the constitutional powers of the senate during the … · 2018-12-07 · 2 abstract the question...

THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS OF THE SENATE

DURING THE REIGN OF AUGUSTUS

OWEN P. PETTIT

SUBMITTED IN TOTAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS (BY THESIS ONLY)

DECEMBER 2011

THE SCHOOL OF HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES

THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

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ABSTRACT

The question addressed in this dissertation is that of how the radical changes

initiated by Augustus between 28 and 19 BCE affected the constitutional status of the res

publica. The focus in particular is the repercussions of these constitutional changes on

the legal prerogatives of the Roman Senate.

The first chapter looks at the changes to the state orchestrated by Augustus

between 28 and 19 BCE. The restitutio of 27 and the three settlements of 27, 23 and 19

BCE are reconstructed and investigated with special reference to how they affected the

legal status of the Senate and its members. The second chapter discusses the

implications of the constitutional changes to the state for Augustus, the Senate and the

individual senators. Augustus remained a member of that body while establishing his

pre-eminence, and his interactions with and in the Senate help to understand the

relationship between the autocratic emperor and the oligarchical senators.

The third and fourth chapters are a review into the interactions between the

Senate and Augustus throughout his reign, with an analysis of how closely the

constitutional responsibilities and privileges of the princeps and the Senate were

observed. The third chapter addresses all known accounts of the Senate exerting control

in the res publica, whether through its power or its influence. The actions of the Senate

are discussed thematically: foreign policy, the senatorial court, administration,

legislation and ceremonial roles. The fourth chapter investigates the actions of the

emperor and his new imperial bureaucracy, and contrasts these actions with the

prerogatives of the Senate. The two aspects of imperial encroachment – by Augustus

himself and by the combined senatorial, equestrian and freedmen members of his

bureaucracy – are treated separately in this final chapter.

The intent and effect of the study is to understand the legal foundations of

Augustus’s power and the extent to which he respected the new constitution of the res

publica through his actions from 28 BCE-14 CE. The arguments combine to show that

the prerogatives of the Senate were not changed during the redefinition of the Roman

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state; rather, Augustus and his bureaucracy carried out many traditional senatorial duties

without actually removing any powers from the Senate. Augustus was careful to respect

the honour of the Senate and allowed them to keep most of their Republican privileges.

While the prerogatives of the Senate had not changed, and their prestige in society was

maintained by Augustus, in practice the Senate had little influence on the major

decisions of the new imperial res publica.

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DECLARATION

This is to certify that:

(i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the Masters

(ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used

(iii) the thesis is 31849 words in length, inclusive of footnotes, but exclusive of

tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices

Signed: …………………………………………………..

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AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my eternally patient wife and family for their unwavering support.

Special thanks also to Frederik Vervaet who has been an exceptional and dedicated

supervisor.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract 2

Declaration 4

Acknowledgements 5

Table of contents 6

Introduction 9

Chapter 1. The Developing Constitutional Position of Augustus 15

1.1. Introduction 15

1.2. The Res Gestae Divi Augusti 16

1.3. Cassius Dio 17

1.4. The Official Position of Augustus 19

1.4.1. 28 BCE 19

1.5. The First Settlement Of 27 BCE 22

1.5.1. Restitutio 22

1.5.2. The Power to Control Laws 23

1.5.3. Political Power 24

1.5.4. Provincial Power 25

1.5.5. Conclusion 26

1.6. The Second Settlement of 23 BCE 26

1.6.1. Introduction 26

1.6.2. Consular Imperium 28

1.6.3. Tribunicia Potestas 28

1.6.4. Repercussions Of 23 BCE 29

1.7. The Third Settlement Of 19 BCE 30

1.8. Conclusion 30

Chapter 2. The Imperial Senate 32


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2.2. The Emperor’s Senate 32


2.2.2. Organising Attendance 33

2.2.3. Senatorial Reluctance 34

2.2.4. The Consular Nobilitas and the Pedarii 35

2.2.5. The Future of the Senatorial Order 37

2.2.6. The Ideal Senate? 38

2.2.7. Convening the Senate 39

2.3. The Emperor as Senator 40


2.3.2. Seating Arrangements 41

2.3.3. Methods Of Discussion 43

2.3.4. Augustus’s Consilium 43

2.3.5. Decrees Of The Senate 44

2.4. Conclusion 46

Chapter 3. The Senate’s Attested Actions 47


3.2. Foreign Policy 48

3.2.1. Key Attestations 48

3.2.2. Foreign Policy in Rome 49

3.2.3. Embassies and Diplomacy 50

3.2.4. Triumphs 51

3.3. The Senatorial Court 53


3.3.2. The Senate as a Court 53

3.3.3. The Case of Cornelius Gallus 54

3.4. Administrative Roles 56


3.4.2. Grants of Power 57

3.4.3. New Imperial Administration 59

3.5. Legislation 60

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3.5.2. Augustan Laws 60

3.5.3. Augustus’s Immunity from Prosecution 61

3.6. Ceremonial Acts 62


3.6.2. The Phrasing of Senatorial Decrees 63

3.7. Conclusion 63

Chapter 4. Imperial Encroachment 65


4.2. The Imperial Bureaucracy 66


4.2.2. Senatorial Officials 67

4.2.3. Equestrian Officials 71

4.2.4. Other Officials 76

4.2.5. Conclusion 77

4.3. Encroachment by the Emperor 79


4.3.2. Foreign Policy 79

4.3.3. Law-Making 83

4.3.4. Other Imperial Roles 86

4.4. Conclusion 87

Conclusion 88

Bibliography 90

Primary Sources 90

Secondary Sources 91

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INTRODUCTION

In 28 BCE Augustus was officially named princeps senatus: the first man in the

Senate of Rome. Augustus needed a new system if he wished to remain pre-eminent in

the Roman res publica. The only official roles that matched his triumviral power were

rex or dictator, but these were associated with Tarquin and Julius Caesar, whose

precedents Augustus didn’t want to follow. Institutional change had characterised the

civil wars and Augustus could not maintain the role that triumviral power gave him and

claim to be re-establishing the res publica. The years 28-19 BCE were characterised by

Augustus adapting his constitutional position in the res publica, ostensibly to protect the

state. As a direct result, the role and prerogatives of the Roman Senate were also

modified. The Senate still played an important role in the machinery of the state. Thus

the legal prerogatives of senators continued to include greeting foreign embassies on

behalf of Rome, codifying administration in public provinces, and issuing decrees for

moral reform. The primary aim of this work is to investigate the formal senatorial

prerogatives of the Augustan era, and assess how closely they were actually reflected by

the actions of the Senate and respected by those of Augustus. The thesis will also study

whether Augustus’s interactions with the legal prerogatives of the Senate adapted over

the course of his reign.

