Court of the emperor

As the emperor gradually wielded an ever-increasing range of powers, it is small wonder that he also came to be regarded as a source of law and justice. This jurisdiction, like his many other functions, was in constant evolution over the course of the imperial period.

It is intriguing that an institution seeking constantly to entrench itself in Roman society appears to have been one of the most nomadic of courts. The emperor's court did not have a standardized location such as the Forum of Augustus provided for the praetor urbanus and the praetor peregrinus. Politics are the most probable explanation. Augustus is known to have striven to hide the extent of his authority, and so we might well expect him to have kept the physical form of his courtroom temporary, while at the same time giving new permanency to the courts of the main praetors. Augustus avoided imprinting his own legal jurisdiction on the topography of the city. As the imperial posi­tion became more autocratic under his successors, however, we would expect a permanent location to emerge.

So, during Augustus' time and later, the legal hearings of the emperor's court were located at various places within the city. Most emperors appear to have heard cases in the Forum Romanum)² According to Suetonius and Cassius Dio, Claudius, Vespasian, and Domitian used this location frequently.¹³⁰ Tiberius also used this location, though Dio merely implies the occasions were fre- quent.¹³¹ Hadrian, too, held court in there. However, in Hadrian's case Dio lists this location as one of many, and accords it no special attention.¹³²

The emperor also held court in the Forum of Augustus.¹³³ Both Claudius and Trajan are specifically identified as hearing cases here, and based on the account of the former we can, in fact, pinpoint the court's location even more precisely. To demonstrate Claudius' gluttony, Suetonius recounts that on one occasion when he held court in the forum, smelling the meal “quod in proxima Martis aede Saliis apparabatur, deserto tribunali ascendit ad sacerdotes unaque decubuit", “which was being prepared for the Salii in the nearby temple of Mars, abandoning the tribunal, he ascended to the priests and reclined with them”.¹³⁴ This passage, combined with the design of the forum and the above discussion of the praetors' courts in this forum, suggests that Claudius was using one of the praetor's tribunals in one of the exedrae located close to the temple itself. We can assume that occasions arose when one of the praetor's tribunals was vacant. Claudius perhaps preferred to position his court in the western exedra, with its artistic references to his Julian ancestors.¹³⁵

The imperial residence was also an identified court location.

The imperial gardens also appear to have served for the emperor's legal court. The trial of Isidorus, held in perhaps 53, was heard by Claudius in some gardens, the name of which unfortunately is missing.¹⁴⁴ By Claudius' reign the imperial family owned sizeable estates within the city itself, many of which included gardens, such as the Horti Agrippae, Agrippinae, Lamiani, Lolliani, Maecenatiani, and Sallustianil·^⁵ The Horti Agrippinae apparently sat on the right bank of the Tiber, and it is perhaps here that we find a frustrated Claudius ordering an advocate to be tossed into the Tiber “έτυχε γάρ πλησίον αυτου δικάζων”, “for he chanced to be holding court near to it”.¹⁴⁶ The imperial estates subsequent to this time apparently continued to house legal hearings.

We find passing references to other locations as well. The emperor dis­pensed justice, on occasion, in the Portico of Livia and the Pantheon.¹⁴⁸ Both served a variety of public functions, and their use for this purpose is no sur- prise.¹⁴⁹ Claudius heard trials before a temple of Hercules, apparently on a regular basis during the summer months.¹⁵⁰ If Claudius' order to throw the advocate into the river is linked with this temple of Hercules, any of the tem­ples associated with Hercules located in the Forum Boarium and Holitorium, which are near the Tiber, is a possible location.¹⁵¹

Thanks primarily to Cassius Dio, we know of multiple places where a number of emperors dispensed justice. However, at the end of his lists for locations at which Claudius, Trajan, and Hadrian held hearings he also includes the phrase “καί άλλοθι”, “and elsewhere”.¹⁵² One can speculate that this included such obvious locations as the fora of Caesar and Trajan, which are not specifically mentioned. Surely we can assume that such omissions are due to the chance survival of information to the modern day. However, we must also conclude that Dio would mention by name the spots found most often in his own sources.¹⁵³

The emperor frequently dispensed justice from a tribunal at these specific locations.¹⁵⁴ When exhausted, Augustus even had a litter placed on the tri­bunal so that he might continue conducting business in a more restful position.¹⁵⁵ However, it would seem that emperors did not always use a tri­bunal. Dio's report that Hadrian always used one “ώστε δημοσιεύεσθαι τά γιγνόμενα”, “so that whatever was done was made public” implies that the tribunal was not a permanent necessary element of the emperor's court.¹⁵⁶ Suetonius' comment that advocates resisted Claudius' attempts to leave the tribunal by grabbing hold of his foot suggests that the tribunal was similar in height to that of the praetors: 1-1.25 m (3-4 ft).¹⁵⁷ Many sources reflect that the emperor dispensed justice while seated.

