EMPIRE IS PEACE
“Then battles o’er the world shall cease,
Harsh times shall mellow into peace:
Then Vesta, Faith, Quirinus, joined
With brother Remus rule mankind:
Grim iron bolt and massy bar
Shall close the dreadful gates of War.”--VIRGIL.
[Sidenote: [30 B.C.-14 A.D.]]
Peace was the price for which Rome consented to the supremacy of
Augustus; his successors, too, really followed a policy of peace. There
was not a complete absence of conquests either in the reign of Augustus
or of those who came after him, as for instance Trajan. But these
predatory wars were chiefly directed to the defence and protection of
the older possessions. If we compare the conquests of the republic in
five centuries with those of the empire in four we shall clearly see how
the republic hastened from one conquest to another, while the object of
the empire was to preserve and fortify itself. “Empire is peace”--this
watchword, so often abused, was truly expressive of the work of Augustus
in battles both at home and abroad.
Cæsar had made war of necessity. His was not the nature of the warrior
prince; on the contrary it was as the prince of peace that he loved
to be celebrated. When the civil war had come to an end the army was
considerably reduced and the superfluous legions were simply discharged.
Cæsar had often suffered, and others had suffered more than he, from the
insolence and unbridled passions of an army which felt itself master of
the situation; the termination of the civil wars was to put an end to
all this. From henceforward he no more addressed his troops as comrades
but simply as soldiers, and allowed the princes of his house to use no
other manner of address. The bodyguard of foreign mercenaries hitherto
maintained by him was discharged and replaced by home troops.
The joy at the termination of the civil wars was universal and in nearly
every case genuine. Exceptional circumstances and wars at home as well as
abroad had gone to make up the history of the past twenty years; during
this time a generation had grown up whose only knowledge of lasting peace
was derived from hearsay, as if from the all but silent notes of some
legend sung in a better day now long past. Those who within the last
decade had saved or won anything were eager to rejoice in it. All panted
for peace, with no less sincerity than exhausted Europe after the wars
between 1790 and 1815, and all were ready to greet as lord of the world
the victor who should restore this golden age.
This general yearning for peace found expression in the shutting of
the doors of Janus, which was decreed by the senate in order to give a
visible proof that the period of war was at an end (_Æneid_ VII, 607):
“Two gates there stand of War--’twas so
Our fathers named them long ago--
The war god’s terrors round them spread
An atmosphere of sacred dread.
A hundred bolts the entrance guard,
And Janus there keeps watch and ward.”
Any one who chanced to be in France when the Prussian War closed and
heard the bells ringing out peace from the church towers will not easily
underrate the impressiveness of this symbolism.
Cæsar indeed attached all the greater importance to the decree of the
senate ordering the doors of Janus to be shut, in that the senate had
rarely gone to such lengths. Two centuries had passed since the last
occasion in which the temple of Janus was closed. When the First Punic
War with all its losses and changing fortunes had finally been concluded
to the advantage of Rome, exhausted as she was, she had yet joyfully
permitted the performance of these ancient ceremonies which were supposed
to date back to King Numa. To this precedent the senate had recourse when
in 29 B.C. it ordered the closing of the temple of Janus. The proceeding
would have been most impressive had the threefold triumph been terminated
with this symbol of peace. This, however, was not in the power of the
senate to grant, for its decree had probably been passed at the beginning
of the year; there was danger in delay, for the sudden outbreak of a
border war or a rebellion might make its performance impossible.
To be accurate we must admit that there was not an absolute cessation
of warfare; for the Romans had still to contend with the natives on the
German border and in Spain at a time like this in which all resistance
had to be broken. But little account was made of such trifles, so great
was the promise expected from the impression that the closing of the
temple of Janus would create.
Even Cicero, so tell the later accounts at all events, seems to have
recognised in the young Caius Octavius, who had been born during his
consulate, the man who would put an end to the civil wars; later on, when
the Sicilian war had been concluded, a statue was reared to Cæsar with an
inscription to him as prince of peace; now at last after the battle of
Actium the dream was to turn into reality. What was so yearningly hoped
for was pointed out in the premonitions of the gods; even the trophies
of victory turned into weapons for peace. Bees made their nests in the
trophies taken at the battle of Actium (_Anthol. Palat._ VI, 236):
“Here brazen beaks, the galley’s harness, lie,
Trophies of Actium’s famed victory,
But bees have built within the hollow arms,
With honey filled, and blithe with buzzing swarms;
Emblem of Cæsar’s sway, that, calm and wise,
Culls fruits of peace from arms of enemies.”
The whole world was refreshed, and breathed as if a great load had been
lifted from its shoulders. The Asiatic towns in particular offered thanks
to the peace-bringer in their inflated hyperbolical fashion which was
nevertheless genuine and heartfelt. Halicarnassus celebrated him as
“father of the fatherland,” and as “saviour of the whole race of man,
whose wisdom has not only satisfied but also exceeded the prayers of
all; for peace reigns over land and water, and the states flourish in
righteousness, harmony, and well-being. All the good waxes full ripe and
turns to fruit.” In a decree of the town Apamea we read that Cæsar was
born for the salvation of the whole world; so his birthday may rightly be
termed the beginning of life and of existence.
We may see how general and how hearty was the rejoicing over the
restoration of peace throughout the world from the fact that Pax and
Irene now became names not only of slaves and freedmen of the imperial
house, but also of members of other distinguished families. From the
agnomen Pax was even formed a surname Paxsæus.
Trade and industry revived and prosperity increased from the time when
the armed peace and the civil wars had come to an end. The whole earth in
all its compass experienced once more, after long distress, the blessings
of enduring peace, and did honour to the prince of peace, conveying
thanks for this new fortune by the erection of temples and altars to the
glory of the imperial peace. On the Greek and Latin coins of this period
too we see the goddess of peace; in Asia Minor for example on the coins
of Cos and Nicomedia. Even the veterans of the emperor stamped on their
colonial coins PA--CIS with the picture of the goddess of peace bearing
the features of Livia or Julia. On other coins the emperor is celebrated
both as prince of peace and of liberty; the later ones speak even of an
eternal peace. One of the Spanish veteran colonies introduced even the
name of Pax Julia; on their coins we see enthroned a fully draped female
figure holding a horn of plenty in her left hand and a herald’s staff in
her right.