The Senate of Augustan Rome has received occasional attention over the course

of the last century of scholarship, but it is time for a review of senatorial prerogatives

and associated actions. Recent relevant books include W.K. (Patrick) Lacey’s Augustus

and the Principate (1995) and Richard Talbert’s The Senate of Imperial Rome (1988).1

Neither, however, pays close attention to the legal prerogatives of the Senate. The

authors focus instead on the actions and character of Augustus (and future emperors).

Ronald Ridley’s analysis of the Res Gestae (2003) is excellent, and Cooley’s recent

book on the same subject (2009) is also relevant to the constitutional powers of the

1 W.K. Lacey, Augustus and the Principate: The Evolution of the System (Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1996);

Richard Talbert, The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

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Senate, as are several recent commentaries on primary historians.2 However, none of

these works is specifically designed to examine the direct actions of the Senate in light

of their alleged customary prerogatives.

This thesis aligns with a new concept of the constitutional position of Augustus,

as recently presented by Frederik Vervaet.3 Vervaet presents convincing evidence that

Augustus was a triumvir of Rome until his restitutio speech in the Senate in 27 BCE,

which was effectively an abdication of his triumviral role. Vervaet argues that Augustus

was coldly precise in re-arranging the res publica as part of the three settlements from

27 to 19 BCE that gave him the powers that he needed to control the Roman Empire.

This thesis aims to present an analysis of the legal situation of the Senate in Rome in the

context of this new evaluation of the official position and political strategy of Augustus.

This work is divided into four chapters. Chapter One will outline the position of

Augustus in the res publica: identifying the specific legal changes to Augustus’s

position that came about in the period 28-19 BCE. It will reconstruct the nuances of

Augustus’s role in the state and look at the powers he possessed and how they were

given to him. It is essential to understand this role if we are to gain an appreciation of

the emerging position of the Senate. The focus of the second chapter is to investigate

Augustus’s role as a senator. Its purpose is to discuss the interactions between Augustus

and the Senate, in particular the nuances in their relationship that are crucial to

understanding the transformations that occurred in the imperial Senate. This second

chapter will discuss many aspects of senatorial procedure: how the Senate was

organised and censored; how each official meeting was convened; who had pre-

eminence in the seating arrangements; how discussions were instigated; and how

2 Ronald Ridley, The Emperor's Retrospect: Augustus' Res Gestae in Epigraphy, Historiography and

Commentary (Leuven: Peeters, 2003); Alison Cooley, Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation and Commentary. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); J.W. Rich, The Augustan Settlement: Roman History 53-55.9 (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1990); P.M. Swan, The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History Books 55-56 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

3 Frederik Vervaet, "The Secret History: The Official Position of the Imperator Caesar Divi Filius from 31 to 27 BCE." Ancient Society 40 (2010): 79-152. Frederik Vervaet, "Arrogating Despotic Power through Deceit: The Pompeian Model for Augusan Dissimulatio." In The Discourse of Despotism and Deceit in the Ancient World, edited by A.J. Turner, Chong-Gossard K.O. and Vervaet F.J. (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 134-166. See also J.W. Rich and J.H.C. Williams. "Leges Et Iura P.R. Restituit: A New Aureus of Octavian and the Settlement of 28-27 BC." Numismatic Chronicle 159 (1999): 169-213.

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decrees were passed. These minutiae give us valuable insights into the legal position of

Augustus and the expected role of the Senate in the new res publica.

Chapter Three examines the actions of the Senate from 28 BCE until 14 CE. This

discussion is divided into five aspects of senatorial control: the Senate’s role in foreign

policy, as a senatorial court, in administrative roles, as a law-making body, and in

ceremonial roles. These sections will identify different occasions on which the Senate

passed decrees in these areas, and provide an analytical discussion of the nature of these

senatus consulta. Chapter Four addresses imperial encroachment. The influence of the

emperor on senatorial prerogatives was twofold: the new imperial bureaucracy was

given many of the duties of the Senate, and Augustus himself intruded in many

traditional senatorial domains himself. The first section of this last chapter will discuss

how Augustus installed bureaucrats in essential roles throughout Rome, giving them

duties that were ostensibly senatorial prerogatives. Members of the equestrian and lower

classes, as well as members of the senatorial class, were recruited in this development

of the new imperial bureaucracy. The second section of the chapter will discuss how

Augustus usurped senatorial prerogatives himself, especially in the fields of foreign

policy and moral reform.

This aim of the thesis is to provide an evidence-based analysis of the

constitutional position of Augustus and the Senate from 28 BCE to 14 CE. The concept of

power is seminal to the investigation and it is useful to look briefly at the nature of

power in imperial Rome. The focus will be on evidence of the Senate wielding power as

a body: as the 'Roman Senate'. The aim is not to investigate individual exertions of

power, nor to discuss those small coteries or fractured groups of senators that did not

officially represent the Senate as a whole. While it is undeniable that individuals within

such groups had an impact on the behaviour of the Senate proper, their actions will not

be of interest to us in themselves.

Official power (potestas) and informal influence (auctoritas) in the Roman state

were crucially different elements of control. There exists an important difference

between power and influence in the Roman world. This distinction is especially relevant

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when studying the transition of the state from oligarchy to monarchy. The importance of

influence – accrued from favours, gifts and especially moral standing – cannot be

understated in Roman society. J.E. Lendon explains in his excellent Empire of Honour

that webs of influence were 'as vital to the working of Roman government as they were

to the working of Roman society in general.'4 These webs of influence had a potentially

greater impact than more formal or legal powers in determining what happened on the

public scene.

Thus, it is clear that Augustus did not need official prerogative to ensure that the

candidates he personally nominated would be certainly elected at the tribal assembly. If

he publicly endorsed a senator for some office, there was simply no doubt that the

People would follow his lead.5 In this manner Augustus relied on personal auctoritas to

achieve an aim that would normally have required direct legal power: he could

influence the res publica, ensuring that a political candidate was successful without

relying on special office.

