Chapter 19
Octavian, heir of Julius Caesar, had ended the Roman Republic’s civil wars in 30 b.c.e. by disposing of Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt. After settling Roman affairs in the East, he returned to Rome in August of 29 b.c.e. and initiated what has come to be known as the Roman Empire. Referred to as Augustus after 27 b.c.e. (p. 348), Octavian eventually worked out a new kind of monarchy called the Principate, from the word princeps, which was frequently used to designate the man who also came to be called Imperator (Emperor). The title princeps was traditionally applied to highly respected Roman statesmen. As used by Augustus and his successors up until 282 c.e., princeps indicated that the emperor, although the acknowledged head of state, was only primus inter pares (first among equals) within the Roman nobility and that he governed in cooperation with them. The period after 282 c.e., however, is often called the Dominate because the emperors were undisguisedly autocratic and preferred to be called dominus (Lord, Master).
Sources for the Augustan Principate
Most of the information for the political history of Augustus’ rule comes from Suetonius’ biography of Augustus; books 52–56 of Dio’s history; a portion of Velleius Paterculus’ brief compendium; and monumental inscriptions containing Augustus’ account of his own deeds, the Res Gestae (p. 397). Of great importance for provincial matters is a long Greek inscription known as the Edicts of Cyrene, which contains four edicts of Augustus and a senatorial decree. Numerous other inscriptions, abundant archaeological remains, documents on Egyptian papyri, coins, and the surviving works of the great authors from the Augustan Age (pp. 394–400) are rich sources for the social, economic, cultural, and intellectual life of the period. Unfortunately, Books 134 to 142 of Livy, who was a contemporary of Augustus and covered events down to 9 c.e., are lost and receive the briefest of all the summaries in the Periochae.
Hopes for peace
Octavian’s return to Rome in the late summer of 29 b.c.e. brought the joy of victory and high hopes for peace. The senate had already approved his arrangements in the East. It had also ordered that the doors to the temple of Janus be closed for the first time since the end of the First Punic War over 200 years before, the mute but visible sign of peace on land and sea. Poets hailed the mighty conqueror. Then, on three successive days, Octavian celebrated triumphs for victories in Dalmatia, at Actium, and in Egypt. They all surpassed in pomp and splendor the triumphs of Julius Caesar and emphatically declared an end to conflict.
Problems to be faced
Nevertheless, many problems and uncertainties remained. Despite the symbolic closing of Janus’ portals, wars were still underway in Gaul, Spain, and North Africa. Imposing Rome’s will in the provinces and creating stable frontier defenses were top priorities. The tribes massed beyond the Rhine and the Danube would eventually call for a firm policy of aggressive war (pp. 366–72). In the meantime, the Roman armies themselves were an even greater potential menace to internal peace and stability than any outsiders. Under the command of ambitious and ruthless generals, they could again turn and rend the state, as they had in the recent past. After Actium, Octavian had to find a way to retain supreme command over Rome’s legions and reduce their number from seventy to thirty, a number sufficient for defense without bankrupting the treasury. At the same time, he had to find land on which to settle the demobilized veterans without unpopular confiscations of private property or higher taxes.
Furthermore, not all of the aristocrats would readily accept Octavian’s supremacy. He needed to reconstruct the government to provide stable, centralized control over Rome and its empire without alienating the old governing class traditionally represented by the senate. Finally, he had to reassure the common people that he and his family were in charge and were looking after their interests, too.
Octavian’s advantages
The sickly Octavian may have seemed doomed at the start. Nevertheless, he had many advantages in terms of money, popularity, military power, political allies, and a ruling class exhausted by years of civil war. He utilized them with the same willpower, ruthlessness, and political astuteness that he had demonstrated from the beginning of his arduous climb to power over the previous fifteen years.
He had returned from the East a popular idol, with such prestige and power as even Caesar had never possessed. East and West were bound to him by oaths of allegiance. He had supreme command of the biggest and best army in Roman history, as well as access to the revenues and resources of a rich and mighty empire. The confiscated treasures of the Ptolemies alone might have sufficed to provide what he needed: land and bonuses for his veterans, food and amusement for the Roman populace, and the revival of Italy’s prosperity through the reduction of taxes and a vast program of public works.
Octavian had, in addition to his financial resources, an auctoritas (prestige and dignity) unique in Roman history. At first, the deified Julius Caesar, manifested by a comet (p. 302), had been called upon to aid Octavian in his struggle for power. That “divine” legacy would continue to support Caesar’s Julian heir. Three days after Octavian’s third triumph, two significant buildings were dedicated in Caesar’s honor: a temple to the Divine Julius at the eastern end of the Forum and, at the northwest corner, a new senate house, named the Curia Julia, which Caesar had intended to replace the old senate house (p. 293). Thus, monuments to Octavian’s “divine father” visibly embraced the heart of Roman civic life as Octavian himself set out to “restore” that life.
Octavian now had the added benefits of being a war hero and popular idol in his own right. He was the powerful source of patronage and favors as the leader of a victorious personal faction. The symbolism of a famous statue of Victory that he placed in the new senate house would not be lost on the assembled senators. The general public would daily see the rostra (beaks, rams) taken from enemy ships at Actium and mounted as a victory trophy in front of the new temple at the opposite end of the Forum.
