readjustment of the constitutional situation. After his return from
a troublesome war in Spain, and after a very serious illness which
had brought him to the brink of death, he formally abdicated the
consulship, alleging his ill-health as the motive. It was, indeed,
more than a pretence. The continual tenure of the consulship involved
a continual series of ceremonial duties, which added to the immense
burdens of his position. But there were political motives as well. He
was now in his eleventh consulship, and for a nation of antiquarians
it was distinctly unpleasant that any man should compile a list of
this magnitude. Moreover, the consul had to have an apparently equal
colleague, and there was no longer at Rome an unlimited supply of
nobles fit to be Cæsar’s colleagues. Besides, it blocked the road
to honour, it was difficult to find men of consular rank for the
consular provinces. More than all, it was unnecessary. Therefore in
order that he might not be molested with reproaches, he retired to his
Alban Villa, and sent a letter to the senate not only renouncing the
consulship, but suggesting as his successor a notorious republican, who
had fought for Brutus against him, and still honoured the memory of
Brutus as a martyr in the cause of liberty.
That this was another solemn farce, or rather another deep stroke of
statecraft, is quite clear. The senate replied by offering him the very
powers he needed to maintain his real position unimpaired. The consular
power over the provinces was continued without any new enactment as
“proconsular.” He received certain additional powers inherent in the
tribunate, and henceforth dates his years of rule not by consulships,
but years of tribunician power. His imperium over the provinces was
defined as “superior” to that of other magistrates, and he received the
special right which belonged to the consuls of proposing a motion at
any meeting of the senate. Practically, then, he was relieved of some
tiresome duties, his position was made to look more republican, and at
the same time he had increased rather than diminished his authority.
By this time the principate had taken its permanent form. Its powers
vary considerably with the varying force of the individual emperors,
and it tends by mere prescription as well as by the development of an
administrative hierarchy of officials to grow more absolute as the
years advance. But constitutionally very little change was made in the
course of the next three centuries. It always remained a compromise,
and something of illegitimacy always clung to it. From time to time
the senate actually remembered that it was a governing council. It had
always to be reckoned with. As for the comitia of the Populus Romanus,
they continued to exist both for legislation and elections as long as
Augustus was alive. But in reality the princeps had taken the place
of the people in the government of Rome. Tiberius, the next successor
of Augustus, suppressed the comitia as unnecessary, and though once
or twice in later times an antiquarian emperor might get a plebiscite
passed for the sake of old times, the Populus Romanus was extinct. It
perished without a groan.
The personality of a monarch had been thrust almost surreptitiously
into the frame of a republican constitution. Skilfully as it had been
done, the illegitimacy of the proceedings entailed certain awkward
consequences. There could be no open talk of a succession. Thus when
Augustus recovered from his grave illness in 23 B.C. he offered to read
his will to the senate to prove that he had nominated no successor.
On the contrary, he had formally handed to Piso, the other consul, a
written statement of the disposition of the forces and the moneys in
the treasury. That was true enough, but he had handed his signet ring,
the ring by virtue of which Mæcenas had governed Rome for ten years,
to Agrippa, the man who would certainly have taken his place if he
had died at that time. In reality there is little doubt that in his
own mind Augustus had planned to make young Marcellus, the brilliant
child of his beloved sister Octavia, his heir and successor. That
this ultimate intention was plain to Agrippa when Cæsar recovered
is shown by Agrippa’s sulky retirement into private life. Although
Augustus could not directly or legally nominate a successor, he could
train a young prince for the succession, and in his own lifetime raise
him to such a point of honour that he would naturally step into the
vacant place. The newly born Empire had the great good fortune that
Augustus, in spite of his feeble health, lived to a ripe age and held
the principate for forty-one years. But it had the misfortune to be
governed by a sterile race. Not for a hundred years until Titus, did
a son succeed his father. Augustus had nephews, stepchildren, and
grandchildren, but he had only one child by his three wives, and she
was the immoral Julia. All his life long he was vexed with tiresome
dynastic problems, and each youth whom he selected for his successor
seemed to be destined to a premature death. At the last he was driven
sorely against his will to nominate his stepson Tiberius. This fact
is mentioned here because it is surely a vital fact in determining
the future of the principate. If each of the first half-dozen holders
of that office had been surrounded by a blooming family on the scale
of modern royalty, it is very likely that the principate would have
settled down quietly into a hereditary monarchy. As it was, the whole
system was upset by continual intrigues for the succession, often
leading to actual civil warfare. Thus the army and the prætorian guard
came to acquire its fatal domination over Roman politics.