The influence of an individual senator was often built around his progression in

the cursus honorum, meaning the 'path of honour.' The cursus honorum was a

standardised method of advancing through the magistrates of the res publica. A youth of

senatorial rank could expect, if he made no vital mistakes and experienced no dramatic

changes of fortune, to be made quaestor at a specific age (which could vary from era to

era), followed by a stint as praetor and culminating in the highest regular magistracy in

Rome: the consulship.6 As the individual rose through the ranks of state, gaining in

official power, his influence would also be augmented. The power, or potestas, of such

an individual would be based on his exact role, whether that may be in the vigintivirate

or the consulate. But his influence depended on the honour that he had accrued not only

through his own actions but those of his family and his circle of patronage.7 Power

4 J.E. Lendon, Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1997), 30. 5 Tacitus, Annals of Imperial Rome, tr. Michael Grant (London: Penguin, 1989), 1.15; See also: G.V.

Sumner, "The Truth About Velleius Paterculus: Prolegomena." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 74 (1970): 274.

6 Adolf Berger, "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law." Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series 43, no. 2 (1953): 93.

7 Lendon, Empire of Honour, 30.

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(potestas) was reliant upon office, while influence (auctoritas) was reliant upon honour

and personal dignitas. The same rules hold true when evaluating the Senate as a whole,

or any other body: its power would have been directly determined by the laws of the

state, but its influence could fluctuate based upon the honour of the body: the honour

deriving from its former decisions, as well as the individual honour of its participant

members. Power would cease upon the departure from an office, but the honour of

holding the office – and the associated influence – could remain far longer.8

To conclude this introduction, we should look briefly at the Senate before

Augustus. In the classic model of the Senate, there were 300 senators, who represented

the most prestigious ranks of Roman society.9 Members were each allowed to voice

their opinion on a given matter, starting with the most senior, and then the group would

vote ‘peripatetically’ by surrounding the senator whose opinion they agreed with.10 The

Republican Senate comprised the richest, most dignified and most powerful men in the

Roman state, and the 'conscript fathers' were frequently censored to ensure each senator

was still rich enough to qualify.11

This was not the Senate Augustus inherited, however, as it experienced a great

deal of mutation in the fifty years leading up to Augustus’s ‘first settlement’ in 27

BCE.12 The series of military magnates throughout the first century BCE had significantly

and repeatedly modified the senatorial body. The first significant change was made by

Sulla, who added 300 men to the Senate,13 chiefly to include a number of his own

8 Lendon, Empire of Honour, 184-85. 9 There were 300 senators from the fall of the Kingdom until the dictatorship of Sulla, after which their

number increased markedly throughout the Civil Wars: Lily Ross Taylor and Russell T. Scott, "Seating Space in the Roman Senate and the Senatores Pedarii." Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 100 (1969): 530.

10 Lily Ross Taylor, “Seating Space in the Roman Senate,” 547. 11 Two consular senators reviewed the list of the Senate every five years: Adolf Berger, "Encyclopaedic

Dictionary of Roman Law." Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series 43, no. 2 (1953), 57.

12 Cassius Dio, "Roman History 53-55.9," in The Augustan Settlement (Roman History 53-55.9), ed. J.W. Rich (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1990), 53.1.3. For a full discussion of princeps senatus in the Republic see Francis X. Ryan, Rank and Participation in the Republican Senate (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998).

13 Appian, Roman History: The Civil Wars, tr. Horace White (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 1.100.468. It is interesting to note here that even at the largest recorded session of the post-Sullan Republican Senate only 417 were present. Less than two-third attendance was usual. (Ross Taylor, “Seating Space in the Roman Senate,” 576.) Lowered attendance was an issue that

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supporters and to balance a Senate that had been restocked with men advanced to office

by Marius.14 Julius Caesar and his two colleagues in the (informal) first triumvirate

increased the number of senators, to over a thousand, which Augustus took to be far too

many to be able to effectively administer a state.15 Augustus brought the numbers back

down to 600, and apparently still felt that 300 was a more natural number for the Senate

of Rome.16 The Senate under Augustus still comprised the richest men in Rome, and

was censored three times during Augustus’s reign.17 In 28 BCE the Roman Senate was

without a doubt still the pre-eminent Republican institution and became the centre of

Augustus’s constitutional redefinition of the res publica. This thesis will discuss the

Senate’s constitutional status in the Augustan period, and evaluate the extent of the

encroachments made by Augustus and his bureaucracy upon senatorial prerogatives.

Augustus sought to address.

14 Syme, The Roman Revolution, 86. Many new senators must have been installed in this period, as Orosius tells us that 200 senators, including 24 consulars, were lost between 91 and 81 BCE: Orosius, Seven Books of History against the Pagans, tr. A.T. Fear (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010), 5.22.4.

15 Syme, The Roman Revolution, 196. 16 Syme, The Roman Revolution, 349. 17 Res Gestae Divi Augusti, tr. E.A. Judge (unpublished translation), 8. These censuses were taken in 29

BCE, 8 BCE and 14 CE: J.W. Rich, The Augustan Settlement (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1990), 132.

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CHAPTER ONE

THE DEVELOPING CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION OF

AUGUSTUS FROM 28 – 19 BCE

1.1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter has two purposes. Firstly, it will discuss how we can establish the

constitutional position of Augustus. This will involve a discussion of sources,

particularly the Res Gestae and the history of Cassius Dio. Secondly, it will outline the

legal relationship between Augustus and the Senate that developed between 28 and 19

BCE. Chapter One can be seen as the foundation that establishes many concepts

important to the dissertation. Subsequent chapters will trace the development of the

constitutional changes to Rome over the course of the forty years of Augustan

supremacy. It may seem strange to concentrate here on Augustus, as the Senate is the

focus of the overall thesis. The reason for doing so is that most of the changes made to

the structure and constitutional power of the Senate itself were not implanted by specific

laws but resulted from adaptations to the constitutional status of Augustus himself. The

changes in Augustus’s position caused de facto changes to the legal power and

influence of the Senate.18 The lack of fundamental changes to the role of the Senate is

unsurprising on reflection, given the importance of history and precedence in Roman

law. Dramatic changes to laws concerning and protecting the Senate would have

disrupted the mos maiorum more than Augustus wanted. This is discussed at length in

Chapter Four.

So how do we establish the legal position of Augustus? This is difficult for a

number of reasons, but it is not impossible. Two primary texts demand attention: the

first is the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, commissioned by the emperor as his political

testament. The second source, Cassius Dio's Histories, is the most extensive and most 18 H.F. Jolowicz and Barry Nicholas, Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman in Law (Third

Edition) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 322.

