THE REVOLUTION AND THE TRANSITION TO THE PRINCIPATE
The party of reform which, during the last century of the Republic,
gave a new development to the elastic Roman constitution, by gradually
creating a stronger executive organ than had been known since the time
of the monarchy, had two distinguishing features. One was an opposition,
sometimes rational, sometimes blind, to the senatorial government; the
other the exposition of a positive programme for remedying evils which
all but the most callous or careless could see. The nature of their
attack varied with the assailable features presented by its object. At
first it was directed against the assumed indifference of the Senate to
internal reform and its failure to suggest hasty remedies for economic
grievances. This was the essential feature of the Gracchan movement;
but, although its example was perilous, the immediate effects of this
first revolution were transitory in the extreme. The Senate emerged from
the attack shaken but victorious. Italy was but of little account when
the world lay at the feet of the noble families who composed the great
council of state, and the Senate could be made to appear the only true
government for an empire. Unfortunately this theory was rudely shaken. A
miserable war in a protected state, into which the government was most
unwillingly dragged, was thought sufficient to show that the merits of
the senatorial administration of the empire were an illusion. The epoch
of the Jugurthine war is the turning-point of the history of this period.
A reforming party with an imperial policy must associate itself with
the military power. The change was rapidly effected. Tribunes, commons,
assemblies still represent the nominal sovereigns, but their weapons—too
powerful for the users—are the _imperator_, the army, and the camp.
Henceforth we find a perpetual association of militarism with democracy
which could have but one issue, a monarchy resting on the sword.
But to the reformers of the times the ultimate solution of the
constitutional problem was something far less present than the programme
of reform, which was being handed on from leader to leader with scarcely
an item altered since the time when the genius of C. Gracchus had given
it birth. It contained agrarian laws, measures for corn distribution and
for colonies beyond the sea, means for relieving social distress and the
plethora of the great capital, and at times it admitted—the most pressing
need of all—proposals for remedying the iniquitous relations that the
law permitted to exist between debtor and creditor. A new and unexpected
development was given to the activities of the party by the introduction
into their programme of proposals for enfranchising the Italians.
This was a measure that, like so many others in popular programmes,
was a creation of the demagogue and was profoundly distasteful to his
followers. Its acceptance by the Liberals (_populares_) was a pure
accident—one due to the desire of breaking a formidable weapon employed
by the Whig opposition, who, like Scipio Aemilianus, had adopted the
somewhat dangerous policy of playing off Italian rights against those
of the city proletariate. But, as belief usually follows acceptance,
there is some reason for regarding the franchise question as, at least
finally, a plank in the democratic programme. In the multiform efforts
of the discontented we can also discern the spasmodic attempt to create
a competent central military authority for Rome, as the only means of
securing corn, commerce, and the empire.
It was by no means a homogeneous party which developed this programme and
attempted to replace a government which they deemed incompetent. Even its
more thorough-going members cannot be described by a single name. Amongst
the _populares_ were many Liberals who had nothing to gain by revolution;
but amongst them were also to be found many who were democrats by
necessity as well as by conviction, the revolutionary element which
was often a thorn in the side of the reforming constitutionalists, the
class of _improbi_ which supplied Catiline’s so-called “conspiracy”
and made it a genuine democratic movement, and whose aspirations were
subsequently represented by Caelius Rufus and Dolabella. Nor must it be
supposed that there was any clear line of demarcation between _populares_
and senators. Nowhere was the Senate more bitterly attacked than from
within its own body. The leaders of the extreme party had attained the
magistracies that entitled them to a seat in the Curia, and elections, so
far as they were not gained by family influence or bribery, were fought
on party lines. Nor even amongst the constitutionalists was there a lack
of would-be reformers of a more moderate type. The elder Cato and the
Scipionic circle, while eager to maintain senatorial ascendency, had
been conscious of some of its defects; and, as the cry for innovation
gathered in strength, a party was formed which, by borrowing wholesale
from the radical programme, attempted to reconcile the privileges of
their order with concessions to Italy, purity in imperial administration,
and care for the poor of Rome. This attempt was shattered by the fate
of the younger Drusus, and henceforth there is no senatorial party of
reform. Even Cicero, with his wide sympathies and his acute sense of
the evils of the time, can suggest only a _concordia ordinum_, merely
a means of bolstering up the existing constitution by means of a union
of the propertied and therefore “loyal” classes (_boni_). The municipal
statesman did, indeed, wish to see an “Italian” rather than a “Roman”
government, but he had no scheme by which Italy could have secured
representation at Rome, and before the close of his life he had accepted
the inevitable solution of personal rule. There was to be a _moderator
rei publicae_, a _princeps civitatis_;[1557] but this monarchy is not to
destroy the constitution; his prince is to be a loyal coadjutor of the
Senate, not the exponent of a military despotism.