THE SENATE
For all his moderation Augustus had successfully gathered all the
strings of policy into his own hands. In his three revisions of the
senate-list he succeeded in securing a body absolutely subservient
to his wishes, and the only trouble it caused him was by its excess
of zeal for his dignity. As a rule it merely registered his decrees,
conferred honours on the kinsmen he delighted to honour, and sometimes
shouldered the responsibility for an unpopular proposal. It was to
some extent a safety-valve for the expression of public opinion, but
the more tyrannical emperors (and Augustus undoubtedly became more
absolute as his system developed) kept a very tight hand upon it. When
an embassy came from an independent foreign power, such as Parthia,
it went first to a powerful senator, just as in republican days to
seek a _patronus_ or champion. Now that champion was, of course,
none other than the princeps. By him the ambassadors were introduced
to the senate, who heard their case and deliberated upon it. As of
old, they would necessarily entrust the settlement of the matter to
a commissioner chosen from their own body. Again, the commissioner
was of course the princeps. The senate sometimes undertook state
impeachments as a high court of justice, but now it was only Cæsar’s
enemies whom they impeached, and in one case--that of the prefect of
Egypt--they displayed an excess of zeal in Cæsar’s cause which brought
down a rebuke upon their heads. The senate was used often as a medium
of publication. Cæsar would go down to the house and read a speech to
them when he intended to reach a wider public. When he was abroad, he
would send regular reports and despatches to them. Cæsar, like all
Roman magistrates, had his consilium or board of advisers. This was now
organised to consist of so many representative senators, who sat in
conjunction with the young princes of the imperial house, and any other
important people whom Cæsar might select for his privy council. Towards
the end, when Augustus grew old and infirm, a committee of senators
sitting in the palace was competent to transact business. But as a
rule he was very careful to respect the senatorial traditions. Decrees
of the senate and laws were passed with all the old formalities, but
now they were all in reality Cæsar’s laws and Cæsar’s decrees. On the
whole, however, we may well believe that the senate’s decline into
impotence was largely its own fault. So far as the records show, the
Augustan senate never displayed the least trace of spirit or, if that
is too much to expect, even of initiative or efficiency. There was
grumbling and a little feeble plotting, but if the senate had chosen to
take Augustus at his word whenever he spoke of abdication, they might
easily have recovered real power, though indeed they could not have
done without a princeps. For one thing the mob would not have suffered
it. Cæsar was, and remained, the patron of the inarticulate commons,
and that was not only the origin of the principate but the main support
of its power throughout. When we speak of unpopular emperors such
as Nero or Domitian we generally mean only that they were unpopular
with the notables of the senate. If they failed to retain the regard
of the common people and the common soldiers their reigns speedily
came to an end. Cæsar’s pretended abdication in 23 B.C. was shortly
afterwards followed by a famine at Rome and the populace besieged
the senate-house, threatening it with fire unless fresh powers were
conferred upon their champion.
German historians have invented the term Dyarchy to describe the
balance of power between Cæsar and senate. The government of Rome had
always been to some extent a Dyarchy of senate and people as its title
shows--“Senatus Populusque Romanus.” In many respects the princeps
had taken the place of the people. But such a description loses
sight of reality. You cannot in this whole period show an army set
in motion by a senatorial governor without authority from Augustus,
save in the single case of M. Primus when it was instantly followed
by a prosecution; nor a single tax imposed, nor a law so much as
proposed without Cæsar’s authority, nor a candidate elected without
his concurrence, nor a treaty made otherwise than in accordance with
his suggestion. The true relation between them is practically that of
a monarch and his council. Three times Cæsar revised the roll of the
senate, reducing it from over one thousand members to six hundred,
and for all his tact and ingenuity arousing the fiercest resentment.
There were violent scenes in the house, Augustus wore a shirt of mail,
and went accompanied by ten stalwart senators. It is clear that he
was purging the house of his opponents just as Cromwell did. On other
occasions he would present his friends with the amount of property
needed to complete their qualification for the senate. Thus it is no
exaggeration to call the senate his council of state. If it is objected
that the senate still governed rich and important provinces, that is
more apparent than true. No longer did the governor of a senatorial
province go out girt with the sword that signifies _imperium_ or
wearing the military cloak. Now he goes in his toga as a mere civilian
functionary. That little change must have been bitterly galling to the
proud aristocracy. Augustus had persuaded them to pass an ordinance
forbidding them to go abroad without his permission. He made them fine
their members for non-attendence, and it is highly significant that it
was difficult to keep a quorum of the senate for public business. He
chose his own order for asking their opinions and thus promoted them
in honour or degraded them as he pleased. It was mainly the poor and
unimportant provinces which had fallen to their share. Asia was the
richest and most important, but almost throughout the period there
is some scion of the imperial house with a general control over the
affairs of the East. There is an inscription in Cyprus which proves
that even when that island was under senatorial government a proconsul
was sent out “by the authority of Cæsar and a decree of the senate” to
restore order. Finally by the end of the reign the senate had become
so feeble and unreal that twenty of its members sitting in Cæsar’s
house were able to pass decrees which had the full validity of the old
sovereign council of Rome.