Names and titles
One of Octavian’s foremost assets was the name that he had adopted, Caesar. It continued to appear on his coins and later became a title borne by Roman emperors. In more recent centuries, it was assumed in linguistically altered form by the kaiser of Germany and the czar (tsar) of Russia. The senate had also granted Octavian the right to take as a permanent praenomen the old temporary republican title imperator. Troops had given it to their victorious commanders, who could use it until they had celebrated their triumphs. Octavian hoped that it would inspire the troops’ loyalty. Although his immediate successors abandoned it, imperator became the standard title of all Roman rulers beginning with Vespasian (69–79 c.e.). It survives as emperor in English. Finally, although it was never officially bestowed, Octavian assumed the honorific republican title princeps civitatis (First Man of the State), a term usually shortened to princeps, from which are derived principate and prince. It originally signified an ex-consul who had been recognized as a person of great prestige and venerability, auctoritas. Cicero used it for his ideal leader (p. 340).
Honors and powers
Even before Octavian had returned from Egypt and the East, the senate and people had been outdoing themselves in voting him special honors, privileges, and titles that strengthened his position at Rome. He received such visible honors as triumphal arches, games, supplications, and statues. His birthday was declared a public holiday. In 30 b.c.e. the senate apparently had voted him the full power of a tribune (tribunicia potestas), although he may have refused it or utilized only the tribunician right to aid citizens. At the same time, he received the right to hear judicial appeals, the power to grant pardons in criminal cases tried in popular courts, and the right to raise men to patrician status. In 29, Octavian and his loyal subordinate Agrippa were made joint consuls for 28, and they were, or soon would be, granted the power of censors (censoria potestas).
The evolving constitutional arrangements of the Principate
Octavian was in a very difficult political and constitutional position in 29 b.c.e.: it was not clear exactly where he fit in the old republican arrangement of governmental powers and offices. He was still clearly in power, but on what basis? Whether the triumvirate had formally lapsed on December 31 of 33 or 32 b.c.e. does not matter very much. During the latter part of 32, Octavian justified his public acts by the oath of personal loyalty sworn to him by most of the inhabitants of Italy and many in the municipalities throughout the West. Such a purely personal and dangerously unorthodox position had been somewhat mitigated when he assumed one of the consulships for 31. As consul in that and each subsequent year, he had claimed precedence over his colleagues on the basis of the earlier personal oath and was accompanied by all twenty-four lictors, as dictators had been before the abolition of that office by Antonius.
To counteract criticism, Octavian had promised to give up his extraordinary position and restore the normal operation of the res publica when the civil war was over. By 28, it was time for Octavian to start making good on that promise—or at least appear to be doing so. If he did not, he could expect the same fate as Julius Caesar or at best some dangerous and difficult opposition. Fortunately, the term res publica (public business, commonwealth, state) was a somewhat flexible and loose concept that was not spelled out in any written constitution. It hardened into the present meaning of Republic only after historians could look back and compare what the Roman system of government had been like before Augustus’ long rule and what it was like after. Indeed, until the end of the Latin-speaking emperors, the Roman state never ceased being called the res publica.
Initial steps
Octavian took the first visible step on the road to political reconstruction when he and Agrippa took office as consuls on January 1, 28 b.c.e. He surrendered twelve of his extraordinary twenty-four lictors. Handing them over to Agrippa, he indicated that equality had been restored to his consular colleague in accordance with normal republican practice. The next step was to use their recently granted censorial power to register citizens and revise the role of the senate. Revision of the senate was imperative if the claim to be restoring political normalcy was to have any credibility. The senate had been the centerpiece of the traditional res publica and the pride of the old nobility, whose goodwill and cooperation Octavian urgently needed.
To bolster respect for the senate, Octavian and Agrippa reduced its number from about 1000 to 800. They purged many of the outsiders whom Caesar and the triumvirs had appointed in reward for political services during the civil wars. They did not purge anyone on the basis of republicanism or lack of support in those wars. That would merely have aroused the hostility of those whom they wished to conciliate. With further reductions in 18 and 13 b.c.e., the senate ultimately returned to about 600, the number established by Sulla. Octavian, to show his honored position in the reformed senate, took the title princeps senatus (First Man of the Senate), an honor that censors had bestowed upon the most prestigious member of the senate in the days before Sulla.
Octavian had ensured that the number of senators would ultimately stabilize at 600 by reducing the number of quaestors to Sulla’s twenty. He also tried to ensure the prestige of new senators by restricting the quaestorship to men at least twenty-five years old, of senatorial family and good moral character. They needed to have served in the military and to possess property worth at least 800,000 sesterces (later 1 million). Men of equestrian rank could also hold the quaestorship if they had held one or more of certain lower level magistracies. Octavian pleased traditionalists by cutting back the number of praetors from sixteen to ten. Finally, he lowered the minimum ages for the praetorship and consulship to thirty-two and thirty-five, respectively.
Octavian made admission into the equestrian order dependent, as before, on a minimum property valuation of 400,000 sesterces. To invigorate both the equestrian and senatorial orders with new blood, Octavian adopted Caesar’s policy of admitting a few rich and aristocratic residents from the Italian municipia and even from the Roman colonies of Gaul and Spain. Future emperors would continue that policy on a much more extensive scale.
The arrangements of 27 b.c.e.
On January 13, 27 b.c.e., Octavian dramatically appeared before the senate and offered to surrender all his extraordinary powers. In grateful return, the majority of the senators, probably inspired by his close friends, officially bestowed upon him a huge provincial command. He received a grant of proconsular imperium for ten years over the large and geographically separated single province of the two Spains, Gaul, Syria, and Egypt, where most of the legions were stationed. As did Pompey during the pirate war, Octavian had the right to appoint legates of consular and praetorian rank and to make war and peace as he saw fit.