This official worship of peace was continued throughout the whole reign
of the emperor. One of the greatest honours devised by the senate and
accepted by the emperor was the state-directed dedication of an altar
of peace in the year 13 B.C. To-day we may still see on fine reliefs of
the time of Augustus the group of peoples, in garments of ceremony and
crowned with laurels, confronting the ruler on his return home. These
provide us with the best picture of the national scenes in the streets of
the capital when men were expecting the triple triumph of Cæsar.
“To thy blest altar, Peace, our song must tend
This day, the second ere the month will end;
Come, crowned with laurels from the Actian Bay,
And mildly deign here to prolong thy stay.
Without a foe we for no triumphs care,
Thou to our chiefs more glorious art than war.”
COMPARISON BETWEEN AUGUSTUS AND NAPOLEON III
Altogether there is a striking resemblance between these two rulers and
their times, although Napoleon III cannot be compared with Augustus so
far as their offices are concerned. On their first appearance on the
scene both were underrated by their opponents and laughed at on account
of their youth or their lack of understanding: Cicero joked about “the
boy”; Victor Hugo mocked at Napoleon the little. Both lived in periods
when their nation was stirred to the innermost depths by civil war and
revolution, in the confusion of which practically all landed property
had changed owners; in Italy through the proscriptions of the triumvirs
and the distribution of land to the veterans, in France through the
confiscation of the property of the clergy, through the sale of estates
of the nobility, combined with the mismanagement of the _assignats_ in
the first revolution, while there was fear of fresh changes through some
future social revolution.
The man who offered present occupiers guarantees for their occupation and
against the return of the previous confusion was honoured as the saviour
of society; upon him the nation poured its thanks for the economic
revival of the country and for increasing well-being during a long
succession of peaceful years.
Upon this firm basis was reared the throne of the new rulers, neither
of whom claimed to be a legitimate monarch. Both had with more or less
right acquired a dictatorial power which they understood how to wield
throughout many years, until at length a moment came when they made up
their minds to a partial renunciation of authority. This was the critical
moment that decided the fate of the rulers and their work, for everything
depended on the choice of the moment and the extent of the concessions.
Here the penetrating vision and the statesmanlike ability of Augustus are
seen to surpassing advantage, while Napoleon, who only made up his mind
after long hesitation, took his hand from the tiller reluctantly, only
to see very speedily with what scant success his ship battled against
the overpowering torrent and was driven helplessly nearer and nearer the
destruction that threatened it.
The rule of Augustus as well as that of Napoleon III was a tyranny in
the good sense of the word; neither the one nor the other lacked the
drop of democratic oil with which the ruler was anointed. Both wanted
to be assured that their high place was secure only because of its
necessity to the state. Again and again Augustus restored his power (to
all appearances at least) to the senate, to receive it again, but only
for a definite number of years; and even in the case of Napoleon III, it
was a polite official fiction that his power had been delegated to him by
the nation in the first year of his reign and was even in his last year
confirmed by a plebiscite.
If they challenged a crisis of this kind, both held the reins of
government firmly in their hands, nor did any one seriously believe that
they would have allowed this power to be wrested from them by a vote
unfavourable to them. That the Roman senate and the French people were
repeatedly confronted with this crisis, shows clearly what value those
rulers attached to this right. Both rulers had thrust aside the higher
classes of society which had hitherto guided the state in its course, in
order to derive their support from the broad masses of the lower classes
and the army. The immense presents made by Augustus to his soldiers and
to the population of his chief town prove that in the well-being and
content of this very class he rightly recognised the real support of his
institutions. In similar fashion Napoleon III took pre-eminent care for
the material welfare of France, which reached an unprecedented level
under his rule.
Neither ruler confined his liberality to what was absolutely necessary;
they also lent support to art and science in remarkable ways.
Architecture is an art for monarchs, and architecture was the art of
Augustus and of Napoleon III. Modern Paris is really the work of Napoleon
III, and so, too, it was the boast of Augustus that he had taken over
Rome a city of bricks but had left it a city of marble. In the literary
efforts of their times both rulers took at least the share of dilettanti.
Each of them, in order to neglect no part of his inheritance, not only
collected the literary relics of his uncle but also defended in writing
his actions as emperor. Without mentioning the smaller literary essays
of either, we may note that Augustus sought to defend himself in his
memoirs, while Napoleon III in his history of Julius Cæsar sought far
less to write the history of Cæsar than to defend the principle of
Cæsarism.
[Illustration: A ROMAN TRIPOD]
The worship of the uncle to whose popularity they owed the crown--in
the one case the worship of the dictator, in the other that of Napoleon
I--impresses its character on the reign of both rulers. In particular,
the military glory of these two great generals was exploited by their
nephews in a variety of ways. Neither Augustus nor Napoleon III were
really soldiers; but they needed for their rule a powerful effective
army, which they would have found far greater difficulty in bending to
their ends had they not had the memories of a great past to help them.
Both succeeded in creating a fighting army, the pride of the nation,
which they knew how to use when it was really necessary, but without
taking any real pleasure in fighting and hazard, such as was felt by
Julius Cæsar and Napoleon I. The successes they loved best were not
those won in war but those due to threats of war and to diplomacy. The
war against the Parthians, the hereditary foes of Rome, was certainly a
portion of the legacy left by the dictator; but Augustus hesitated long
before beginning this really dangerous war, until good fortune played the
lost standards into his hands. Military honour was hereby satisfied and
the noisy rejoicing of his fellow-soldiers now relieved him of the duty
of making war upon the redoubtable enemy.
In the same way Napoleon III loved to increase his reputation in Europe
and in his army by conducting wars which, even if they ended badly, could
not shake his throne nor France itself. A war over the boundaries of the
Rhine was as popular in France as a Parthian war under Augustus, but
also as dangerous. For this reason Napoleon III made several attempts to
attain the fruits of such a war by peaceable means and only proceeded
to a declaration of war when he had convinced himself that there was no
prospect of success in such attempts.
In a word, then as now the statesman succeeded the general, the prince
of peace the warrior prince, nor did the former despise military glory;
only he preferred to decorate himself with the laurels plucked from his
uncle’s wreath. Augustus, no less than Napoleon III, reckoned it as of
the very essence of the services he did to the world that he had put an
end to the period of warfare at home and abroad. Just as Napoleon III,
in the character of saviour of society, pronounced the dictum,“_L’Empire
c’est la paix_,” so Augustus caused himself to be celebrated as the
restorer of order and liberty, whose privilege it was thrice to shut the
doors of Janus and to inaugurate a new era of things.