It is probable that with parties so evenly balanced as the _populares_
and _optimates_ no very decisive result would have been attained, had it
not been for the existence in the state of a perfectly homogeneous body
of men with few ideals but very decided wants. This was that upper middle
class of large and moderate capitalists which, through an accident in
nomenclature, had come to be known as _equites_.[1558] It was a class
that possessed the tradesman’s narrow honesty and complete indifference
to all politics not connected with business. Like all classes, they
were quite willing to plunder the provinces while state officials did
the same; but they desired strong government more than plunder. They
longed for an administration which should secure them adequate protection
in the conquered world over which they had spread the network of their
trade, and which should also ensure a freedom from revolution at home.
Hence their wavering and yet always decisive attitude. To secure their
first end they join the attacking party, to secure their second they
attach themselves to the government, and their adherence or disaffection
always turns the fortune of the day. It was the _equites_ who helped the
democrats to raise Marius to power, who forced their own creature to
abandon his revolutionary colleague Saturninus, who ruined the schemes
of the younger Drusus and set the Varian commission on the track of
his adherents; it was their hostility that proved equally fatal to the
schemes of Sulla and of Catiline, their commercial instincts which lifted
Pompeius into power and led them at the crisis of 60 B.C. to abandon
the Senate and give their whole support to Caesar. There is something
tragic in the ruthless massacre of _equites_ which ushers in the Augustan
monarchy; for no class had done more for its existence and to none did it
prove a greater boon.
To appreciate the issue of this struggle in which all parties were
engaged, we must recognise its twofold aspect as a struggle for social
and political renewal, and consider separately the fate of the detailed
programme of reform and the change in the constitution to which the
attacks on the Senate led. From the first point of view the efforts of
the democratic party ended in an unqualified success; for every item
of its programme was carried out, with the requisite modifications, by
Caesar and the Principate. The agrarian question reached as near an
approach to settlement as such eternal questions can attain, especially
when it became absorbed into the movement of transmarine colonisation
which was employed in the Principate for poorer citizens and for
veterans. The extension of the franchise was completed, so far as the
territory south of the Alps was concerned, by Caesar’s renewal of the
gift of citizenship to the Transpadanes and Augustus’ incorporation
of their territory as a part of Italy,[1559] while the Principate was
liberal with the conferment of Latin rights on provinces, such as Sicily,
the Maritime Alps, and Spain, and the full citizenship gradually won its
way in the provincial world by individual grants and recruiting for the
legions. The laws of debt were emended by the just bankruptcy laws of
Caesar and Augustus, and even the _leges frumentariae_ required but a
slight modification to make them a genuine scheme of poor-relief.[1560]
The _equites_, too, the class to whom C. Gracchus had given an official
recognition, became a still more recognised order under the Principate
and a most useful wheel in the administrative machinery.
It is more difficult to decide whether the radical change of government
to which the agitation led can be considered a genuine triumph for the
reformers. Military monarchy may be regretted by those who see in it a
confession of incapacity to combine imperial government with Republican
institutions; but, from the point of view of the reforming party, it was
only a disappointment if we conceive that their leaders thought that
government by _comitia_ might replace the rule of the Senate. But there
is hardly a trace of this idea. No effort was made throughout the whole
of this period to make the _comitia_ a workable or really democratic
institution; and personal rule, as the only expression of democracy, had
asserted itself at the beginning of the movement. The only open question
was whether it should be a Periclean _tyrannis_ of the type enjoyed by C.