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incisive political and constitutional discussion of the reign of Augustus. There are of

course a variety of literary and non-literary sources aside from the Res Gestae, which

will be referred to throughout this work. The epigraphic and numismatic evidence is

especially important in offering a contrast to the potential sycophantism, idealism or

anachronism of the literary sources.19

1.2. THE RES GESTAE DIVI AUGUSTI

Augustus’s retrospect is a divisive document, and was as important to the man

himself as it is now to modern historians. Augustus diffused the text throughout the

Roman Empire, ensuring its survival and enshrining his own memory.20 The final copy

was produced close to his death in 14 CE.21 The emperor's constitutional position is not

the main focus of the Res Gestae. Early in the document, he makes his view of his

treatment of extraordinary powers clear: “I did not accept any magistracy offered

contrary to traditional practice. What the Senate wished performed through my agency

at the time I carried out through the tribunician power.”22 The Res Gestae makes it

quite clear here that Augustus wished to be remembered as never holding any power

that was not legally given to him by the state. Any such grants would have been too

closely associated with the era of extraordinary powers.

The presentation of his power prior to the first settlement becomes important

when we look at how he represented the agreement with the Senate of 27 BCE.

Augustus’s representation of the event is clear and concise. As he declares in the Res

Gestae, 34:

“In my sixth and seventh consulships, after I had extinguished the civil wars, having been by

unanimous agreement placed in full control, I transferred the commonwealth from my power to the 19 It should be remembered however that coins and inscriptions could also be subject to bias, especially

from direct, and indirect, imperial influence. 20 Frederick W. Shipley, “Introduction to the Res Gestae Divi Augusti,” in Velleius Paterculus and the

Res Gestae Divi Augusti (London: William Heinemann, 1924), 332. On the question of distribution, it is important to note that while it is assumed that copies were dispersed throughout the Empire, the only extant copies were found in Turkey (Cooley, Res Gestae, 18-22.)

21 Shipley, “Introduction to the Res Gestae,” 338. 22 Res Gestae, 6.

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discretion of the Senate and the People of Rome. In return for this service I was by ruling of the Senate

named August…and a golden shield was set in the Julian senate-house testifying by its inscription that it

was presented to me by the Senate and People of Rome to mark my enterprise, clemency, justice and

loyalty. After that time I was in influence (auctoritas) superior to all, while of power (potestas) I

possessed no greater measure than the rest of my colleagues in each magistracy.”23

The Augustan line is then as follows: during the settlement of 27 BCE, he

transferred all remnants of his 'Civil War era' power to the Senate and the People of

Rome, and from this point on never held actual power beyond that of an ordinary

magistrate. This representation avoids specifics, merely mentioning that he never

reclaimed the power that he had surrendered to the Senate.24 What exactly he returned

to the Senate is not made clear; the message is just that he returned it as a humble

citizen.

There is no doubt that the Res Gestae represents how Augustus wanted to be

remembered from the perspective of 14 CE, after forty years of rule and sixty years of

eminence. The account of the settlement in 27 BCE features prominently in Augustus’s

testament and given that this is Augustus’s rendition of his accomplishments we can

conclude that it represents an achievement he obviously wished to celebrate.25 A more

cynical observer would point out that it in fact represents how Augustus wanted to be

remembered within the realm of what he felt he would be able to get away with. The

Res Gestae was, as Cartledge describes, “a monument to towering ambition – and artful

deception.”26

1.3. CASSIUS DIO

Cassius Dio was not the first historian to discuss the development of Augustus’s

principate, but the breadth and depth of his historical analysis is incomparable for the 23 Res Gestae, 34. 24 Res Gestae, 34.1, specifically uses the 'vaguest possible terms' to convey meaning: Rosalinde

Kearsley, "Octavian and Augury: The Years 30-27 B.C." Classical Quarterly 59 (2009): 163. 25 Res Gestae 34-35. William Turpin, "Res Gestae 34.1 and the Settlement of 27 B.C." The Classical

Quarterly, New Series 44 (1994): 428. 26 P. Cartledge, “The Second Thoughts of Augustus on the Res Publica in 28/7 B.C.” Hermathena 119

(1975): 31.

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era. While other historians are useful for alternative perspectives and historical

correlations, the weight of evidence for the turning point of Roman history clearly lies

with Dio, a Greek historian of the third century. He has not always been given fair

credit for his histories. Some historians have dismissed Cassius Dio as anachronistic,

and incapable of accurately constructing the details of the Augustan settlement from his

perspective in the monarchical Severan period.27 Fergus Millar, for example, wrote that

Dio's histories were concocted from an inconsistent variety of sources, “among which

only a very thin chronological narrative can be discerned.”28 This is not plausible.

Cassius Dio in fact had access to highly detailed annalistic sources, which were also, as

has been conclusively shown, available to Suetonius.29 This means that Dio's history

was therefore based upon an account written within a hundred years of Augustus’s

death.30 Not only is Cassius Dio’s account credible, it is also outstanding for the fact

that it displayed a remarkable originality of thought.31

Dio's attitude to Augustus could be described as a combination of cynicism and

wistfulness. He does not echo the Augustan line that the res publica had been restored

to its republican glory, and is dismissive of Augustus’s attempts to portray the Senate as

his equal in wielding the power of the state.32 Cassius Dio casts Augustus as

orchestrating a deceit. However, he displays a certain admiration for Augustus. This is

perhaps because Dio would have happily traded his own political realities, under the

Severan system, for the Augustan model.33 Dio (through the mouthpiece of Tiberius)

notes that Augustus 'transformed the constitution in the best possible way.'34

27 P.M. Swan, "Cassius Dio on Augustus: A Poverty of Annalistic Sources?" Phoenix 41, 3 (1987): 272-

73. 28 Fergus Millar, A Study of Dio Cassius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 88. 29 P.M. Swan, "Cassius Dio on Augustus: A Poverty of Annalistic Sources?" Phoenix 41, no. 3 (1987):

286. Rich notes that although Dio must have used a first century source, the ironic treatment of the 'democratic' settlements is almost certainly Cassius Dio' own slant. (Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 135)

30 Augustus died in 14 CE; Suetonius was writing during the reign of Hadrian, which ran from 117 until 138. It seems highly unlikely Suetonius would source a direct contemporary for his evidence, creating the likelihood that his and Dio's shared sources dated, at least, from the late first century CE.

31 J.W. Rich, "Dio on Augustus." In History as Text, edited by Averil Cameron (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 91.