Incidents of physical interaction between the emperor and those attending the court aid in reconstructing the physical environs. The tribunal was not greatly isolated from those in attendance. In one instance, a defendant exas­perated with his trial threw a tablet and stylus at Claudius from a distance close enough to cause a wound.¹⁶¹ Maecenas' tossing of the note into Augustus' lap also suggests that both litigants and bystanders were in close proximity to the tribunal.¹⁶²

What, then, was the overall size of the emperor's court? The identification of those present when the emperor dispensed justice bears directly on this question. Obviously, the involved parties, with their advocates, were there.¹⁶³ Bystanders could be numerous as well.¹⁶⁴ The imperial bodyguard was pre­sent; Heracleides (admittedly not a trained advocate) could not finish his speech in the court of Septimius Severus because he was intimidated by the presence of the imperial guard.¹⁶⁵ Claudius seems not to have placed any such barrier between himself and the public when he dispensed justice, since a mob incited by ill omens and famine drove him to the corner of the forum, whence he escaped only with the help of troops.¹⁶⁶ Aides to the emperor, pre­sent both for his personal needs and also for the good functioning of the court, no doubt resulted in a sizeable group.

One identifiable group was the assessors, who are known to have advised numerous emperors in judicial matters.¹⁶⁸ The number of such advisors who sat with the emperor (as a consilium) during a case on any one occasion appar­ently was not fixed, and most surviving lists appear incomplete. Valuable indication of the number of people in a consilium is found in a papyrus of the year AD 13, recording an audience Augustus gave to envoys from Alexandria. Eleven individuals, many of whose listed names are highly fragmentary, apparently worked with Augustus on this occasion.¹⁶⁹ Twelve advisors sat with the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus at a hearing concerning a grant of citizenship.¹⁷⁰ Crook suggests that only parts of the consilium would have attended the emperor on any given occasion, which part to be deter­mined by the type of session (judicial, military, general civil affairs) the emperor was conducting.¹⁷¹ Thus, these numbers may represent only one group of the whole. Apparently, the number on a judicial consilium could range widely. According to Dio, Claudius dispensed justice almost daily either alone or with the whole senate.¹⁷² In the Acta Isidori, Claudius required the participation of only 36 senators.¹⁷³

This same passage raises the question of whether the number of assessors present affected the location where the emperor's court was held.

καί καύ’ εκάστην γε ως είπεΐν ημέραν, ήτοι μετά πάσης της γερουσίας ή καί ιδία, το μεν πλεΐστον ε’ν τη αγορά, ήδη δε καί άλλοθι επί βήματος εδίκαζε· καί γάρ το κατά τούς συνέδρους, εκλειφύέν εξ ού δ Τιβέριος ες τήν νήσον εξεχώρησεν, ιΐνενεώσατο.

Almost every day, either with the whole senate or alone, he [Claudius] dispensed justice from the tribunal, most often in the forum, but sometimes elsewhere; for he renewed the consilium which had been abandoned since that time when Tiberius departed to the island.¹⁷⁴

The force of the “καί γάρ” suggests that Dio sees the location of the court as dependent on whether or not assessors would be present. As their number could apparently fluctuate greatly, the overall number of people present at the emperor's court could also vary widely.

Other possible factors may also have determined the amount of space required for the emperor's court. The size of the general audience in atten­dance could have been a factor, although difficulties of interpretation quickly arise. From the anecdote recounting Maecenas' failure to reach Augustus we can infer a sizeable group of people.¹⁷⁵ On one occasion, as we saw, the crowd surrounding Claudius' tribunal in the Forum Romanum was large enough to drive him from it into a corner of the Forum; however, this crowd panicked by ill omens and famine seems not to have been attending the legal hearings specifically, but rather to have descended upon the emperor in an accessible location.

It is nonetheless conceivable that the numbers expected to attend the court may not have affected its location. In actuality, many of the spaces used were not designed specifically to house the emperor's court. By contrast, the Pantheon, the Portico of Livia, and most obviously the fora could all accom­modate the emperor's court with ample room to spare, even if large numbers of individuals attended.