In this new division of power, the senate resumed control over Rome and Italy and over the provinces of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, Illyricum, Macedonia, Greece, Asia, Bithynia, Crete–Cyrene, and Africa. Octavian was to govern the imperial provinces through his own legates or deputies, whereas the senate controlled the senatorial provinces through proconsuls recruited from the ranks of ex-consuls and ex-praetors.1 The princeps, who continued to be elected consul each year, probably maintained effective control over the governors of the senatorial provinces through either his auctoritas or the weight of his imperium as both consul and proconsul. He thus retained as much real power after his new arrangement as he had possessed before.
The crucial point is that his power was legitimate. It had been bestowed by a body having the recognized authority within the traditional res publica to do so, just as in the similar case of Pompey in 66 b.c.e. Such legitimacy distinguished the res publica from arbitrary personal rule, or regnum. In that very important sense, then, the res publica was restored.
Three days after Octavian’s “surrender” of power, the senate met to honor the restorer of the legitimate government. A laurel wreath was to be placed above the doorposts of his house. A golden shield inscribed with his virtues of valor, clemency, justice, and piety was to be hung up in the senate. He received an even greater honor, the name Augustus (Revered), which had exalted connotations and religious associations. It had never before been given to a human being.
In turn, Augustus, as he shall now exclusively be called, exalted the senate and augmented its powers. He restored its control over public finance and, for a time at least, even the right of coining money in gold and silver. Although Augustus continued to recognize the popular assemblies as lawmaking bodies, he permitted the senate to issue decrees having the force of law without ratification by the people. Officially, the senate became a full partner in the government. Theoretically, it was even more: the ultimate source of the princeps’ power. What it had granted it could also take away.
The arrangements of 23 b.c.e.
By 23 b.c.e., it had become clear that further adjustments to Augustus’ position were necessary to preserve the consensus of support on which his auctoritas as princeps ultimately rested. In late 27 b.c.e., he had left Rome to take control of urgent military operations in his provinces of Gaul and Spain. He was gone almost two and a half years (p. 367). In 26, for example, he had tried to retain control of events in Rome by reviving the ancient office of prefect of the city. His appointee was Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, a former partisan of Brutus and Cassius before he switched to Antonius and, finally, Augustus. The office had its roots in the pre-republican monarchy, however, and had fallen into disuse with the growth of the praetorship after 367 b.c.e. Messalla held the office for only six days before he resigned it as being improper, perhaps a sign that traditionalist nobles were beginning to grumble.
The lavish honors that Augustus’ friends had continued to propose in the senate after he returned from Spain in early 24, as well as his unprecedented eleventh consulship in 23, surely aroused resentment among the old nobility. Unfortunately, no specific events of early 23 are clear. A famous trial at which Augustus’ intervention provoked both criticism and a plot to assassinate him may belong anywhere from late 24 to early 22 b.c.e. With or without such a plot, rumblings of discontent with his political domination must not have escaped his ears by 23 b.c.e. The major irritant to the old nobles was Augustus’ continued tenure of the consulship. That was too reminiscent of Marius and Caesar, whose careers were not pleasing to traditionalists. Moreover, the consulship was the goal of every ambitious senator. By holding one of the two consulships year after year, Augustus was reducing by half those available to others.
Augustus was unable to take any action before he suddenly became gravely ill. Once he recovered, and after consulting with members of the senate, he resigned his consulship on July 1, 23 b.c.e. In return, he received anew (or possibly re-emphasized) the full tribunician power, tribunicia potestas, which he had been voted but had either refused or not fully utilized in 30. He had enjoyed tribunician sacrosanctity since 36. Now he made the full tribunician power the official legal foundation of his position. From 23 b.c.e. onward, he numbered the years of his principate by the number of years during which he had held the tribunicia potestas (abbreviated “T.P.” on his coins). Legally, a patrician could not hold the tribunate. If Augustus became a tribune, it would either be illegal or he would have to negate his formal adoption as Caesar’s son and become a plebeian again (p. 303). The tribunician power gave Augustus many important rights and privileges: he could propose legislation to the concilium plebis; convene meetings of the senate; and submit motions in writing to the senate, which took precedence over all other business. Nevertheless, he needed more powers to make up for the loss of the consulship. Augustus was allowed to retain the consular right to nominate candidates for office. Of course, he had the same prerogative as any high-ranking individual to endorse candidates after their candidacies had been accepted. Once elected, however, all incoming magistrates were required to swear that they would uphold all past and future public acts of Augustus. He also received the right to nominate jurors to the various standing courts, which gave him additional control over the administration of justice. Finally, his proconsular imperium was strengthened. He was allowed to retain it in the city, and it was made maius (greater) so that he could still override other provincial governors and exercise command over all legions if need be. This imperium was renewed at intervals of five or ten years in 18, 13, and 8 b.c.e. and 3 and 13 c.e.
Other adjustments were also made in 23 b.c.e. Augustus increased the number of praetors from ten to twelve, the two new ones being placed in charge of the city’s treasury. To provide two additional governorships for the increased number of ex-praetors that would result, he transferred control of Gallia Narbonensis (Provence) and Cyprus to the senate. (Provinces annexed after 23 needed garrisons and were kept by him.) If not in 23, then sometime later, the senate acquired the right to hear appeals regarding the decisions of Roman officials in Italy and the provinces. Suits brought against senatorial governors by provincials simply for the restitution of allegedly misappropriated property were tried by a small ad hoc committee of fellow senators. Also, only the senate was allowed to try senators accused of political or criminal offenses. The ghost of Sulla would have been pleased!