32 Cassius Dio, 53.17. 33 P.A. Brunt, "The Role of the Senate in the Augustan Regime." The Classical Quarterly, New Series

34, 2 (1984): 426. 34 Cassius Dio, 56.44.2.

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There is one final note to make on the ancient historians. Dio, Suetonius and

other imperial historians were inhabitants of a monarchic empire: in their political

realities, it was moot to detail the differences between each lex, senatus consultum or

edict. These were highly relevant terms to the 20s and 10s BCE, but increasingly lost

their definition as the emperors grew more dominant and less tactful.35 This can lead to

ambiguity and necessitates careful historical investigation of each attested incident.

1.4. THE OFFICIAL POSITION OF AUGUSTUS

1.4.1. 28 BCE

28 BCE marked the first of Augustus’s constitutional reforms as undisputed

leader of Rome. He had defeated his final rival, Marc Antony, three years previously at

the Battle of Actium.36 Now undeniably pre-eminent, it was nonetheless apparent that it

would no longer be acceptable to hold unimpeachable and unmatchable potestas.

Augustus clearly began planning the new res publica from the moment of his defeat of

Antony.37 He spent a significant amount of this time touring the provinces extinguishing

pockets of resistance and ensuring the safety of the borders of Rome.38 Creating the

notion of universal peace throughout the Roman Empire was essential to his plan and

propaganda, and he referenced it throughout the Res Gestae.39

After three years of planning and laying groundwork, Augustus began his

careful constitutional changes in 28 BCE. He was named princeps senatus: the official

35 J.C. Stobart "The Senate under Augustus." The Classical Quarterly 2, no. 4 (1908): 297. 36 Velleius Paterculus, "Compendium of Roman History," in Velleius Paterculus and the Res Gestae Divi

Augusti (London: William Heinemann, 1924): 2.87-88. 37 Suetonius records that Augustus, immediately after Actium, considered a genuine surrendering of all

power to the state. Suetonius believes he did not do this for fear of being prosecuted as a private citizen: Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, tr. Catherine Edwards (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), Augustus, 28.

38 Kearsley, “Octavian and Augury,” 148-49, suggests that Augustus was also dealing with the under-estimated rivalry of M. Crassus. She goes too far, however, in suggesting that Rome was on the verge of another civil war in 28 (162.)

39 Peace throughout the Empire allowed Augustus to symbolically close the doors of the temple of Janus, and declare that his triumviral powers were de facto unnecessary as peace had returned to the state: Res Gestae, 13. This was purely propaganda; the Augustan period was in fact one of constant border warfare.

20

designation of the most senior man in the Senate of Rome.40 Titulature was vital in

Rome; Augustus’s new title was a clear indication that he intended to legitimise the

power he held in the state. The role of princeps senatus meant that he was allowed to

voice his opinion before any other in the Senate.41 This meant that he could give a lead

that others might follow. It created an effect similar to the voting procedure in the

Republican comitia centuriata, in which later voting units would follow the lead of the

first centuria to register their opinion. Before the time of the late Republic the first vote

was given to the princeps senatus, but in the first century BCE it became the prerogative

of the most distinguished senator in Rome, the obvious example of which is Cicero in

the early 40s BCE.42 The role of princeps senatus was perfectly suited for Augustus’s

needs: it was a prestigious Republican title but ambiguous enough to not have any set

constraints.

While Augustus was named princeps senatus in the curia,43 it may not have

been driven entirely by the amassed senatorial body. Livy lets us know that in the

Republic the choice of princeps senatus was made by the censors.44 But Rome did not

have regular censors; rather they were named when the Senate was seen to be in need of

revitalisation, as was the case after the Battle of Actium.45 And in 28 BCE, according to

Cassius Dio, the censors of Rome were Augustus and Agrippa.46 Thus it may be thought

that Augustus had a role in naming himself the leader of the Senate.47 The evidence now

available suggests, however, that we should not accept Dio’s claim at face value.

Augustus conducted his first census using the censoria potestas that was imbued in his

consular position.48 By using the traditional censorial power of the consulate Augustus

40 Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, 307. 41 Berger, "Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Roman Law," 650. 42 Ryan, Rank and Participation in the Republican Senate, 203. Ryan’s book offers a detailed analysis of

the role of princeps senatus from its earliest users to the late Republic. It was held infrequently, and the only certain holder of the post since 86BCE was Cicero (Ryan, Rank and Participation, 223).

43 Cassius Dio 53.1.3; Res Gestae, 7. 44 Livy, “Book 27: Scipio in Spain,” in The History of Rome Volume IV (Kessinger Publishing, 2004):

27.11. The choice could even be made by one of the censors individually, raising the possibility that Agrippa alone named Augustus as princeps senatus.

45 Velleius Paterculus, 2.89. 46 Cassius Dio, 52.42. Cf. Suetonius, Augustus, 35. 47 Kearsley, “Octavian and Augury,” 157. Cassius Dio notes that he was 'named' princeps senatus, but

does not identify by whom (Cassius Dio, 53.1.3). Rich believes Augustus was named princeps senatus in 29 (Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 132).

48 Alan E. Astin, "Augustus and the Censoria Potestas." Latomus 22 (1963): 226-35.

21

was able to conduct the census of Rome without having to occupy the office of censor.49

The Fasti found in Venusia confirms that Augustus was not an official censor.50

Therefore Livy's note that the official censors named the princeps senatus is not

relevant and there is no reason to question that Augustus was named princeps senatus

by the gathered Senate rather than an isolated magistrate.

In 28 BCE Augustus was again elected consul of Rome by the People, a role

which he shared with Agrippa. Augustus had been consul each of the previous three

years,51 but his consulship in 28 BCE was notably different. It was designed to appear as

a significantly more Republican consulship than any of his earlier higher magistracies.

He brought back the tradition of sharing the fasces with his co-consul, which was an

indication that the power between the two magistrates was equal.52 And this was taken

as a symbol that the civil wars that had terrorized the state were over.53

Having been named princeps senatus, and ostentatiously sharing the fasces with

Agrippa, Augustus was clearly aiming to portray a world at peace and declare an end to

the era of magnates in extraordinary political roles.54 The return of apparent collegiality

to the highest magistracy in Rome pointed to this ideological change. One more action

of 28 requires consideration, which is that according to Dio Augustus declared that all

laws passed in the triumviral era (prior to his sixth consulship) were to be considered

null and void.55 This was a crucial concession and a (deliberate) indication that Rome

had passed through an era of lawlessness, which was now being replaced with a new

constitution and new laws.56 There is some debate about the scope of Augustus’s 49 Vervaet, “The Secret History,” 92. 50 ILS 6123 (Hermann Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. Vol. 2, part 1. Berolini: Apud

Weidmannos, 1902). See also Syme, The Roman Revolution, 306. This is a good moment to stress that even our more trusted constitutional historians such as Cassius Dio are capable of significant error.