Gracchus or a Napoleonic rule such as that of Caesar. As a matter of fact
the Principate learnt a lesson from both solutions—that of the Gracchan
and that of the Marian epoch—and established itself on a joint basis of
the _tribunicia potestas_ and the _proconsulare imperium_.
If we look round for other possible solutions, we find two faintly
foreshadowed, but both doomed to failure. The first was a reformed
Senate, not merely the existing body artificially bolstered up, as it had
been by Sulla, but a body really made representative of Italy through
the free inclusion of _novi homines_. The idea was held by Cicero, but
no scheme was ever considered which would have made it a reality. For
such an object to be attained, election to those magistracies from
which the Senate was recruited must cease to be in the hands of the
Roman _comitia_; but no one to our knowledge, with the exception of
the Emperor Augustus, thought of the possibility of election by the
municipal towns.[1561] Help might also have been looked for from a
reformed assembly, one that had been made representative of the whole
Italian people. The allies nearly worked out this means of salvation for
themselves,[1562] but the magnitude of Rome was itself a stumbling-block
to the solution of the problem on federal lines. We can hardly blame the
thinkers of the day for not seeing the possibility of a representative
assembly of a national kind; for the Italian, like the Greek mind, though
familiar enough with the idea of the representation of cities, had not
advanced to the conception of the representation of individuals through
electoral districts.
The reason why the creation of an Italian senate or an Italian
assembly might have warded off the monarchy is that such a body might
have commanded respect even from the army of the provinces. This
correspondence in sentiment might, it is true, have required that the
army should remain mainly Italian; and Augustus’ attempt to give Italy
something of a representative character may have been abandoned through
fear of a conflict between an army which was becoming provincial in
personnel and an Italian proletariate, when the choice of a Princeps had
to be decided. Yet, although circumstances were hostile to a fusion of
Italy and the provinces, and the Principate was not to be Italian, one
should not forget that it had something of a popular character. The Roman
citizens of the legions who made the Princeps[1563] were of a better type
than the _plebs urbana_ of Rome; for not only was the freedman element
eliminated, but discipline had with them replaced demoralisation, their
life was lived under healthier influences, and although they were often
moved to their selection by a mere _esprit de corps_, they generally
succeeded in placing a very capable man on the throne.
Caesar was the first sole ruler of Rome; and we might be inclined to
imagine that the powers which he enjoyed were consciously assumed merely
as those of a provisional government, were there not signs that towards
the close of his life he was satisfied with the solution which he had
adopted. The early dictatorships of 49 and 48 B.C., the second and longer
of which was only for the term of a year,[1564] were merely efforts
for tiding over a crisis; and the same may perhaps be said of a later
tenure of this office, which was conferred on him for ten years in 46
B.C.[1565] But in the last year of his life (44 B.C.) he entered on a
perpetual dictatorship,[1566] a revival of the Roman monarchy both in
reality and in name. It is true that the title _rex_ was not assumed,
out of deference to the feelings of the masses who saw in it merely a
synonym of oriental despotism; and for the same reason the diadem was
declined.[1567] But every educated Roman knew that the Roman monarchy
had been nothing else than the unlimited _imperium_, and many may have
believed that dictator or “master of the people” was the most significant
of the titles of the king. It was, therefore, a _regnum_ under which
Rome was living,[1568] and there was no concealment of its military
character, for the title _imperator_ was now borne by the regent within
the walls.[1569] This designation was a mere symbol of military command
and the fullest jurisdiction; it was no description of a basis actual or
future on which Caesar’s power could rest, for the unqualified _imperium_
had no existence to the Roman mind, and, if it was to be unlimited, it
must be either regal or dictatorial.