Neither was a man of genius, both were practical and astute to no common
degree; they were cool political calculators who had early learned to
conduct their own policies and to judge all circumstances from the
practical point of view. If they sought an end they did not shrink
from the means to accomplish it; as a parallel to the misdeeds of the
triumvirs we have every right to quote the measures under Napoleon III by
which the president was raised to an emperor. Later in their career both
avoided acts of violence as far as possible, and in the face of outspoken
public opinion, the symptoms of which they studied zealously, both made
concessions even in the teeth of their own better convictions, for they
were astute enough to know that their supremacy could not depend on might
alone.
Possessed as they were of power they sought also to conciliate and
fortify the conservative elements of the state. Those who bore old and
famous names were treated with just such a preference in the bestowal
of external honours by Augustus as in later times by Napoleon, whose
endeavour was to adorn his new imperial nobility with the fairest names
of old feudal France.
As he succeeded in reconciling the old nobility to some extent with the
new order of things, so Napoleon understood how to conclude peace with
the church, a peace which he bought and preserved at considerable cost.
In a similar way Augustus, who took upon himself the dignity of a high
priest, attempted to reanimate national traditions and the religion of
the past and to reorganise the priesthoods.
The similarity of the two rulers is obvious and has been frequently
referred to. That it should until now have been less recognised than
it ought, is, perhaps, due to the fact that the characters of the
two were after all fundamentally different. One might almost say the
similarity lay in the circumstances of the times, the dissimilarity in
the characters of the persons; and the more we harp on the former the
clearer appears the latter. Napoleon remained all his life what Augustus
never was, a dreamer and a conspirator. According to the version of De
Tocqueville, Napoleon knew no hard and fast boundary between dreaming
and thinking; this may have been the result of his moping youth with its
conspiracies, his imprisonment, and his fantastic designs which never
were realised but by the most extraordinary strokes of luck. Augustus, on
the other hand, never had time to devote to dreamy imaginings. When he
was still almost a boy, he had thrown himself on his own initiative into
the struggle of parties, and from the beginning he had to summon all the
powers of his mind to aid him in the struggle against opponents maturer
than himself; so it is that later when power was his he never dreamed
but always thought. Moreover, Augustus was never a conspirator. He
obtained power early and wielded it recklessly. He both loathed and found
superfluous that covert toying with designs and intrigues which shunned
the public eye until they suddenly burst into publicity with éclat, such
as Napoleon loved.
Augustus enjoyed the great advantage of still being teachable when he
came into the actual possession of power, and of being formed into a
statesman by the circumstances themselves; Napoleon, on the other hand,
was much older when he came to the throne; in his best years he was
forging schemes to attain an apparently unattainable goal. He was laughed
at as a nurser of fancies until he became emperor; small wonder then that
the emperor’s plans remained fanciful and singular and that, as a ruler,
he lacked the gift which distinguished Augustus in so high a degree--the
gift of judging soberly what was attainable, or what was necessary. As
emperor, Napoleon could never quite forget the adventurous designs of his
youth. Place at the disposal of such a man the whole machinery of power
in modern France, and perhaps he will be able to carry out plans that a
careful observer would pronounce to be impossible of execution, but the
reaction is bound to come, and it did not fail to do so here.
It is true that there were greater difficulties in reorganising France
than Augustus encountered, so that the position of Augustus was more
favourable and more secure. In spite of his confident address Napoleon
felt his weakness, and upon him lay the burden of justifying himself by
success that was externally visible; his object was to surprise and to
dazzle his people, or at the very least to keep them occupied, and he was
thus misled into taking many a false and many a critical step which a
true statesman, like Augustus, would have at once condemned.
But all his internal mistakes and difficulties were not enough to upset
the second empire. The catastrophe was brought about by Napoleon having
an enemy from outside, an enemy far more formidable than those outside
enemies who might have declared war upon Augustus. Napoleon fully
realised the danger that threatened him from this quarter; yet he was
helplessly engulfed in the whirlpool that was destined to swallow him and
his work with him.
From the point of view of the world’s history, then, Augustus appears as
a far greater figure than Napoleon III. Antiquity spoke, we speak yet
to-day, of the Age of Augustus with reason, and this is an honour that
weighs more than the name of Great; a man gives his name to his time
only when he has really stamped that time with his image, opening up new
roads, not only to his own nation but to the history of his time. Such
an honour then implies permanent achievement in the widest sense; no
impartial historian, then, will ever speak of the Age of Napoleon III.
The French Empire was shattered while its founder was yet alive, and
when it fell, its inner hollowness, its rotten foundations, lay exposed,
so that the whole appeared no more than an adventurous episode in
the history of France. The work of Augustus, on the other hand, was
indispensable to the world’s history; it outlived its founder, and lasted
with some modification to the end of antiquity. Succeeding generations
saw in Augustus the ideal prince, and hailed each newly chosen emperor
with the invocation: “Be thou happier than Augustus, better than Trajan.”
THE ROMAN EMPIRE COMPARED WITH MODERN ENGLAND
Of all the empires of later times Great Britain is the only one that
can really be compared with the Roman Empire, for its constitution
has been developed in quite a different way from that of continental
states, and has preserved a much greater diversity by reason of that
conservative spirit which the English share with the Romans. True, in
our own century much has changed; for the old aristocratic England has
become democratised; many a resemblance of England to the Roman Empire,
which even to-day may be detected, appears in a much clearer light if we
cast our glance back to the conditions of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
This is the case, for instance, with the position of parliament. As the
ancient state recognised in theory a diarchia of the emperor and the
senate, so, too, the English parliament at the close of the seventeenth
century ranged itself, at least for all practical purposes, on the side
of the sovereign power; and it was only a jealous watchfulness lest the
power of the chief ruler might become too great, that saved the English
parliament from the fate of the Roman senate. The critical battle
between the two constitutional powers was fought at the end of the
seventeenth century, when William of Orange, like Augustus in ancient
Rome before him, made an attempt to dovetail a standing army into the
frame of the constitution. But the English parliament resisted every
attempt in this direction with stubborn obstinacy. Moreover the powerful
nobility at home, and the energetic merchants and officials spread all
over the world, correspond in the England of to-day to the aristocrats,
the merchants and the officials of ancient Rome, just as great wealth on
the one side is conditional with great poverty on the other.
The _latifundia_ of ancient Italy may in dimensions have been about equal
to the gross landed estates of the English aristocracy, but with slaves
to work them in antiquity they had a far more desolating effect, even
though we must admit that owing to the villas and parks laid out for the
great in England, a portion of the free peasantry are thrust out of their
plot of ground and England has had to turn for the means of life, etc.,
to the foreigner.