51 Vervaet, "The Secret History,” 117. 52 Cassius Dio, 53.1.1. The sharing of the fasces would become an issue in 23 BCE, in a conflict with

Murena over the extortion trial of Marcus Primus. 53 Colin Wells, The Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 50. 54 Res Gestae, 6, 34. Cassius Dio, 53.1. 55 Cassius Dio, 53.2.5. An emphasis was put on the laws passed in conjunction with Antony and

Lepidus. See also, Leon Homo, Roman Political Institutions from City to State (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1929), 212.

56 It is possible that Augustus held triumvirate power until January 27, which would mean that the sharing of the fasces only affected Augustus’s official power as consul. This would mean that he was still superior in potestas because of his role as triumvir, much in the same way dictators were superior to consuls in the Republic. (Vervaet, “The Secret history,” 90-91)

22

delegitimization of triumviral law, as Dio leaves open the possibility that the princeps

senatus only declared obsolete various 'illegal and unjust measures.'57 These

observations leave no doubt that Augustus had begun the process of re-inventing the res

publica in 28 BCE, insisting as he did on fidelity to the mos maiorum and avoiding any

dramatic indications of having a wish to hold more or less a monarchical position.

1.5. THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF 27 BCE

1.5.1. RESTITUTIO

In 28, Augustus had been named princeps senatus, had imbued the consuls with

equal power no matter who was in office, and had repealed all triumviral laws as

unconstitutional. Then in the following year, 27 BCE, he began the process to define his

legal status and that of the Senate in the new res publica. Augustus pledged to the

Senate that:

'I shall lead you no longer. No one shall say I performed all that I have accomplished so far for

the sake of supreme power. I lay down all my power and return to you [the Senate] absolutely everything:

the army, the laws and the provinces – not only those which you entrusted to me, but also those which I

subsequently acquired for myself...Since fortune has smiled upon you and, through my agency, has

restored to you unsullied peace and undisturbed harmony, receive back freedom and republican

government...and govern yourself as you used to.'58

This speech seems unambiguous, but not since the 1950s has it really convinced

modern historians.59 Augustus's aim, and the ramifications of the speech for the role and

power of the Senate, is a contentious issue. It has recently been argued that the speech

made in the Senate house in January 27 BCE is in fact a formal resignation from the

extraordinary political powers of the triumviral era.60 This claim is supported by the fact

57 This is the interpretation supported by Frederik Vervaet, "Arrogating Despotic Power through Deceit,”

134. 58 Cassius Dio, 53.4-5. This is of course Dio’s reconstruction of Augustus’s speech. 59 The belief that Augustus and the Senate formed a dyarchy from this moment onwards had supporters

until the 1950s: Jonathan Edmondson "Introduction: Approaching the Age of Augustus," in Augustus, ed. Jonathan Edmondson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 14-18.

60 Vervaet, “Secret History,” 122. This possibility was suggested as long ago as by Mommsen, but was

23

that triumviral power was without duration, and legally required a voluntary surrender

of power by the triumvir.61 Augustus produced an aureus commemorating this

abdication of power, which featured the princeps senatus restoring the laws and rights

to the Roman People in 28/27 BCE.62 Although Lepidus and Antony had died, Augustus

(then Octavian) remained, up until his formal abdication speech, the sole triumvir of

Rome. While he had striven to conceal the nature of his power between 31 and 27, it

had become “a public secret of the highest order.”63

1.5.2 THE POWER TO CONTROL LAWS

The fact that the laws of the res publica were given to the custody of the Senate

is repeated by Cassius Dio in his exhaustive account of the meetings between princeps

and Senate in January 27.64 The Senate was a crucial part of Republican legislation: the

senators would consult on the nature of new laws, and then pass a decree asking a

magistrate to put the bill to the People.65 The People had the final ruling, but the laws

could be claimed to be of Senatus Populusque Romanus.

Cassius Dio believed that Augustus claimed Republican titles to create the

image that he was ruling by the Republican laws of Rome rather than by arrogated

autocratic power.66 This would hardly have been an effective image if Augustus had

despotic control over the laws that gave him the very titles with which he ruled.

Augustus was offered a curatorship of the laws of Rome but refused this honour on

more than one occasion.67 Suetonius claims that he in fact filled this office, but as

not widely accepted: ibid., 115.

61 Vervaet, “Secret History,” 121. 62 J.W. Rich and J.H.C. Williams. "Leges Et Iura P.R. Restituit: A New Aureus of Octavian and the

Settlement of 28-27 BC." Numismatic Chronicle 159 (1999): 212-23. 63 Vervaet, “Secret History,” 132. 64 Cassius Dio, 53.9.6. 65 George Willis Botsford. The Roman Assemblies from Their Origin to the End of the Republic. (New

York: The Macmillan Comany, 1909), 476-77. 66 Cassius Dio, 53.17.1. 67 Ronald Ridley, The Emperor's Retrospect: Augustus' Res Gestae in Epigraphy, Historiography and

Commentary (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 101-108. See also J.W. Rich, who believes any acceptance of this role would have been ‘invidious’ and Augusutus’ claim otherwise ‘pointlessly disingenuous’ (Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 187) c.f. Cassius Dio, 54.10.5, 54.30.1 and Suetonius, Augustus, 27.5.

24

Scheid succinctly notes: “Suétone se trompe.”68 Julius Caesar had taken legislative

power in 49 BCE through the use of a similar role, a praefectura morum.69 This was

returned by Augustus in the ‘first settlement’ of 27 when he surrendered the triumvirate

together with all legislative power.70 Augustus stringently avoided the direct Caesarean

role, and had no specific mandate to be directly involved in legislation.

It is clear that the invalidation of the laws of the triumvirs was a precursor to

handing the laws of Rome back to the SPQR. To increase the effect of the symbolic

gesture of allowing the Senate a role in legislation, Augustus had to first remove the

laws that (in all their triumviral unambiguity) bore no resemblance to the Republican

constitutionality of Rome. The extent to which he lived up to his promises of legislative

non-interference is discussed in Chapter Four. For the purposes of this chapter,

however, there is no doubt that in January 27 BCE Augustus constitutionally returned to

the Senate the power to issue edicts with the force of law.