These considerations are enough to prove that Monarchy is the only term
which can properly describe the real nature of the new government.
Nevertheless, here as elsewhere in this system of compromise and
half-way houses, we must walk warily between two fallacies. The senate
is there and will always be there. When Constantine made a new Rome he
made a new senate. As we study the subsequent progress of the Empire
we shall sometimes find the senate really supreme. It chose Galba and
Nerva. It dared to depose Maximin. It really governed through Tacitus
and Probus. It was its constant aim to get its members declared immune
from prosecution and sometimes it succeeded; but more often it served
as a whipping-stock when Cæsar was in a bad temper. Only in this sense
is there any meaning in the term Dyarchy: if we take the whole period
of the principate from Augustus to Diocletian there is some trace
of equilibrium, faint though it be. And we must not fall into the
error of despising the letter of a constitution for the sake of its
spirit. Though a king of England never refuses a bill in practice, it
nevertheless remains important that he may. The letter is always there
for reference, if not for use, and the spirit is always liable to be
brought up for trial before it. The practice depends upon personal
forces which are transitory, the theory is always there awaiting its
opportunity.
THE PEOPLE AND THE MAGISTRATES
Nevertheless, if it is to the letter of the constitution that one
appeals, we must not forget the existence of a third element in the
constitution of Augustus--the People. As we have seen, the plebiscite
and the lex still passed formally through the comitia. The plebiscite
had of late republican years become a weapon of opposition to the
senate. Yet even under Augustus we can point to a few measures passed
in this form. None were of much importance--one was merely the
conferring of the new title of “Father of his Country” upon Cæsar.
Another concerned aqueducts. The judicial functions of the populus were
entirely abrogated by Augustus, and there only remained that which,
after all, had always been its most important function, the elections.
Popular election in the comitia was still under Augustus, the only path
to the senate and the magistracies. It is true that the magistracies
had all paled into insignificance before the new and mighty office of
the princeps. For this reason, perhaps, Augustus did not deprive them
of what they regarded not only as an ancient right, but still more as a
source of income. Here also there might have been effective opposition.
The populus might have returned to office, and so to the senate, a
series of champions of freedom. But except Egnatius Rufus, there were
no such champions. The patron of the people, the man whose munificence
fed them and gave them the shows they lived for, was Cæsar. No one
could bribe against his purse. He had, moreover, two direct methods
of securing the return of his nominees. In virtue of his tribunician
powers he had the right to draw up the list of candidates, and in the
second place it had always been the practice for candidates to put
forward the names of their principal supporters. Augustus in his early
days of strict deference to constitutional etiquette used to go down to
the forum and personally canvass for his friends, afterwards, however,
he reverted to the brusquer methods of Julius, and merely issued a
fly-sheet to the electors bearing the names of his nominees. Thus the
elections became more and more a form, and Tiberius transferred them
to the senate without arousing much opposition. In the whole period of
Augustus we have only one instance of his failure to pass a law which
he desired and then it was due to the organised opposition of the
knights who demanded its rejection publicly in the theatre.
The equestrian order still remained the stronghold of the wealthy
bourgeoisie. Owing to their wealth and their want of political
recognition, they had always been somewhat of a danger to the
republican constitution. It is typical of the skilful statesmanship of
Augustus that he saw this and provided an honourable outlet for their
ambitions as well as utilising their services on behalf of the state.
He had begun his period of rule by putting a mere _eques_ into the seat
of the Ptolemies as his prefect of Egypt. Subsequently the imperial
legates and procurators who administered the imperial provinces for
him were often chosen from this order. In finance he made great use
of them, and along with a certain number of clever Greek freedmen they
filled the greater part of the new bureaucracy which he gradually
created. Mæcenas himself, who was probably at the head of the whole
great system, and who acted almost as prime minister to Augustus
until he fell out of favour, was content with equestrian rank. Social
honours such as rich men love were freely bestowed upon them. The young
princes of the imperial house rode at the head of the knights with
silver lances as “Princes of the Youth.” Sometimes Augustus treated the
equestrian order as if it were a third limb of the constitution on an
equality with the senate and people.
Thus it was part of the system of Augustus to provide careers for
talent in every class. Even the slaves and freedmen had immense
opportunities in Cæsar’s bureaux. For the freedmen in the country
towns, where they were often the richest inhabitants, he invented the
special titular distinction of “Augustals,” their principal duty being
to give dinners and festivals in his honour, precisely the sort of duty
to flatter their pride without doing any harm.
