The Constitutional Framework
As previously noted, in the new system of government inaugurated by Augustus there was no sharp break with the past. The powers he was invested with were conferred upon him in forms compatible with republican precedents, and the Republic itself still functioned.
The assemblies and senate still met, the regular magistrates were elected each year, and the senate continued, as in the past, to be recruited from ex-magistrates. Augustus was successful because he was able to establish a stable regime, a disguised kind of monarchy cleverly hidden behind a constitutional, republican facade. But the new political system was heavily encumbered by its contradictions between facade and reality. However successful Augustus’ programme proved to be, neither he nor his successors resolved the contradictions inherent in the elective theory supporting the new regime and its dynastic practice. In the course of time, the absolutism inherent in the imperial system became progressively more pronounced and, inevitably, the relics of the republican state (senatorial independence of action and the sovereignty of a people legislating and electing magistrates in popular assembly) withered away.1.4.2.1New Roman"'> The Republican Elements in the Augustan Constitution
The Popular Assemblies
During the early years of the Principate age, the assemblies of the people continued to function as legislative and elective bodies. However, from the beginning of the new order, the political role of the assemblies was destined to wither away yielding to the necessities of a society transformed from a city-state into an empire in which leadership had shifted from short-term magistracies to the supremacy of a single ruler.
Thus, as early as the time of Tiberius, the election of magistrates was transferred to the senate and by the end of the first century AD, popular legislation was superseded by the decrees of the emperor and the resolutions of the senate.[32] As a result, the assemblies lost their significance as independent political bodies, although they continued in existence in an honorary or ceremonial capacity until the end of the third century AD.The Senate
In contrast with the people’s assemblies, the senate received a considerable accession of dignity, as well as electoral and legislative powers. Officially, the senate had become a full partner in the government. Theoretically, it was even more: the ultimate source of the emperor’s power, as his imperium and legitimacy on accession was derived from the senate’s approval of his nomination. In reality, however, the senate was much under the control of the emperor, who regulated its composition, dominated its proceedings and prescribed its tasks. Elections of magistrates always corresponded with the wishes of the emperor; legislative proposals brought before the senate by the emperor or his representatives were accepted without much debate[33]; the conduct of foreign policy was in the hands of the emperor, who also controlled all the politically important provinces; and the management of public finances was gradually assumed by the emperor following the establishment of the imperial treasury (fiscus). Thus, in the end, the division of government between the emperor and the senate (diarchy) was more apparent than real; although the emperors owed all their powers to the senate, once these powers were given the senate became virtually impotent and unable to retract them, even if it had desired to do so.
The Magistrates
After the establishment of the Principate, the old republican magistracies continued to exist and their apparent importance was shown by the fact that the emperors forged their power by relying on the most important of these, such as the consulship and the tribunate.
In fact, however, the authority of the magistrates was now considerably limited. The consuls no longer directed the political life of the state, nor did they hold military command as these functions were transferred to the emperor. Nevertheless, the consulship remained until the closing years of the Empire an important status symbol and a gateway to the highest offices in the imperial administration.[34] The praetors retained the civil and criminal jurisdiction they had held during the Republic.[35] However, their role in the administration of justice gradually decreased in importance following the expansion of the emperor’s judicial functions, and the establishment of new civil and criminal courts under the jurisdiction of imperial officials.[36] The tribunes continued to exist down to the fourth century AD, but their authority was considerably diminished by the decline of the popular assemblies and their complete dependence on the will of the emperor.1.4.2.2 The Emperor and Imperial Administration
Under the Augustan constitution, the powers of the emperor were those exercised by the higher magistrates of the Republic, now combined and concentrated in one person. In the course of time these powers were gradually extended, although their legal basis remained largely unchanged. A great deal of the emperor’s authority emanated from his tribunicia potestas, the power the tribunes had held under the republican constitution. This enabled him to veto acts of the magistrates and other state organs (intercessio); it allowed him to call together and submit proposals to the senate and the assemblies of the people; it afforded his person inviolability (sacrosanctitas), so that any indignity offered to him could be treated as a criminal offence; and it allowed him to present himself as the protector of the common man’s interests. The imperium proconsulare, the overriding authority of a proconsul, gave the emperor supremacy over the key frontier provinces and secured his position as commander-in-chief of the army.