[Illustration: ROMAN MATRON
(From a statue in the Capitol)]
Also the difference of political rights between the full citizen with
full rights and the slave without any rights at all was as marked in
England a hundred years ago as it was in Rome. The relations between the
Roman and the Latin citizens might then have justly borne comparison with
the conflicting elements furnished by Englishmen and Scotchmen, which
to-day are ever growing less and less; but even to-day the Irish on the
one hand, with their reluctance to obey, and the English colonies on
the other, with their successful diffusion of the English language and
English national feeling abroad, reflect most faithfully the picture of
ancient Rome.
But above all, England belongs to the few modern states which still
possess provinces in the antique sense of the word. The constitution
of modern India, with its multiform variety, is the only one of
our time that may be set side by side with the constitution of the
subject territories of the Romans. In India, as in the latter, the
contrasts--religious, ethnographical, and social--are great and very
often immediate; by the side of an old and highly developed civilisation
we find the simplest conditions of mountain or fisher folk, over whose
heads a history of a thousand years has passed without leaving a trace.
Again, the political situation of single portions of the country is
as multiform as possible: Ceylon, for example, with its separate
administration and its separate rights, forms a part of England, while
the main continent is only directly or indirectly governed by English
officials; its constitution, as in the ancient Roman Empire, defies
juristic or political definition in a variety of ways. Only one portion
of the country is directly subject to its foreign conquerors; in all
the others has been preserved--often to the good luck of the nation--a
remnant of the earlier national independence.
As in ancient Rome, England to-day allows the existence of native
princes, great and small, who lighten for her the burden of rule and
administration; and she permits them to tyrannise over their subjects
and extort treasure from them if they fail in their duty to the empire,
just as did the sultans of previous centuries. The real power is, for
all this, in the hands of the English resident who is set to watch over
them. If the evils of local misrule become too great, or the times are
ripe for annexation, a stroke of the pen is enough to do away with
the whole majesty of a local prince. England is not wont to meet with
serious resistance in such a case, any more than did the Romans when they
declared that any particular one of their tributary princes had ceased to
reign.
Again, the position of the ruling nation in the very midst of the ruled
is, in modern times, just what it was in the days of antiquity. The man
who goes to India, whether as a merchant, an official, or a soldier, does
so with the fixed intention of returning home as soon as his financial
position allows of his doing so. Considering the immense disparity in
numbers between rulers and ruled, the power of the single officials and
people in command must naturally be very considerable. The viceroy of
India may well be compared with a Roman proconsul; the range of his power
is great, but by a time limit it is sought to forestall an abuse of it.
Even after the reforms of Augustus, the means of control were inadequate
in ancient times, just as they were in England a century ago. To-day it
may be taken as the rule for the higher class of English officials to
return home from India with clean hands.
Whether this parallel between the Roman Empire of antiquity and the
England of to-day is to the credit of the latter or a subject for
reproach, whether it will endure, or whether the modern conditions will
develop on similar lines, are questions into which we have not here to
inquire; it is enough to have indicated the parallel phenomena in the two
great empires.[b]
THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION
The sanguinary civil wars with their appalling catastrophes had crippled
the might of Rome; the staunchest and most faithful champions of
republican principles lay mouldering on the coast of Thapsus or the plain
of Philippi; the free state that had erstwhile been called into being by
the elder Brutus had passed away--the reality on the day of Pharsalia,
the ideal through the desperate deed of the younger Brutus.
The struggle between democracy and monarchy had come to an end, political
passions were silenced, the existing generation yearned for peace and
quiet; the aristocrats that they might take their fill of the pleasures
and enjoyments placed at their command by ample means, by culture, art,
and learning, the multitude that they might pass the fleeting hours in
comfortable leisure, remote from political agitations and warlike toils,
their desires limited to the “bread and games” (panem et circenses) which
the ruling powers were sedulous to provide for them in liberal measure.
Under these circumstances it was not difficult for the adroit
Octavian--who combined great ability and capacity for rule with
gentleness, moderation, and perseverance, and was able to disguise his
fiery ambition and pride of place under the homely manners of a plain
citizen and a show of submission to law and traditional custom--to enter
fully upon the heritage of the great Cæsar and convert the republic
into a monarchy. But Octavian, warned by the tragic end of his adoptive
father, went very cautiously and circumspectly to work. Instead of
assuming all at once the fullness of royal power and dignity with which
Cæsar had been invested at the time of his death, his son followed
his example in the gradual absorption of a divided authority, and
thus retraced the slow and circuitous route which led, with pauses and
intervals, to absolute dominion. He so far yielded to the antiquated
prejudices of the people as to abstain from calling himself “king,” he
indignantly refused to be addressed by the title of “lord,” and would not
even accept the perpetual dictatorship. Nor did he try like Cæsar to gain
the insignia of royalty by indirect means; he retained the republican
names, forms, and magistracies, and was himself styled “Cæsar.” But he
so contrived that by degrees all offices and powers were conferred upon
him by the senate and the people, and thus concealed a monarchy under the
veil of the republic. He prized the substance, not the appearance, of
power. He willingly resigned the pomp of rule so long as he might rule
indeed.
AUGUSTUS NAMED IMPERATOR FOR LIFE
To preserve the figment of free election and voluntary delegation
of power, and to allow weaklings and obstinate republicans to blind
themselves to the true state of affairs, Octavian from time to time
went through the farce of a voluntary resignation of the supreme power
and a reconferment of it by the senate, a sham which passed on to his
immediate successors. It was first gone through in the case of the
important office of Imperator, originally a temporary appointment, which
Cæsar had charged with new meaning as the symbol of absolute military
authority. This title, which Octavian had long borne in the fullness of
meaning imparted to it by his imperial uncle, was conferred upon him
for life by the senate in the year 27, after a dissembling speech in
which he declared that he was willing to resign his high office into the
hands of the senate and retire into private life. He was then appointed
to the supreme command of all the military forces of the empire for the
term of his natural life and to the office of supreme governor of the
provinces which was associated with it. The limitation which he imposed
upon himself by promising that he would only undertake to hold this
high office for ten years and exercise proconsular sway only over those
provinces in which the presence of legionaries was required to maintain
order and tranquillity, and would leave the others, which were accustomed
to render obedience and were not menaced by enemies from without, to be
governed by the senate, was a mere blind; for in ten years it was certain
that his absolute rule would have struck such deep root that there
could be no further question of dismissal or resignation, and--since no
province whether near or far from the capital could altogether dispense
with garrisons, and all officers and subordinate commanders were under
the commander-in-chief--all governorships were under the control of the
imperial proconsul.