As for the ancient magistracies of the Roman people, while they were
strictly preserved, they were utterly disarmed. Consulships remain
important only as leading to a subsequent proconsulship over a
province. The prætors still sat in their courts of justice but really
important cases came up to Cæsar on appeal. The tribunes were of no
account beside their mighty colleague. Magistracies were bestowed as
marks of imperial favour. Often there would be two or three successive
consuls in a single year. Cæsar himself would sometimes deign to take
a consulship when he wished to honour a colleague or a relative. Here
again, however, the impotence of the magistracies was very largely due
to the intellectual bankruptcy of the Roman nobility. They could not
perform the simplest task such as the charge of the corn-supply without
bungling and requiring the assistance of Cæsar. But on one occasion
when a certain ædile organised a fire-brigade of his own and became
very zealous in extinguishing fires, he received a hint that his zeal
was unwelcome in the highest quarters. Thus the magistracies declined
little by little into mere decorations, or became once more what they
had been in the beginning, municipal officers for the city of Rome.
But even there they were superseded by the organising activity of the
princeps. He resuscitated the ancient office of city prefect and put
him in charge of the new police and the new fire-brigade while two
other new prefects commanded the prætorian guards. These two officers
soon began to overshadow the old magistracies.
ARMY AND TREASURY
Dio Cassius rightly asserts that the real power of Augustus rested
upon two things--the control of the army and of the finances. We have
already seen that in the so-called abdications of Augustus there was
no surrender of these and no suggestion of their surrender. In view
of the present tendency among historians to attach real importance to
the restoration of the Republic in 27 B.C. and again in 23 B.C. it is
all the more important to remember that the twenty-three legions which
with their auxiliaries and reserves formed the entire military force
of the Roman Empire took their oath solely to Augustus and were with
one exception stationed exclusively in his provinces, fought under
his auspices and took their orders from no other but Cæsar and his
legates. Beyond these he had a prætorian corps of 9000 men in permanent
cantonments within striking distance of Rome, as well as a drilled
bodyguard of slaves in his own house. In view of these facts it is
absurd to limit our conception of the power of Cæsar to a survey of
the constitutional offices which he held. It is only in the language
of lawyers and pedants that his authority rested upon consular and
tribunician powers. Everybody knew that a letter sealed with Cæsar’s
sphinx was backed by the swords of 140,000 legionaries. The military
situation of Augustus is therefore of the utmost importance.
Augustus was, as we have seen, a statesman and not a soldier. The
stories of his cowardice, repeated by Suetonius, are confessedly
drawn from the venomous letters of his enemy, Antony. Augustus had
emerged successfully through five civil wars, had crossed tempestuous
seas in small boats, had faced mutinous armies and every sort of
hardship. But all his instincts were for peace and statecraft. We have
seen that it was the need of a standing army at Rome which led to the
need of permanent generals, and this to the downfall of the old Roman
constitution. When Cæsar built his throne on the ruins of the Republic
the plain fact was that the general had become monarch. Thus, in spite
of the fact that Augustus was not of a military character, and in spite
of all his efforts to prevent it, the monarchy of the Roman Empire was
eventually revealed as a military despotism. It was the irony of fate
that such a man as Augustus should have founded such a monarchy.
But for the present the ugly fact that the army had bestowed the purple
was decently concealed. Augustus from the very beginning of his power
did his best to reduce the military element in the state. During the
civil wars, and indeed for fifty years before they began, the troops
had made and unmade consuls, there had been constant mutinies and
blackmail in the army. Cæsar’s own first consulship had been obtained
in this way. A centurion had marched into the senate-house and cried,
“If you will not make him consul, _this_”--and he tapped the hilt of
his sword--“this shall.” But now the older discipline was revived.
Agrippa in particular was a stern disciplinarian of the old school.
The soldiers were flattered no longer. No more legionary coins were
issued. For an honour a legion was allowed to call itself Augusta, for
a punishment the title was revoked. The highest military distinction,
the triumph, was gradually reserved for the princeps and the members
of his house alone. Even when the title of Imperator was earned by a
victorious general it was transferred to him. But it was his aim to
see that no private citizen should have the opportunity of securing
the high military honours. Agrippa might have been dangerous and
accordingly he was brought into the family by marriage with Cæsar’s
daughter. But for the rest the conduct of important operations was
almost always confided to one of the young princes--to Tiberius, or
Drusus, or Germanicus. And they were always victorious. When Quintilius
Varus, a general of humbler birth, was allowed to lead a great army
he conveniently pointed the moral by a signal failure. No senatorial
governor might now levy troops or declare war on his own account.
The only hand that the senate still had in military affairs was that
a “senatus consultum” was generally asked for a new levy of troops.
This was probably because it concerned the state treasury, but partly
also because it served to shift an unpleasant responsibility off the
shoulders of the princeps. It is not likely that Augustus had forgone
the right to levy.