1.5.3. POLITICAL POWER

Augustus, in his retrospect, claimed that after 27 BCE “of power I possessed no

greater measure than the rest of my colleagues in each magistracy.”71 Clearly, Augustus

is claiming that he implemented a return to the central Republican notion of collegiality,

which he had already supported by sharing the consular fasces with Agrippa. The

abdication of his triumviral power did constitutionally return Augustus to the status of a

private citizen, but he was still a consul of Rome.72 Despite his continued tenure of this

office, however, it is reasonable to accept his claim that in 27 BCE he was not

constitutionally superior – that is, superior in formal or legal power – to any of his

magisterial colleagues.

68 Vervaet, “Arrogating Despotic Power,” 141, n. 20. 69 Suetonius, Julius, 76.1, Cassius Dio, 44.5.3. 70 Cassius Dio, 53.3.4. 71 Res Gestae, 34. 72 Censor: Suetonius, Augustus, 35.1, Res Gestae, 8; Consul: Cassius Dio, 53.2.7.

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1.5.4. PROVINCIAL POWER

Whoever controlled Rome's provinces controlled its armies. The legions of

Rome were stationed throughout the empire, mostly in border provinces and unsettled

areas. Augustus’s popularity and influence in the state originated with his ability to

maintain a universal peace, a pax Romana.73 This peace was reliant upon the loyalty of

the armies (and generals) in the provinces.74 It was therefore of great significance that

while Augustus was able in 27 BCE to return legal control of the res publica to the

Senate, he maintained control of the vast majority of the legions of Rome.

It is clear in Augustus’s initial speech that the provinces were of great

importance, and that he claimed he was returning them to the Senate.75 According to

Cassius Dio, the Senate exploded in complaint at this suggestion however, and

attempted to foist control of the provinces back to Augustus. Dio claims that the

senators clamoured for monarchic rule in the provinces, which he believes was

motivated by fear.76 Augustus then agreed that while he would be consul with command

of a gigantic province, the other provinces would be split amongst the senators. The one

province he was to govern, however, consisted of all the borderland and dangerous

provinces, the idea being not to burden the Senate with enemies or the threat of

rebellion.77 And this system, ingeniously designed by Augustus, ensured that he

commanded the legions stationed within these provinces, which amounted to the

majority of Rome's armies. He pledged to return the imperial provinces to the Senate

after ten years, or sooner if he could pacify them.78 Senators possessing imperium were

to govern the provinces that didn't fall under imperial jurisdiction; the Senate named

these governors and their specific provinces were chosen by lot.79 Augustus delegated

his imperium in each of the imperial provinces to legates, who were chosen by him and

73 Tacitus, Annals, 1.1: “He attracted everyone's goodwill by the enjoyable gift of peace.” 74 As was proven in subsequent years by generals such as Vindex and Galba. 75 Cassius Dio, 53.4.3. 76 Cassius Dio, 53.11. 77 Cassius Dio, 53.12.1-2. 78 Cassius Dio, 53.13.1. 79 Cassius Dio, 53.13.2.

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who would answer only to him.80 The system was established by the Senate, with

Augustus’s approval, and ratified through a vote of the People.81

1.5.5. CONCLUSION

The senatorial meetings of January 27 BCE meant that Augustus had abdicated

his extraordinary triumviral power once and for all. He was a consul in Rome and a

proconsul outside of Rome, but these roles were undeniably Republican in character,

with the caveat that his province was half the empire. Augustus mandated in 27 that

governships were not to be held for five years after a senator held a magistracy.82 The

new emperor was clearly more wary of senators accumulating provincial (and hence

military) power, and ultimately the abdication as triumvir had more significant

repercussion on his role within Rome than in the provinces. The role of the triumvirate,

as repeatedly stated publicly, was to constitute the res publica.83 Augustus’s actions in

28/27 were in line with this commitment. The subsequent years 27-19 BCE involved a

great deal of trial and error on his part, and on the part of the Senate and the People, as

they took steps to shape the legal structure of this new Roman state.

1.6. THE SECOND SETTLEMENT OF 23 BCE

1.6.1. INTRODUCTION

The ‘first settlement’ of 28/27 BCE was a dramatic change in the res publica, as

Augustus ceased to be a triumvir and became a consul with an extraordinary province.

80 Cassius Dio, 53.13.5. While Augustus was a consul with one giant province, for the purposes of

administration the imperial province was divided into its original constituent parts, each of which was allocated an imperial legate.

81 Jean-Louis Ferrary, "The Powers of Augustus." In Augustus, ed. Jonathan Edmondson. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 97.

82 Ferrary, “The Powers of Augustus,” 95. 83 Carsten Hjort Lange, Res Publica Constituta: Actium, Apollo and the Accomplishment of the

Triumviral Assignment. (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 191-97.

27

The period between 23-19 BCE was characterized by the crystallization of the

constitutional shape of the new res publica.

Augustus was absent for almost three years after 27 BCE during which time he

continuously held the consulship with another senator who was stationed in Rome.84

Augustus was certainly stabilizing the empire, but it is likely that he also realized his

absence from Rome would aid the acceptance of the reconstituted res publica amongst

the senators.85 Upon his return in 24, he was given many honours, including the right to

be exempt from the laws of Rome.86 He soon fell ill however, and during his

convalescence decided to withdraw himself from the consulship, which he had just held

for the eleventh time.87 This may have been prompted by the recognition that he was

depriving senators of the opportunity to enjoy the cursus honorum and thereby

alienating them.

But this departure from the consulship did not take much from Augustus’s

power. His constitutional solution was blatantly non-Republican but ultimately

effective. The office of consul was replaced by two new legal powers: he was to hold

the power (but not the office) of a tribune,88 and he was allowed to retain the consular

imperium that he now held as proconsul within the boundaries of Rome.89 Augustus

now held no official magistracy within the res publica.

1.6.1. CONSULAR IMPERIUM

84 Cassius Dio 53.23; 53.25; 53.28. 85 There was no doubting his position of popularity amongst the People or even the eques, but the

senators were unsure about the new state (Cassius Dio, 53.11) and the spectre of Augustus must have been less threatening in his absence. Hurlet points out that Augustus spent much of the first two decades of his reign outside of the capital, to let the res publica function without him. Frederic Hurlet, "Consulship and Consuls under Augustus," (2009), 13.