Thus the entire dominion of Rome was “encompassed with the net of his
military authority”; all victories and conquests were ascribed to Cæsar,
and he alone henceforth was entitled to Triumphs. It was therefore
nothing but a form when some time later the senate, now completely
disarmed, delegated to the imperator its proconsular power in the
senatorial provinces also for the term of his natural life, and subjected
all consuls to his authority. The complaisant senators at the same time
conferred upon Octavian the title of “Augustus” or “consecrated” which
he bore thenceforward. By virtue of the imperium the emperor commanded
through his deputies some twenty-three or twenty-five legions dispersed
over the whole empire; at Rome his person was guarded by nine cohorts
of bodyguards (the prætorian guards) whose loyalty and devotion were
enhanced by double pay and liberal gifts of money on their discharge,
some of them being lodged in one wing of his palace and others quartered
upon the citizens in Rome and the neighbourhood. Contrary to law and
traditional usage he was allowed to wear military attire and sword, the
symbols of dominion, within the walls of the city; and the laurel bushes
in front of his dwelling and the oaken garland on the gable proclaimed
the fortunate conqueror of his enemies and the magnanimous deliverer of
the citizens.
THE IMPERATOR NAMED PRINCEPS SENATUS AND PONTIFEX MAXIMUS
The senate itself had already been reduced to a position of dependence.
Cæsar had treated the fathers of the city with scant consideration;
he and the triumvirs after him had filled the curia with their own
creatures, regardless of dignity, rank, or merit. This body had
consequently sunk low in the respect and confidence of the people.
Augustus endeavoured to rescue it from degradation and contempt and to
give fresh consequence to its members. By virtue of the censorial power
vested in himself as “master of morals” (præfectus morum) he undertook,
in concert with his colleague Agrippa, a purification of the senate.
Nearly two hundred senators were as considerately as possible induced to
withdraw and were replaced by worthy men devoted to the new order. He
then had the title of princeps senatus bestowed upon himself, and by that
means got the direction of the debates and voting entirely into his own
hands or those of his representative.
The end Augustus had in view in this process of purification, which was
subsequently several times repeated, was to raise the senate, whose
numbers were now limited to six hundred, into the representative body of
the nation and, by extending its functions and reorganising its share in
the legislation, government, and administration of justice, to rule the
nation through it; to raise himself from being the head of the senate to
being the head of the people, and, by sharing with them the sovereign
prerogatives, to delegate to them a part of the responsibility. The right
of electing officials was left to the comitia centuriata and comitia
tributa, but as the magistrates had simply to carry out the emperor’s
orders their position was a subordinate one and their functions were
limited; and it was consequently a mere simplification of the political
organisation, when in process of time the popular assemblies were
degraded into a mockery [they had long been little more than that] and
the officials were appointed directly by the emperor or the senate.
Without any outside co-operation Augustus had already committed the
charge of Rome and of Italy to trustworthy hands by furnishing the
prefect of the city with extensive powers and appointing him his
delegate and representative, and by instituting, in the prefecture of
the prætorium, a military command over the troops stationed in Rome
and Italy. These two life appointments bore in themselves the germ of
the future military despotism and most seriously infringed the outward
character of the free state, which Augustus maintained in everything
else. At the same time he had himself empowered to fill up the ranks of
the patricians, grievously thinned in the civil wars, by the admission
of fresh members; a privilege the exercise of which made the nobility of
ancient Rome entirely dependent upon the emperor and obscured the lustre
of birth.
He nevertheless treated tradition and ancient custom with great
reverence. He endeavoured by acts of favour to win over to his side
such of the great families as had survived the stormy days of the
recent period, he revived their family cults and obsolete religious
observances, and where there was need he enabled them to live in a manner
befitting their station by liberal subsidies. He was anxious to glorify
his new throne with the lustre of the olden days that still clung about
the old name.
But it was not only the patrician class which Augustus endeavoured
to preserve; the ancient class distinctions among the citizens were
respected as far as possible. The senators, raised in public esteem by
the expulsion of unworthy members, wore even under the principate the
broad purple hem as a mark of their rank; they had special seats reserved
for them in the theatres, and received from Augustus the privilege that
the crimes of senators could only be judged by the senate itself. They
could contract legal marriages with none but freeborn persons. In like
manner the knightly class was purged of unworthy elements and maintained
as a distinct order with a fixed income and recognised privileges. As
in republican times, the younger members served as a _guarda nobile_,
being mounted on chargers provided by the state in the field and in
the gorgeous processions on civic festivals. The knights were eligible
for all curule offices and military appointments, so that the order
became the nursery for the military and civil service as well as for the
senate. Augustus chose his provincial procurators and tax-collectors by
preference from among them. The emperor endeavoured to preserve even the
free burgesses from the admixture of alien elements as far as possible,
and to this end imposed restrictions and limitations on the manumission
of slaves.
[Illustration: ROMAN DOOR-KNOCKER]
As commander-in-chief of all the military forces, and head of the senate,
Augustus was master and ruler of the state; but one important element
of the power which Cæsar had wielded was still lacking--the tribunician
authority. This also was conferred upon him for life by the senate and
people in the year 23, in the general rejoicings at his recovery from an
illness, and because he had appointed L. Sestius, the friend and comrade
of M. Brutus, to a share in the consulate.
The office of tribune bore a sacred character in the eyes of the Romans.
The most glorious deeds of the nation as a whole in the palmy days of
the republic were associated with the tribunate of the people; the plebs
regarded it as the palladium of their liberties and legal status; from
the days of Coriolanus down to the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey,
the broils of political factions had raged around this magistracy of
the people. Its solemn bestowal upon Augustus therefore supplied him
with a religious consecration; by this alone a sacred and indissoluble
bond was knit between the people and the supreme head of the state; the
prince (princeps) was recognised as the protector of the people, and
the magistracy of the popular community was transferred to its ruler.
The rights of protection and intercession inherent in the tribunate
were then expanded into an imperial prerogative of appeal and pardon
and extended to the whole empire. In civil and criminal cases alike, an
appeal to the emperor’s judgment-seat might be made from all tribunals
and all parts of the empire, and thus the highest judicial authority in
the whole sphere of government was committed into the hands of Augustus.