Popular dissatisfaction
Although traditionalist nobles might have approved of the changes made in 23 b.c.e., the populace of Rome did not. In 22, a combination of flood and famine made life very difficult for ordinary citizens. They were not impressed by how the senate handled matters. They riotously demanded that Augustus be given a perpetual consulship or dictatorship and that he take up the censorship and curatorship of the grain supply, cura annonae. He refused the consulship, dictatorship, and censorship, but with his vast personal resources, he was able to alleviate the grain shortage within a few days. Also in 22, because it was less dignified for the senate to be summoned by a person with only tribunician power, Augustus accepted the consular right to summon the senate.
In the spring of 22, Augustus again departed to take care of matters in the provinces. The senate was left to handle affairs at Rome without him. The people, unhappy without Augustus clearly in charge, refused to elect two consuls for 21 unless he would become one. Forced to intervene, he refused to accept the other consulship but persuaded the people to accept his own personal nominee, a noble with good republican credentials. Much the same happened in 21, 20, and 19. Also in 19, Augustus’ authority was challenged when candidates whom he had rejected for the quaestorship refused to withdraw. Then, a man named Egnatius Rufus illegally ran for the consulship right after his praetorship. He had become very popular by organizing a fire department for Rome at his own expense and by sponsoring splendid games as aedile. A majority of senators passed the Senatus Consultum Ultimum and begged Augustus to intervene again and restore order.
The arrangements of 19 b.c.e.
Augustus’ return on October 12, 19 b.c.e., was declared a national holiday. He was voted further consular powers: perhaps now the right to appoint a prefect of the city in his absence, the use of twelve fasces, and the right to sit on a curule chair between the two annual consuls. It must have become clear to Augustus and many traditionalist nobles as well that he had given up too much in 23. Now he had regained everything of importance that he had lost in giving up the consulship. Although he still did not have the title of consul, he was in effect a permanent third consul. The nobles could now happily vie for the two annual consulships; the common people could be reassured that their hero was in control. After 19 b.c.e., the legions still remained under his imperium, and no one outside his family was allowed a triumph.
Minor alterations after 19 b.c.e.
The arrangements of 19 b.c.e. were the last major series of constitutional adjustments and changes in Augustus’ power. Occasional alterations were made over the years, however. In 15 b.c.e., he acquired the sole right to coin gold and silver. In 12 b.c.e., after his old triumviral partner Lepidus died, Augustus was elected pontifex maximus in his place. That office gave him great prestige as head of the state religion. It was kept by all subsequent Roman emperors, even Christian ones, until Gratian (ca. 375 c.e.). In 8 b.c.e., the month Sextilis was renamed Augustus in honor of the month in which he had earned major victories in several different years. Further prestige accrued to Augustus in 2 b.c.e. The senate voted him the title pater patriae (Father of His Country), an honor formerly voted to Cicero after the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy (p. 269).
After 19 b.c.e., therefore, the form of the Augustan Principate was fairly well fixed, and the stability of the state seemed secure. Augustus himself was confident enough to celebrate the beginning of a new era with the holding of the Secular Games of 17 b.c.e. (see Box 19.1). As did many ancient peoples, the Romans believed that the history of the world moved in a cycle of epochs (saecula: hence the word secular). Each saeculum was often calculated at 100 or 110 years, and the tenth saeculum of the cycle was thought to inaugurate a new Golden Age. With a little prompting from Augustus, who was a member, the board of priests in charge of the Sibylline Books indicated that the tenth era of the current cycle was about to begin in 17 b.c.e. The celebration of magnificent festival games in honor of the event would give Augustus the perfect opportunity to advertise the end of the evil period of political chaos and civil war and the dawn of an era of peace and prosperity under his newly “restored” Republic. The message was clear: the wounds of civil war had now been healed; health had returned to the body politic. No more fitting symbol of that idea can be found than the fact that the most important religious element of the whole celebration, a joyous hymn to Apollo, was composed by Horace, a man who had once fought against Augustus at Philippi.
19.1 Augustus’ Secular Games
We have more details of the Secular Games of 17 b.c.e. than we do for almost any other individual festival from the entire Roman world thanks to the preservation of a commemorative inscription that survives from the city of Rome. It includes the order of sacrifices and who performed them, as well as some of the prayers that were said. From this document, it is clear that Augustus extended the festival beyond the traditional three nights of sacrifices and theatrical performances that were the core of the observance as other sources report it had been performed in earlier instantiations (in 348, 249, and 146 b.c.e.). The new, grander version included many more days of sacrifices and other entertainments. Offerings of animal victims and cakes on different days or nights were accompanied by a chorus of boys and girls singing Horace’s hymn, prayers offered by the matrons of the city, and the all-female celebration of sellisternia (religious banquets at which statues of goddesses were seated on chairs, sellae in Latin). After these solemn rituals were completed, the people could watch plays, equestrian performers, chariot races, and an animal hunt.
The Secular Games continued to be observed well into the Empire. The details of their last celebration, by the emperor Septimius Severus in the year 204 c.e., are preserved in a lengthy inscription similar to the one commemorating Augustus’ celebration 220 years before.
The nature of the Principate
With the establishment of the Principate, Augustus had created a stable form of government that enabled the Roman Empire to enjoy a remarkable degree of peace and prosperity for two centuries. Generations of historians, therefore, have sought to determine what kind of government it was. In form, and that was important, the old system symbolized by the words res publica had been restored: the senate, the magistrates, and the Roman People continued to perform many of their old functions in the familiar way. Indeed, Augustus’ many offices and powers almost invariably had precedents in the Republic. Nevertheless, it was the simultaneous and continuous possession of them that gave him more power than anyone in the Republic (except perhaps dictators) had ever held.