With respect to the other powers which Caesar assumed, the _praefectura
morum_, given for three years in 45 B.C.,[1570] has the appearance of a
special conferment for a given purpose; but the _tribunicia potestas_
was granted early in his period of rule (48 B.C.) and given for life; it
must have been regarded even now as the ideal complement of a lasting
_imperium_, valuable for the inviolability it conferred and for the
“civil” and popular colouring which it gave its holder. To realise the
nature of Caesar’s authority by an inspection of the bases of his power
needed some reflection; but none was wanted to mark the external symbols
of royalty—the triumphal robe, the portrait-head on coins, the statue
placed amongst those of the seven kings in the Capitol. These were the
symbols that were taken as tests of what the future monarchy was to
be, and which reduced, not merely rigid constitutionalists, but even
moderates and men of compromise, to despair. With Caesar conciliation was
not accompanied by its requisite complement, compromise; he was tender
of everything but sentiment, and did not care to estimate the force
of what he must have considered mere prejudice; but, in spite of the
modifications introduced into his theory of government by Augustus, it
was he who pointed out that the necessary basis for the future Principate
was the tribunician power combined with some kind of military _imperium_.
The murder of Caesar had, in words of the time, abolished the _rex_
but not the _regnum_,[1571] and the Triumvirate of 43 B.C. was but
a suspension of hostilities between the rival claimants. In form it
was a provisional government, like that of the early Decemvirate,
for the reform of the constitution, and received the sanction of the
people;[1572] but so purely was it an agreement between the contending
personalities that its renewal was contrived in 38 B.C. without any
reference to the _comitia_.[1573] For ten years (38-28 B.C.) Octavian’s
position was far more irregular than that of Caesar had ever been, and,
even after the defeat and death of Antonius, his sole claim to power was
an _imperium_, which had never been conferred, irregularly continued from
a usurped Triumvirate. These indefinite powers resting, as he himself
describes them, “on universal consent,”[1574] were essential to the
accomplishment of the work that had to be done before the forms of the
constitution were restored. The consulships which he held did not give
the requisite authority, and the value of the _tribunicia potestas_,
which he had possessed from 36 B.C.,[1575] was negative rather than
positive. In the course of his sixth consulship (28 B.C.) he considered
the time to be ripe for a final settlement. It assumed the form of a
surrender. He issued a solemn decree in which he cancelled the irregular
ordinances of the Triumvirate,[1576] and he fixed January 1, 27 B.C.
as the date on which he would divest himself of his extraordinary
power.[1577] On this day “he gave back the commonwealth to the
discretionary power of Senate and people.”[1578] A return was expected,
and had doubtless been arranged, but the gift made by the grateful
Senate seemed small in comparison with what had been surrendered. It was
enough, however, to make the abdicating monarch a very powerful head of
the executive of the state. Augustus, as he was now for the first time
designated,[1579] was given _imperium_ for ten years with the government
of certain specified provinces,[1580] while at the same time he was made
commander-in-chief for life of all the forces of the state, with the sole
right of raising levies and of making war and of declaring peace.[1581]
Yearly consulships were still the chief basis of his dignity, if not
of his authority, in the capital, while the tribunician power still
continued but was as yet sparingly employed.
Such was the settlement that was greeted, officially and unofficially, as
a restoration of the Republic,[1582] but which later writers held, with
equal reason, to be the commencement of the legitimate monarchy.[1583]
The weak point in the arrangement was the authority of the prince within
the capital. The consulship had admirable Republican associations, but
was hemmed in by awkward limitations. Its jurisdiction had become almost
extinct, its initiative was fettered by colleagueship, it was technically
not the highest power in the state, and the constant usurpation by the
Princeps of one of the two offices of highest titular rank was a bar to
the legitimate ambition of aspiring nobles. Hence the need for the new
settlement which was attained in 23 B.C. The details of the change, which
gave the Principate its final form, will be described elsewhere. Its
essential features were that the constant investiture with the consulship
was dispensed with, that the _tribunicia potestas_ was shifted from the
background to become the chief symbol of authority for the Princeps in
Rome and Italy, and that an _imperium_, which must now be described as
_proconsulare_, was renewed and perhaps increased.[1584] Further isolated
grants were made to fill up the gaps in this heterogeneous association of
powers, and to elevate the new extraordinary magistrate of the Republic
to the requisite height above the ordinary officials of the state.