The clemency and humanity for which he was famous caused these appeals
to the imperial court to exceed all measure. Special courts of appeal
had soon to be erected in the city and in the provinces, in the one case
under the presidency of the prefect of the city, in the other under
special consular authorities to whom the emperor delegated his judicial
supremacy. By this means not only was an imperial court of appeal, such
as Cæsar had attempted to introduce, established throughout the empire as
the supreme tribunal, which gradually drew before itself all important
suits after judgment had been pronounced in the prætorian or senatorial
courts, but a far-reaching prerogative of mercy became a recognised
attribute of the imperator’s power, a prerogative that could pour forth
its cornucopia upon free and unfree, citizen and provincial. “Every
temple, every shrine of the emperor in Italy or the provinces was a
sheltering asylum, his statues and portraits became wonder-working images
of deliverance, which paralysed the arm of justice or revenge.”
At the altars of the emperor even slaves found protection against
harshness or inhumanity on the part of their masters. Augustus so highly
prized the bestowal of this protective office of Tribune of the people,
that he even had the day (27th of June, 23 B.C.) recorded on coins and
monuments as the beginning of his reign. Three years later the imperial
power received its consummation in the grant of the consular authority
to Augustus for the term of his life, with the right to nominate his
colleagues or representatives and to propose them for election, and with
an extension of the right of issuing legal ordinances (edicts). From that
time forward he took his seat in the senate upon a curule chair placed at
a higher level between the two consuls.
By these means all political power was concentrated in his person, and
when, soon after, the office of pontifex maximus fell vacant by the
death of Lepidus, Augustus had this dignity also conferred upon himself,
and thus combined the authority of high priest with supreme political
power. In virtue of this office the care of the state religion and public
worship, the interrogation of the oracular books and the interpretation
of their utterances, the appointments to priestly offices and even the
choice of vestals, devolved upon the emperor. And as through the fulness
of his consular and imperatorial power he exercised the highest judicial
authority over the army and in all cases affecting the safety of the
state, so as supreme pontifex he had the right of deciding upon all
violations of religion and transgressions of the priesthood.
TIGHTENING THE REINS OF POWER
This union of the hierarchic with the temporal power completed the
skilfully constructed edifice of the principate. By this means the whole
executive and judicial authority in matters spiritual and temporal, human
and divine, was placed in the hands of the emperor, and if for a while
the people retained the show of legislative power it was a mere shadow of
the ancient sovereignty of the people, since the legal tradition which
gave magisterial edicts the force of law during the magistrate’s tenure
of office reduced every other kind of legislative authority to an empty
form when all official power was centred in a person who held office for
life.
The imperial decrees were legally valid throughout the empire. They
formed the nucleus and basis of the “constitution” which in process of
time ranked on an equality with the comitial laws. The wise moderation
of Augustus--which induced him to ask the opinion or approval of the
senate in all decrees concerning peace and war and withheld him from
exercising the power of life and death which he possessed over senators
and citizens in an offensive manner, and led him to treat traditional
forms with reverential observance--conduced greatly to the establishment
and preservation of the legislative authority of the emperor.
“Thus,” says Hoeck,[d] “the constitution of the young empire was a
monarchy in which the rights of sovereignty were shared between the
nation and its head.
“No law or election could be carried through in opposition to the express
will of the emperor, because he could invalidate by his tribunician veto
every assertion of magisterial or popular authority; on the other hand,
according to law, his will was not sufficient to ensure the acceptance of
a candidate or of a statute, since the emperor had no right to command
either the senate or the people. Nevertheless this reciprocal limitation
and supplementation of the supreme political authority existed in theory
only, not in fact. For where the legal competence of the emperor came
to an end its place was taken by a power of which the constitution took
no cognisance, but which held all political affairs in the embrace
of its mighty arm. This was the effective sovereignty of Augustus,
outflanking and controlling all other authority, which broke down the
bulwarks erected against absolute government and opened the way for the
despotism of his successors. The senate was composed of his creatures,
the populace was won over by bread and games, the army attached to him by
booty and presents; and thus he had in the curia an obedient instrument
of his schemes; the comitia were the echo of his will, and the legions
gladly fulfilled the commands he gave. The senate and people might enjoy
meanwhile the ancient forms of a free state; they were but vain shadows
when the supreme head was minded to accomplish his win.”[e]
PANEM ET CIRCENSES--FOOD AND GAMES
The sustenance of Rome with which the emperors charged themselves may
be regarded in the light of compensation for the political rights of
which the imperial government robbed the Romans. The emperor was not the
war-lord of the Roman Empire who, as such, felt this duty incumbent upon
him; he was rather the most powerful person in the capital, who exerted
himself to win the favour of its populace, as the prominent personages of
republican times had done.
The custom of occasional distributions by Romans and aliens was a very
old one, and had existed ever since the lower classes gained an influence
in politics through the elections; but these distributions of corn did
not become the rule until the first century B.C., and they became a
political danger when they attracted the poverty-stricken rabble of the
whole of Italy to Rome, to be maintained there by the state. At the time
of Julius Cæsar, in the year 46, there were more than three hundred
thousand recipients of corn at Rome, though they were presently reduced
to half that number by improved organisation and by the founding of
colonies beyond sea by the dictator. This number was not to be exceeded;
only the gaps which occurred in the course of nature were to be filled
up.
But in the civil wars after Cæsar’s death the old abuses had crept
in again, and about the time of the birth of Christ the number had
already risen to two hundred thousand. Augustus was by no means blind
to the evil; he really wished to abolish the regular distributions of
corn altogether, for, besides costing enormous sums every year, they
demoralised the people and undermined the prospects of agriculture in
Italy. On this subject the emperor writes that he had made an attempt to
abolish the public distributions of grains in perpetuity, but had not
dared to carry it through, as he knew for certain that after his time
it would be re-established by the ambition of others. Moreover, he soon
realised that he could not let this most effective means of ensuring
popularity in the capital pass out of his hands, nor suffer private
individuals to gain a formidable following in this fashion. Later he
tried to strike the just mean, and to meet both the complaints of the
farmers and corn dealers and the wishes of the populace. The question
involved was the regular distribution of corn to the mob and the adoption
of exceptional measures, when the price of grain in the capital had
risen to an unnatural or intolerable figure. No man who wished to be
the first in Rome could afford to shirk this costly obligation. If so
strict an economist as Augustus was prepared to bear the enormous cost of
these metropolitan distributions we need ask for no surer proof that he
regarded them as necessary.
_Pauperising the Masses_
[Illustration: ROMAN DICE]
In the year 44 Cæsar, as dictator, had delegated the charge of the supply
of corn for the capital to two cereal ædiles appointed for the purpose;
but even they proved unequal to the gigantic task imposed upon them.