Having achieved great personal and official power, Augustus showed considerable respect to the senate as an institution and eagerly solicited its cooperation in running the Empire. Therefore, many have characterized the Principate as a dyarchy, an equal rule between princeps and senate. That, too, is wide of the mark: no matter how much he tried to disguise it or others were willing to overlook it, Augustus was the dominant force at Rome. Cassius Dio, a Greek from the eastern provinces who wrote a comprehensive history of Rome from the beginning to his own time under Septimius Severus and who was much less squeamish than a native Roman about monarchy, said simply that the Augustan Principate was a monarchy.
That judgment is closer to the truth but not wholly satisfactory. It needs refinement and qualification. Augustus’ position certainly was monarchic, but it was not like that of the Persian, Hellenistic, or Parthian kings, who provided the standard models of monarchy in both Augustus’ and Dio’s day. Augustus and his successors did not hold their positions by right of dynastic succession (although, in practice, dynastic considerations were important). Their powers were not based on any absolute sovereignty of the ruler but on laws and decrees passed by the traditional sources of legitimate authority at Rome—the senate and the people. Gradually, as the traditions of the Republic faded further and further into the past, the force of these restraints weakened. Given the emperor’s overwhelming constitutional powers, financial resources, and raw military force, the later emperors became absolute monarchs in every way.
In the first two centuries c.e., however, the Principate of Augustus and his successors was more like an elective constitutional monarchy. Their powers were bestowed and limited by laws not of their own making. The choice of a successor to the previous emperor had to be ratified by the senate, and his powers were voted anew. The senators could be compelled to give their votes by the threat of military force, but that shows that their votes still meant something. Moreover, if an emperor acted like an arbitrary despot, the traditions of the Republic were still strong enough to foster dangerous conspiracies against him. He might even suffer condemnation as a public enemy by a vote of the senate, as happened in the case of Nero (pp. 434–5). Sovereignty still lay in the hands of another institution.
In the last analysis, of course, the governmental system created by Augustus was uniquely itself. The man who had clawed his way to the top as a ruthless opportunist in civil war had created an enduring monument of statesmanship. He had performed a delicate political balancing act with consummate patience and skill as he bent and shifted to counteract the conflicting forces that would have toppled others from the tightrope of power. He created a constitutionally limited monarchy that was strong enough to ensure his own power and the stability of the state, while it preserved enough characteristics of the free Republic to satisfy many Romans’ deep respect for the traditional constitutional forms and institutions that had been the focal point of their public lives for centuries. If politics is the art of the possible, then Augustus became one of its greatest masters.
The creation of a central administration
Under the Republic, both the city and the provinces had been administered rather haphazardly by the yearly magistrates and provincial promagistrates on short-term assignments. Theoretically, the whole senate, with its collective wisdom, was supposed to offer sound guidance and provide coherence. Nevertheless, the growing complexity of affairs in an empire of an estimated 50 to 70 million people did not allow the senate to give adequate attention to many problems. Senators often had not gained any more direct familiarity with problems during their short tenure of various offices and posts than those whom they were supposed to advise. Finally, communications to the provinces were slow, so that governors were often left to face crises on their own. In the past, this situation had helped to create emergencies that ambitious men could exploit for their own aggrandizement. Also, the republican practice of not paying high officials any salary greatly increased the temptation to engage in graft and corruption, which contributed to provincial unrest. Therefore, Augustus was anxious to institute administrative reforms.
Augustus did not so much replace the nonprofessionalized administrative system of the Republic’s empire as organize and centralize it under his personal control. Although he systematized career paths and salaries of those who held important administrative posts, the extent to which he bureaucratized the system was minimal. The people who held the most prestigious civil and military posts were not trained, professional experts who devoted the majority of their working lives to their duties. They were still basically gentlemen who enhanced their social standing through conspicuous public service. They obtained their posts by patronage from the emperor. He evaluated them not on narrow professional qualifications but on generally meritorious qualities such as loyalty, character, and judgment. They also were responsible directly to him and not some bureaucratic chain of command.
Senators in imperial administration
After using his censorial power to rid the senate of those who did not meet his standards, Augustus had placed many of the rest in posts that bestowed great honor. Between 27 and 18 b.c.e., he had secured the appointment of a senatorial committee to assist him in preparing the agenda for meetings of the senate. This committee, often called the Concilium Principis (Council of the Princeps), consisted of the consuls, one representative from each of the other magistracies, and fifteen senators selected by lot. It changed every six months. As reorganized in 13 c.e. and reinforced by members of the imperial family and the equestrian order, the committee began to assume functions formerly belonging to the senate. Even then, it was not a true cabinet or privy council. Meeting more or less publicly, it was an administrative, not a policy-making, body.
This clumsy, rotating committee of the senate was abandoned by Augustus’ successor. The real predecessor of the later imperial privy council consisted of topflight administrators, close friends of Augustus, high-ranking senators, legal experts, and other specialists, who met informally behind closed doors. They decided many questions: the policy of the government; the legislation to be presented at meetings of the senate and the popular assemblies; the candidates whom it might please Augustus to recommend at the coming elections; the next governor of such and such a province; and all matters pertaining to public finance, foreign affairs, law, religion, and the administration of the Empire.
Augustus reserved many of the most prestigious provinces, such as Asia and Africa, for senatorial governors. The prefect of the city (praefectus urbi), who had under his command the first police force in Rome’s history—the three urban cohorts (cohortes urbanae)—was at first always a senator of consular rank (p. 364), as were the men in charge of the grain supply (until 6 c.e.), water supply, and flood control at Rome.