Yet it should also be noted that much of the emperor’s authority derived from sources quite beyond the traditional republican institutions. Thus, the emperor was seen as enjoying auctoritas: supreme political prestige, moral authority and social influence.[37] In 27 bc the senate granted Octavian the title Augustus, signifying grandeur and majesty, but also meaning holy or worshipful. Despite of all his powers and titles, Octavian refrained from assuming the position of king, professing to be no more that a princeps, a term simply meaning ‘the first citizen of the state’.[38] He boasted that he had not taken a single magistracy in conflict with ancestral custom and that the official powers he possessed were not greater than those of his colleagues in the office concerned. The truth, however, is that as the powers of the princeps were not subject to the limitations traditionally imposed on magisterial authority, initiative passed from the senatorial oligarchy to one man and the whole system functioned under the autocratic control of an emperor.As the true master of the state, the emperor marshalled a huge administrative machine: a vast civil service composed of trained, paid and permanent officials. These new officials gradually assumed those duties the emperor deemed impossible or undesirable for the old republican magistrates to perform. The imperial officials differed from the magistrates of the Republic in some important respects: they were chosen by the emperor himself, without the approval of the senate or the popular assemblies, and reported directly to him; they were appointed for an indefinite period, although the emperor could dismiss them at any time at his pleasure; and they were not invested with imperium or potestas—their only powers were those delegated by the emperor who could approve, reverse or modify their decisions as he thought fit. The most important imperial officials were the praetorian prefect (praefectus praetorio) and the city prefect (praefectus urbi).
The former was originally the commander of the special military units that served as the emperor’s personal bodyguard (the praetorian guard). The office evolved into one of the most powerful in the state, and the praetorian prefect became the emperor’s chief adviser and executive officer in military and civil matters. From the late second century onwards, he also assumed important judicial functions. The city prefect was responsible for maintaining public order in Rome with the Roman police (the urban cohorts) at his disposal. He had extensive jurisdictional powers as he headed the chief criminal court in Rome and the surrounding area, and also dealt with civil matters connected with his criminal jurisdiction. Other important officials of this period were the prefect of the grain supply (praefectus annonae)?9 and the prefect of the watch (praefectus vigilum).[39] [40] Another category of officials with a varying extent of power embraced the procurators (procuratores). Acting as agents of the emperor, procurators carried out a number of tasks within the civil administration, such as the collection of taxes, the management of state revenues and the supervision of public buildings and factories. When dealing with important administrative and legal matters the emperors consulted a body of advisors (consilium principis) composed of trusted friends, senior state officials and experts. By the middle of the third century ad, this body had assumed most of the functions and duties of the Roman senate. The administrative apparatus of imperial Rome included also a complex network of offices (scrinia): these were manned initially by slaves and freedmen, and then by members of the equestrian class in later eras (from the second century ad). The scrinium a rationibus dealt with matters relating to public finance; the scrinium a libellis responded to petitions from private citizens; the scrinium ab epistulis handled the emperor’s official correspondence; the scrinium a cognitionibus investigated judicial disputes referred to the emperor; and the scrinium a memoria performed the secretarial work on all decisions, letters, appointments and orders issued by the emperor. State revenues derived from taxation and other sources were deposited in the central state treasury (fiscus) managed by the procuratores a rationibus or fisci.[41]Probably the weakest point of the constitutional regime of the Principate was that it did not provide for an orderly system of succession to the imperial throne. This weakness stemmed from the contradiction between the emperor’s constitutional position as a Roman magistrate whose tenure derived from the senate and the people, and his de facto status as a monarch whose maintenance of power ultimately depended on army support. Aware that he could not legally nominate a successor, Augustus (and then the Antonines) adopted the most apparently effective means of ensuring the peaceful succession to imperial power: the designation of a successor by the incumbent emperor, the adoption of the individual designated as the emperor’s son, and then the training of the successor for his future duties (by sharing in the government of the state). The system of adoptive emperorship broke down in the late second century ad, and thereafter emperors were made and unmade at the will of different field armies that each backed its own general to power.
1.5
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