Recourse was therefore had to extraordinary commissioners, who bore the
title of curatores. A later emperor, Tiberius, at the commencement of his
official career had an admirable opportunity of making himself popular
in Rome when he undertook the cereal quæstorship at Ostia in 23. But the
very next year a grievous famine again prevailed in Rome, and, as in the
old days of Pompey, extraordinary measures seemed imperatively called
for. All eyes were turned to the emperor, the only man who, by his money
resources and the Egyptian tribute of grain, was in a position to deal
with the scarcity. He was offered absolute dictatorial authority coupled
with the responsibility of provisioning the capital. He accepted the
latter only, and his measures were so vigorous and effectual that in a
few days the price of corn fell to its usual level.
The emperor exercised his official functions through two senatorial
representatives. A new magistracy was erected consisting of two curatores
who had discharged the duties of the prætorship and thus were already
members of the senate. They received an accession both as to numbers and
dignity; after 18 we find four curatores, later six, and in the last
years, 6 and 7; they were required to be of consular rank. It is in the
highest degree probable that younger officials acted with or under these
curatores at the extraordinary distributions.
At length, after these tentative experiments, Augustus in his last years
took heart to attempt a definite solution of this important problem.
Out of consideration for the senate he had up to that time employed
senatorial representatives in the provisioning of the capital which he
had undertaken at his own expense. They were now superseded by imperial
servants. The _præfecti annonæ_ were of knightly rank and really regarded
this important office as a profession. C. Turranius, who had previously
governed Egypt, devoted himself to this task, to which he had been called
by the confidence of Augustus, with such zeal that dismissal was to him
equivalent to death, and Caligula reinvested him with his accustomed
functions, which he continued to discharge almost up to the ninetieth
year of his age.
From this time forward the cereal prefects were amongst the most
important of imperial officers, since the tranquillity of the capital
depended on the due discharge of their functions. They commanded an army
of subordinate officials and servants, for the imperial grain fleets
which brought corn, oil, etc., from the provinces to Ostia and Puteoli
were under their management. In both these places they had extensive
storehouses with a great staff of accountants, clerks, and cashiers; then
another great army of storehouse managers, workmen employed in measuring
the corn and carrying the sacks, of waggoners, and lastly, of watermen
who brought the corn to Rome, where it was deposited for the most part in
the Sempronian _horrea_ which dated back to the time of the Gracchi, or
in the newly erected Agrippian, Lollian, Galbian, and other _horrea_. The
distribution took place every month in the Minucian portico on the Field
of Mars. Here there were forty-five doorways (ostia) for distribution,
and the people had to prove their right to receive the corn by means of
counters marked with the number of the particular doorway and the day of
the month.
[Illustration: ROMAN JACKSTONES]
An attempt which the emperor made to have the corn distributed every
four months instead of every month met with scant approval and was soon
abandoned. The Roman populace had grown thoroughly accustomed to the
notion that its maintenance was the business of the state and would have
liked nothing better than to have the emperor give them drink as well
as food. Whenever wine grew dear they addressed complaints to him. But
Augustus calmly replied that since the aqueducts of Agrippa had been
completed no one in Rome need suffer thirst. Augustus had organised the
maintenance of Rome on a large and liberal scale, but that which had
formerly been a free-will offering became in his reign an eleemosynary
institution.
Besides these regular monthly distributions there were special
distributions in money and in kind on extraordinary occasions, which
exhibit the emperor’s magnificent liberality. He has left the record
of them in the _Monumentum Ancyranum_.[e] “To the Roman people, man by
man, I caused three hundred sesterces to be paid in accordance with the
testament of my father; in my own name I gave four hundred sesterces
out of the spoils of war in my fifth consulate; and again in my tenth
consulate I caused provisions to the value of four hundred sesterces per
man to be distributed man by man out of my own means; and in my eleventh
consulate I made twelve distributions of grain which I had purchased
with my private means; and in my twelfth year of office as tribune I for
the third time made a gift of four hundred sesterces man by man. These
distributions were never made to less than 250,000 persons.
“In my eighteenth year of my office as tribune and my twelfth consulate
I presented sixty denarii to 320,000 persons of the population of
the capital man by man. In my thirteenth year of consular office I
distributed sixty denarii apiece to the people who received the state
corn, amounting to something over two hundred thousand persons.”
Taking these gifts in connection with similar expenses for lands and
rewards for the veterans, for the imperial contributions to the state
treasury and the provision of the military revenue, the colossal sum of
six hundred million denarii mentioned in the appendix to the _Monumentum
Ancyranum_ as given by Augustus to the Roman citizens does not seem at
all exaggerated; and as these distributions were spread over a period of
not quite sixty years, we must assign to each year a sum of not less than
ten million denarii.
These sums, though dispensed of the imperial bounty, were taken by the
people as their right in exchange for their lost liberty. Augustus was
well aware that hunger is wont to be one of the mightiest, if not the
mightiest, of revolutionary forces.
_Games; Gladiatorial Contests_
In the matter of subsistence the southerner is more modest in his demands
than northern nations are; in the matter of excitement and amusement he
makes greater claims. These Augustus also provided for liberally. The
large scale and elaborate arrangement of the Roman games was in part
the outcome of the simple idea of giving the people a compensation for
their lack of influence in politics and of diverting their attention.
In most cases where a nation is weary of politics it concentrates its
attention upon private life, and the great ones of the theatre thrust
statesmen and party leaders into the background. The emperor’s shows
excelled everything that had ever been before in frequency, variety, and
splendour; and so great was the interest taken in them by all classes
that at great festivals and games the emperor was obliged to post
sentinels to guard the vacant city from robbers and housebreakers.
The Actian games, celebrated at Rome every four years, were particularly
magnificent. The first time (28) Augustus and Agrippa themselves managed
the festivities and offered the populace spectacles of the most varied
character. First a race ridden by boys and men of the highest families;
then gymnastic contests in a wooden _stadium_ which the emperor had
caused to be set up on the Field of Mars; while at the end prisoners of
war were forced to exhibit to the people the spectacle of a mortal combat
of gladiators. In later times the highest priestly colleges in Rome took
charge of these games in rotation.
In his detailed narrative Augustus assigns the first place to the combats
of gladiators, which he exhibited sometimes in his own name and sometimes
in the names of his sons and grandsons; and in eight battles of this sort
some ten thousand gladiators were engaged. Women were not absolutely
excluded from among the spectators, but they were only allowed to watch
the bloodshed from the topmost places. Augustus also abrogated the
inhuman custom that none but the victors might leave the arena alive.