Equestrians in imperial administration
Augustus also drew many of his top-ranking administrators from the equestrian class. Its members welcomed the new recognition and status conferred. Many equites had acquired valuable experience, especially in the fields of finance, taxation, and commerce, which were vital to the smooth functioning of an empire. Augustus regarded equites as more reliable and less politically dangerous than senators because they were more dependent upon him for patronage and future advancement. Eventually, faithful service could advance an eques to membership in the senate. A newcomer obligated to Augustus could help keep that vital body loyal to him.
The careers open to equestrians were military, judicial, financial, and administrative. A young eques usually began his career as a prefect of an auxiliary cavalry squadron, advanced to tribune of a cohort or legion, then to prefect of a cohort. Experienced equestrian prefects frequently commanded legions on garrison duty, particularly in Egypt, a land generally forbidden to senators. After a year or two in the regular army, some equites became attorneys in the civil administration. Others frequently served as procurators (imperial agents) in the provinces.
In the imperial provinces, a procurator was both the manager of the emperor’s private properties and the public tax collector and paymaster. In the senatorial provinces, he was officially only the manager of the emperor’s private properties. In both cases, procurators also served as the eyes of the emperor. A procurator was often more powerful than even a governor of consular senatorial rank. A corrupt and rapacious governor had to be exceedingly wary of a procurator’s reports, lest he be liable to stern reprimand at the end of his term.
As prefects, equites might also govern provinces, especially the more backward and turbulent ones, such as Raetia and Noricum north and east of the Alps, not to mention Egypt, the richest and most important province of all. Even the proudest senatorial governor might envy the eminence and power of its prefect. Second in power to the prefect of Egypt were the two prefects (also of equestrian rank) to whom Augustus had given joint command over the nine cohorts of his personal protectors, the Praetorian Guard, in 2 b.c.e. Two other prefectures, created around 6 c.e., were less important but often served as stepping-stones to higher office. One belonged to the commissioner of the grain supply (praefectus annonae), the other to the prefect of the vigiles (praefectus vigilum), a corps of seven cohorts, each consisting of 1000 former slaves, who patrolled the streets at night and guarded Rome against riot or fire (p. 364).
Slaves and freedmen in administration
The people who most resembled trained professionals were the countless slaves and freedmen whom an emperor employed directly or under consular senators or equestrian prefects in the real work of administration. They were essential to such vital operations as the grain supply (cura annonae), the grain dole (frumentatio), the water supply (cura aquae), control of the Tiber’s floods (cura riparum et alvei Tiberis), the mint (moneta), and the Military Treasury (aerarium militare [p. 363]). They became the nucleus of the great body of imperial slave administrators and functionaries known as the familia Caesaris (the emperor’s household). Basically, Augustus was using his slave household and his own freedmen to run the Roman Empire the way in which a great Roman senator or large landowner ran his far-flung estates and business interests.
Although slaves performed the more menial and obscure jobs, higher, salaried positions that required managerial talent and judgment went to the emperor’s trusted freedmen. Many of them were shrewd and skillful ministers. They held positions equivalent to those secretary-ships in a modern government such as state, treasury, defense, war, and transportation. Acting as the emperor’s agents, they soon came to exercise great influence over financial affairs: how much the emperor should spend on armaments, public works, games, and spectacles; the weight, fineness (purity), and numbers of gold or silver coins to be minted; the taxes or tribute that provinces must pay; the salaries that governors, prefects, procurators, and other appointed officials should receive. Finally, certain freedmen in high positions began to receive petitions and requests from every part of the Empire. The option of ignoring such petitions or bringing them to the emperor’s notice put these freedmen functionaries in positions of real patronage and power. They could reach levels of privilege and prestige never available to freedmen under the Republic.
Operation of the popular assemblies
In directing the Roman administration, it was important for Augustus to influence the popular assemblies in their electoral and legislative functions. As did any prominent man, he had the right to canvass voters on behalf of candidates whom he favored. Through his consular imperium, he shared with the consuls the right to accept or reject men who wished to be candidates. These two rights, commendatio and nominatio, in combination with his great personal popularity and auctoritas, gave a major advantage to people whom he preferred.
Still, Augustus did not always get his way by these means, and he was reluctant to interfere too much in consular elections lest he offend the nobles. They continued to dominate the consulship for a number of years and often employed bribery and violence to do so. In 5 c.e., therefore, Augustus induced the consuls to propose the lex Valeria Cornelia. It altered the procedure for voting in the Centuriate Assembly, so that in elections ten centuries composed of the 600 senators and the 3000 equites enrolled as jurors voted first and indicated their preference for two consular candidates and twelve praetorian. The remaining centuries would then usually follow their lead in the rest of the voting. From that time on, the majority of equites in these ten centuries usually secured the election of “new men,” who were much to Augustus’ liking.
The common people were pleased with Augustus’ attempts to influence the outcome of elections. They wanted him to have loyal magistrates and demanded to know whom he preferred. In 8 c.e., when he was no longer strong enough to canvass for candidates in person, he began to post lists of those candidates whom he commended to the voters.
Augustus’ power to influence legislation was also great. By virtue of his tribunicia potestas or consular imperium, he could submit bills directly. Usually, however, he preferred to have friendly magistrates submit desired bills, as in the case of the lex Valeria Cornelia.
Administration of justice
Augustus introduced a number of changes to improve the administration of justice and make it more efficient through a series of laws in 18 and 17 b.c.e. First, he established two new standing criminal courts (quaestiones perpetuae) for the crimes of adultery (de adulteriis) and either the hoarding of or speculating in grain (de annona). He also increased the representation of equites on the jury panels and lowered the age requirement from thirty to twenty-five in order to increase the pool of jurors for the expanded court system. Several other laws, probably of 8 b.c.e., further classified the jurisdictions of the various courts so that there would be a comprehensive system embracing all common varieties of crimes.
