consulta." * Tac., Hist., i. 4. 5 Dio, Ixvii. 4. 6 Dio, Ixix. 2. Rome of the real seat of government. The emperors from Vespasian to Aurelius were, with the exception of Domi- tian, ready enough to respect constitutional forms, at least in their personal intercourse with the senate, and Aurelius seems sincerely to have wished to share with the senate the overwhelming responsibilities which pressed upon him. But the improved organization of the administrative system which the times demanded was too urgent a need to be set aside ou-t of respect for the niceties of an obsolete constitutional government ; and this period is marked by the development and extension of a purely imperial system of government, the control of which was centralized in the hands of the emperor alone. The main credit of this achievement is due to Hadrian, 7 and its immediate effect was undoubtedly to increase the effectiveness of the administration ; but it accelerated the decay of local inde- pendence and energy, and thus diminished the strength of the empire. The century which separates the death The e of Marcus Aurelius from the accession of Diocletian perors (180-284) completed the destruction of the old Augustan system. Now and again, as in the case of Pertinax, of Severus Alexander, of Maximus and Balbinus, and of Tacitus, the senate succeeded in claiming for itself the selection of an emperor, but with the single exception of Severus Alexander their nominees were not more success- ful than Nerva in securing the necessary attachment of the legions ; as a rule the emperors of the 3d century were more than ever the nominees of the soldiery, often men of obscure origin from the frontier provinces. 8 The worst of them treated the senate with contempt and con- tumely, and the best of them excluded it from all share in the government. Septimius Severus, a native of Septi- Africa, set the precedent of abstaining from seeking a lus formal confirmation of his authority from the senate ; 9 he assumed the title of proconsul even in Rome, ad- ministered justice no longer openly in the forum but within^the walls of the palace, and finally established the prefect of the praetorian guard as the officer next in power to the emperor himself. It is, moreover, on his inscrip- tions that the emperor is first officially styled "dominus." From the accession of Decius (249), the first of a series The of able emperors sprung from the Danubian provinces, "Illy the autocratic and military character of the imperial p r ~ ors system rapidly develops. The old distinctions between imperial and senatorial provinces, between the state treasury and the privy purse of the emperor, finally dis- appear. Senators are almost entirely excluded alike from the military and civil services. Under Aurelian (270-275), an able soldier and a vigorous administrator, the breach with the old traditions became complete. He anticipated Diocletian in the completely autocratic methods of his government and in the Oriental pomp and splendour with which he surrounded himself. (b) General History of the Empire. From the develop- ment of the principate of Augustus into the avowed despot- ism which it was the great work of Diocletian to organize and consolidate we pass to the general fortunes of the empire during this period. On the accession of Augustus, there could be little doubt as to the nature of the work that was necessary, if peace and prosperity were to be secured for the Roman world. He was called upon to justify his posi- tion by rectifying thefrontiers and strengthening thefrontier defences, by reforming the system of provincial government, and by reorganizing the finance; and his success in dealing with these three difficult problems is sufficiently proved 7 See, for a short account, Capes, Age of the Antonines, chap, ix., cf. Schiller, Gesch. d. Kaiserzeit, i. (2) 617 sq. 8 E.g., Maximinus, "de vico Thraciae, barbaro patre ac matre," Vit. Max., 1. 9 Vita Severi, 7. For the importance of the reign of Severus see Schiller, i. (2) 725, Gibbon, vol. i. 258 sq.
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