He endeavoured to check the excessive fondness for these cruel sports
by forbidding officials to give gladiatorial shows instead of the usual
theatrical or circus performances when they entered upon office, as
had been done, for example, by the ædiles of the plebs in the year
42. Certain members of the aristocracy who were notorious for their
bloodthirsty tastes, like Domitius Ahenobarbus, were first privately
admonished, and, when that proved of no avail, their cruel gladiatorial
fights were prohibited by an imperial edict.
Large troops of gladiators constituted a grave menace to the public
peace, as had been proved, not only by the Gladiators’ War, but in the
case of the gladiators of Decimus Brutus and M. Antonius. Accordingly
in the year 22 an edict appeared to the effect that combats of
gladiators were only to be arranged with the permission of the senate
and not oftener than twice a year, and at the same time the number of
contesting pairs was limited to sixty. Of course this did not diminish
the popularity of these combats nor the interest of the populace in the
combatants. It was an event when two veterans, each of whom had often
conquered and slain his opponent, were at last pitted against each other
for the decisive combat, or when a well-known gladiator had fought his
way through and proceeded to hang up his victorious weapons in the temple
of Hercules.
[Illustration: ROMAN GLADIATOR]
In later days the emperor Tiberius scorned to make himself popular
by these means. But as the passion of the people for gladiatorial
exhibitions did not wane they became a matter of private speculation. A
freedman of small means erected a wooden amphitheatre for his shows at
Fidenæ, but it was so badly built that it collapsed beneath the crowds of
spectators who had flocked thither, most of them from Rome. After this
accident the senate decreed that no one should give such performances
unless he could prove that he was possessed of a certain fortune.
Wrestling matches of the sort so popular among the Greeks were not
altogether unknown, but were only arranged three times by Augustus in
the course of his long reign. Wooden stages were erected on the Field
of Mars, and the most famous athletes were invited to Rome. Glycon of
Pergamus, whose unconquered fist was celebrated not by his epitaph alone
but also by Horace, was probably of the number.
The emperor followed these contests with peculiar interest. The Greeks
had perfected boxing according to all the rules of the science; in Italy,
on the other hand, it had retained more of its indigenous character.
Augustus was in the habit of occasionally allowing the champions of the
two nations to measure their strength against one another, but personally
he was on the side of the Latin boxers, whether more or less schooled.
When a harmless street fight broke out in any part of Rome, the emperor
used to delight in the mighty blows which his countrymen dealt.
The emperor strove, though without lasting success, to keep women aloof
from the brutal boxing matches. If the populace wanted to see boxers he
yielded to their wishes, but he appointed the early morning hours for the
contest and forbade women to go to the theatre before ten o’clock in the
morning.
More popular still were the wild-beast hunts, of which Augustus arranged
six-and-twenty, in which thirty-five hundred African lions and other
wild animals were slain. Great was the difficulty of capturing and
transporting these rare and dangerous animals; but greater still, it
may be, the amount of care and money expended on the elaboration of the
scenery. The Spaniards regard their bull-fights as a direct continuation
of the wild-beast shows of antiquity; the splendour of the _mise en
scène_ has survived to modern days, but the demands made by an ancient
public in the matter of decoration and machinery were incomparably
greater. In most cases gladiators were obliged to fight the dangerous
animals, but occasionally criminals fell victims to them. Strabo, for
example, saw the dreaded robber chieftain, Selurus, “the son of Etna,”
hurled from a lofty scaffold that suddenly collapsed beneath him into the
arena at Rome, where he fell straight into the lion’s cage that had been
placed below.
The bloody battles of the gladiators on land found a counterpart in
a tremendous sea fight which Augustus, following the example of the
dictator, arranged quite close to Rome in the year 2. He caused a lake
to be dug in the plain between the slopes of Janiculum and the bank of
the Tiber, eighteen hundred feet long by twelve hundred wide, on which
thirty large warships and many smaller ones, manned by three thousand (or
possibly six thousand) gladiators, represented a sea fight of the time of
the Persian wars. Ovid describes the gorgeous spectacle as an eye-witness:
“Then when Cæsar of late showed forth to the people
Ships of Persia and Athens, a type of the terrible sea fight,
Hither came youths from the two seas and hither came maidens,
And to the capital flocked all that dwelt in the earth.”
The lake was not supplied with water from the neighbouring Tiber, but
Augustus built a special aqueduct (Aqua Augusta Alsietina) which brought
water from the Alsietine and Sabatine lakes (Lago di Martignano and L. de
Bracciano) to the Janiculum. The Romans were so spoiled by the beautiful
spring-water of their aqueducts that Augustus never thought of carrying
the water of these two lakes right across to the city on the other
bank of the river, but the work was so substantial that it outlasted
its original purpose. The emperor allowed the possessors of fields and
gardens in the vicinity to make use of the water, which was not to be
compared with that of the other aqueducts in the city.
The lake formed the centre of a little wood which the emperor presented
to the Roman people in the name of his grandsons Lucius and Caius.
Although he never arranged another sea fight on this lake, it was not
filled up but was used by other emperors for maritime spectacles, in
accordance with its original purpose.
_Races and Theatricals_
The ordinary performances in the theatre and circus, such as officials
were required to arrange when they took office, were arranged by Augustus
four times in his own name and twenty-three times in the names of other
persons. Races in the circus, in particular, had been in vogue from very
old times and enjoyed a high degree of popularity. It is true that the
enthusiasm of the people did not reach the culminating point till the
latter days of the empire, but the germ and rudiment was there even in
republican times, and the age of Augustus did its fair share towards
developing it. Epitaphs were not yet composed on the victors, like the
τοὺς σοὺς ἀγῶνας αἰὼν λαλησει of subsequent centuries, but the interest
and enthusiasm were spreading to wider circles. The prizes which rewarded
the winners of the various races were valuable, and an exact record was
kept of the first, second, and third prizes carried off by a famous
charioteer in different years. There were originally only two parties in
the circus, the whites and the reds, but the greens and the blues appear
to have been added by the time of Augustus; or so it seems probable from
inscriptions which, though they bear no date, yet form part of a large
find of this period.
Even private individuals (_e.g._, a relative of the famous jurist Ateius
Capito) were beginning to keep racing stables with a numerous staff.
His slaves and freedmen formed a life-insurance association in which
Vipsanius Agrippa also insured his servants of the same class. The Trojan
riding matches which the sons of aristocratic families, including that
of the emperor, repeatedly exhibited under Augustus have already been
mentioned.