In the realm of civil procedure, Augustus seems to have abolished the old legis actiones (p. 204) for all practical purposes in 17 b.c.e. That avoided duplication with the more popular formulary procedure and also the possibility that a party who was dissatisfied with a verdict under the formulary procedure would bring suit again under a legis actio. More important, however, was Augustus’ adoption of a streamlined procedure known as cognitio extraordinaria, under which there was no two-stage process. The emperor or his appointee determined the suitability of the case and judged it in a single process. Another advance over the formulary procedure was that under cognitio, the judge could compel a defendant to answer a summons and could find him guilty by default if he failed to appear. Moreover, the judge did not have to wait for a complaint to be lodged by someone else but could launch an investigation of his own. Because lower judges were merely subordinates of a higher authority, defendants who were citizens had the right of appeal all the way to the emperor. The cognitio procedure gradually replaced both the quaestiones perpetuae in criminal cases and the formulary procedure in civil cases.
Social reforms
Augustus hoped to reinforce the peace and stability that he created with his constitutional and administrative arrangements by reforming Roman society. He tried to secure the restoration of political order by the renewal of a clear and fixed hierarchical social order that embraced the class structure, women, and the family. Also, by restoring stable family life, he hoped to regenerate the Roman and Italian freeborn population devastated by the bloodshed, confiscations, and chaos of civil war. A recent analysis of Roman census data and the frequency with which people hid and failed to recover hoards of coins in Italy during the first century b.c.e. reinforces the picture of a significant drop in the number of Roman citizens during internal disorders.
Slaves and freedmen
Augustus neither opposed slavery nor did anything to reduce its incidence or importance in Roman life. His frontier wars brought huge numbers of new slaves to Rome and Italy. They may have caused him to worry about the impact that the unregulated granting of freedom to many of those slaves would have had on the citizenry. He set limits on the percentages of masters’ total slaves that could be freed in their wills, with one hundred individuals as the absolute maximum. He instituted a 5 percent tax on formal manumissions. Furthermore, he strictly regulated the practice of informal manumission and made it less financially attractive to masters who wanted to avoid the 5 percent tax on formal manumissions by freeing slaves informally. Previously, all property belonging to an informally freed slave upon his death had to go to his former master, but Augustus allowed such an informally freed ex-slave to dispose of his property as he wished in a will. Finally, he would not permit freedom for any slave who had been imprisoned for a crime or disgraceful deed.
At the same time, Augustus tried to promote relatively humane treatment of slaves. One of the duties of Augustus’ newly established urban prefect was to look into complaints by slaves that they were being denied enough to eat. Of course, the actual treatment of slaves was not the Emperor’s only concern. With the growing number of slaves and fewer chances of manumission, Augustus realized that slave owners would have to treat slaves decently if they were to avoid the kinds of massive revolts that had occurred in the late Republic.
Augustus encouraged and rewarded cooperative freed slaves. By the lex Junia Norbana (17 b.c.e.), those who were freed informally had their noncitizen status regularized as Junian Latins, with specific provisos for future full citizenship. An informally freed slave under the age of thirty could obtain citizenship by marrying any free Roman or Junian Latin woman and producing a child who was still alive after one year. A freedwoman who produced four children also received extra privileges similar to those given to citizen women who had borne three. On the other hand, Augustus banned freedwomen from marrying senators.
To compensate freedmen for being barred from the regular magistracies in Rome and the municipalities, Augustus created new posts just for them. In Rome, they served as vicomagistri, who worked with the vigiles in fighting fires and maintaining the night watch. They also had charge of the neighborhood festivals. In the municipal towns of Italy, freedmen made up the bulk of local boards of six called the Seviri Augustales, or simply Augustales, who had charge of the emperor’s local cult and put on games for their fellow townspeople.
Popular benefactions
The great mass of exploitable common citizens that had built up at Rome since the second century b.c.e. had been a significant factor in the instability of the late Republic. Augustus had blunted their direct political power by effectively gaining control of the popular assemblies himself. On the other hand, he still had to cope with the potential that they represented for violence and disorder. To limit their numbers, he had contemplated eliminating the distribution of free grain in 2 b.c.e., but he decided against such a potentially provocative move. Instead, he reduced the number of people receiving free grain to 200,000 freeborn citizens by making about 120,000 freedmen ineligible. He also set up a more efficient system of procuring and distributing free grain and kept the retail price reasonable for all.2 At his own expense, he also expanded the number of games and public entertainments, such as the increasingly popular gladiatorial contests.
Women and the family
Less effective were the attempts to control promiscuity and regulate marriage and family life. Two Julian laws of 18 b.c.e. and the lex Papia Poppaea of 9 c.e. were specifically designed to curb immorality, speed up the birthrate, and revive “ancient Roman virtue.” These laws prohibited long engagements, regulated divorce, required all bachelors and spinsters to marry as soon as possible, and forced all widows under fifty and all widowers under sixty to marry within three years. Failure to comply carried penalties and disabilities: partial or complete ineligibility to receive legacies or hold public office and exclusion from public games and spectacles. Married persons who were childless, impotent, or sterile incurred similar disabilities, whereas those with three or more children could advance rapidly in their public careers and social life. For example, women who had borne three or more children were freed from guardianship.
The total effectiveness of the law, however, was somewhat diminished by the conferral of the special and fictitious “right of three children” (ius trium liberorum). Persons of influence might claim this right. Thus, the unmarried poets Vergil and Horace, Augustus himself with only one child, Empress Livia with two, and even the two bachelor consuls who lent their names to the lex Papia Poppaea did not have to comply with the provisions of the law.
The new laws made adultery a criminal as well as a private offense. A paterfamilias might kill adulterous women under his power along with their paramours; a husband could kill his wife’s lover. A man who refused to divorce an adulterous wife or who knowingly married an adulteress was equally guilty before the law. Flagrant adulterers suffered penalties varying from fines and loss of property to banishment and even death.
Religious reforms
To the Romans, the peaceful working of the state depended on maintaining the Peace of the Gods, pax deorum. To do that, it was necessary to perform all of the ancestral rites and ceremonies that the gods had ordained. Therefore, in 28 b.c.e., Augustus undertook the repair of many temples in Rome (eighty-two, according to his own statement). He also resurrected long-neglected ceremonies and priesthoods. In 27, for example, he reconstituted the ancient college of the Arval Brothers, who once led the people each year in the Ambarvalia (p. 66) at the end of May. Furthermore, Augustus revived the priesthood of the Flamen Dialis with all its old taboos (p. 70). It was a difficult undertaking. Many of the ancient priesthoods and rites had fallen into disuse during the disturbed conditions of the civil wars. The archaic language of ancient hymns and incantations was no longer understood. Much antiquarian research went into solving the questions that arose.
Augustus also created new temples and cults that would help shape a positive image of his rule. Accordingly, 29 b.c.e. witnessed the dedication of the new temples of the Divine Julius (in the old Forum) and of Apollo (on the Palatine), a fitting tribute because both gods were protectors of the Julian dynasty, givers of victory, and saviors of the state from civil war. In 2 b.c.e., Augustus erected a new temple of Mars the Avenger in the newly built Forum of Augustus. In 13 b.c.e. the senate voted to erect an altar of Augustan Peace (Ara Pacis Augustae). One of the sculptured panels of this superb monument shows Augustus and his family proceeding in solemn pomp to offer sacrifice. Another panel shows a goddess seated on a rock and holding two children and the fruits of the earth on her lap (p. 392, Figure 21.5). A companion panel depicts the armed goddess Roma, and a fourth portrays Aeneas piously sacrificing a sow to his household gods. Thus, the altar suggests peace and plenty, which flowed from the martial valor of Augustus and his pious devotion to the gods, on whose favor everything depended.
Augustus was able to push his religious program with more zeal and vigor after 12 b.c.e. when he succeeded Lepidus as pontifex maximus. By 7 b.c.e., he had the city divided into fourteen regions and the regions into wards or precincts (vici). The vicomagistri, or ward masters, officiated at the shrines dedicated to the worship of the Lares Compitales, now called the Lares Augusti, guardian spirits of the crossroads and household (p. 66). At each shrine, the vicomagistri also offered sacrifices to the Genius of Augustus, his guiding spirit, just as the genius of the paterfamilias was traditionally honored in the household worship of the Lares and Penates. Other gods also became “Augustan”: when Augustus’ stepson, Tiberius, refurbished the old temple to Concord in the Forum, the goddess was reconfigured as Concordia Augusta (Augustan Concord), and her cult changed from being a celebration of unity of Rome’s upper and lower classes to a celebration of harmony with the imperial family. Romans could also worship Augustan Justice (Iustitia Augusta), Augustan Plenty (Ops Augusta), Mars Augustus and Diana Augusta. Some Italian cities, especially in the Greek South, actually erected temples to Augustus, but he did not encourage such overt expressions of divinity in Italy. He preferred to promote municipal cults of his genius and encourage their maintenance by the colleges of Seviri Augustales. These religious demonstrations were spontaneous enough, but they also subtly helped organize public opinion behind the government.
Overview and assessment
During the course of forty years, Augustus accomplished a radical reformation of Rome. Trying not to attempt too much too soon, but proceeding by gradual steps and building on precedents, he shaped a new form of government, the Principate. It blended the constitutional forms of the old Republic and the reality of one-man rule into a palatable constitutional monarchy for the Roman Empire. He created a complex administrative hierarchy that reserved many positions of highest status for the old senatorial aristocracy. At the same time, he brought the equestrians of Italy into positions of real power and made them a loyal part of the system, with chances of obtaining senatorial status. In some ways, slaves and freedmen were more restricted, but they, too, had important roles to play in an increasingly complex administrative system and could hope for enhanced status for themselves or their children through loyal service. The urban poor played a much more limited role in political life, but they were kept content with generous benefits. Attempts at restricting women and reforming personal morality did not turn out well. Still, Augustus gave renewed influence to the state religion and successfully promoted the cult of his genius as a way of fostering widespread loyalty to his imperial regime. Many would not care for that regime today. Most Romans, however, preferred it to chaos, civil wars, and failure to address crucial problems, which had characterized the last century of the aristocrats’ free Republic, libera res publica.
NOTES
1 The so-called senatorial provinces were, according to Dio (53.12.2 and 53.13.1), generally peaceful and, unlike the imperial provinces, did not require a garrison of legionary troops. This distinction did not always hold, for the proconsuls of the senatorial provinces of Africa, Illyricum, and Macedonia had legionary troops under their command at various times during the early Principate.
2 The recipients of free grain were not limited to poor freeborn citizens. Rather, receiving free grain was a mark of status for all freeborn citizens, who were expected to show gratitude to their benefactor for it.
Suggested reading
Eck , W. The Age of Augustus. 2nd ed. Translated by D. L. Schneider and R. Daniel . Malden. MA: Blackwell, 2007.
Levick , B. Augustus: Image and Substance. New York: Longman, 2010.
Richardson , J. S. Augustan Rome 44 BC to AD 14: The Restoration of the Republic and The Establishment of the Empire. The Edinburgh History of Ancient Rome. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.