86 Legibus solutus: Cassius Dio, 53.28.2; Ulpian, Digest, 1.3.31. Cf. Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 151. 87 Cassius Dio, 53.32.3. 88 Augustus would have been incapable of holding the actual role of tribune, as he was a patrician. As

late as 1985 some historians were arguing that Augustus actually held the tribunate in 23 BCE: W.K. Lacey, “Augustus and the Senate: 23 BC,” Antichthon 19 (1985), 67.

89 Cassius Dio, 53.32.5-6.

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Augustus now possessed the imperium of a consul, which he held as proconsul,

throughout Rome, Italy and the provinces.90 The emperor was exempted from the rule

that a proconsul had to surrender his power upon crossing the pomerium, meaning the

only restrictions on his tenure of consular imperium were death or abdication.91 In a

related important change to Augustus’s constitutional position, the Senate also slightly

amended the nature of Augustus’s imperium in the provinces by declaring that it should

be seen as greater than (maius quam) any other proconsul's consular imperium.92 This

advantage was effectively a redefinition of Augustus’s consular imperium. It represents

a dramatically non-Republican act,93 qualifying Augustus’s claim in the Res Gestae that

his magisterial power was never superior to anyone else's.94

1.6.2. TRIBUNICIA POTESTAS

The tribunician power, which Augustus was given for the remainder of his life,

he used in the role's traditional Republican manner. Tacitus, who casts Augustus as a

manipulative monarch, calls the tribunician power the emperor's summi fastigii

uocabulum: the highest pinnacle of power in Rome.95 It allowed him to convene a

meeting of the Senate or the People, as well as veto any decrees of the Senate or

magisterial decisions.96 Ignoring a tribunician veto resulted in a charge of maiestas.97 It

would have theoretically allowed the emperor to avoid the vetoes of actual tribunes, but

considering the status and auctoritas of Augustus this would never have been a

possibility.98 The power of the veto would seem to be the most significant aspect of the

90 Vervaet, “Arrogating Despotic Power,” 137. Modern historians have misunderstood the imperial

consular imperium as recently as Patrick Lacey in the 1990s, who presented consular power and proconsular power as separate. Lacey believed that Proconsular power was an explicit imperium, while consular power (though superior) was deemed ‘vague and traditional.’90 It is clear, however, that Augustus was instead allowed to retain his consular imperium (held proconsularly) when crossing the pomerium.

91 Vervaet, “Arrogating Despotic Power,” 137. 92 Cassius Dio, 53.32.5. 93 Vervaet, “Arrogating Despotic Power,” 137. 94 Res Gestae, 35. 95 Tacitus, Annals, 3.56; It also later became the method of recording the length of an emperor's reign:

W. K. Lacey, Augustus and the Principate, 134. 96 Vervaet, "Arrogating Despotic Power,” 137. 97 Miriam Griffin, "The Tribune C. Cornelius." The Journal of Roman Studies 63 (1973): 198. 98 George Mousourakis, A Legal History of Rome (Oxford: Routledge, 2007), 50.

29

tribunicia potestas, but Augustus used it quite rarely. In fact, there is no direct evidence

of his using the veto at any point during his reign. 99 Gruen suggests that he took the

tribunicia potestas specifically to be able to nominate his heir with a Republican tool,

an observation the historian makes based on the confusion after Augustus’s sickness in

23 BCE. 100 Whether or not this is so, the fact remains that Augustus used the tribunician

power far more symbolically than practically.

1.6.3. REPERCUSSIONS OF 23 BCE

The group that seems to have been most displeased with the new changes to the

constitution during the ‘second settlement’ of 23 BCE was the People of Rome.

Augustus surrendered the consulship to open the position to more senators, and to avoid

blatantly disregarding the tenure limit of Republican offices. However, as Yavetz notes,

'the starving masses reposed no confidence in the traditional Republican magistracies

nor did they entertain respect for the mos maiorum.'101 They took seriously only the

magistrates that held imperium, which the tribunate didn't possess.102 Prior to 27,

Augustus had spoilt the People in a manner than no other magistrate could have

afforded.103 And so, unsurprisingly, they came to see other magistrates, who lacked the

resources of Augustus, as weak and impotent. The People naturally felt, after a year of

famine and pestilence in 23, that Augustus was the only man who could lead the state

out of its misery.104 In early 22, they tried to give him the consulship, 'either yearly or

for life.'105 The People even held the Senate hostage to try to force Augustus to become

an official dictator, but Augustus agreed to take on only the role of curator of the grain

supply, echoing Pompey.106 Although the modern consensus often represents Augustus

99 Erich S. Gruen, "The Making of the Principate." In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of

Augustus, edited by Karl Galinsky (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 39. 100 Gruen, “The Making of the Principate,” 39-42. 101 Z. Yavetz, Plebs and Princeps (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 93. 102 Lacey, Augustus and the Principate, 156. 103 Suetonius, Augustus, 41-43. 104 Cassius Dio, 54.1-2. 105 Res Gestae, 5. Augustus celebrates his Republicanism in this moment. 106 Cassius Dio, 54.1.3; It would have been a political disaster to accept the position of dictator,

especially after Antony had won popular acclaim for abolishing the position in the Republican constitution entirely: Jolowicz, Introduction to Roman Law, 321. For Pompey’s use of the cura annonae, see Vervaet, “Arrogating Despotic Power,” 151-153.

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as retreating in 23 BCE from power, the reshuffle in that year ultimately made him more

dominant.107 The reshuffle continued through the years following as the Senate and the

People of Rome would not accept the res publica in its emerging form, and Augustus

had to continue to make legal changes to stabilise the state.

1.7. 19 BCE

In 21 and 19 BCE major electoral riots shook Rome.108 The People, even without

Augustus's name on the ballot, repeatedly voted to leave a consular role 'open' for

him.109 The result was that in 19 BCE Augustus the proconsul now also accepted

consular power for life. This made him a de facto third consul of Rome without

restricted tenure, which appeased the People. The consular power in Rome completed

Augustus’s constitutional powers that he used to rule Rome for the following 33 years.

Thanks to this final “unprecedented masterpiece of legal draftsmanship,” Augustus was

in a political position that was significantly stronger than his role as triumvir, a role that

had been derided as callously autocratic.110

1.8. CONCLUSION

A considerable amount of time has been spent detailing the constitutional

changes to the Roman state between 28 and 19; these changes formed the legal basis for

imperial power over the next three hundred years.111 Some historians take 19 BCE as the

official date for the start of the principate, believing this to be when the Senate

recognized it as such.112 These changes were not precisely planned, but reactive. As we

have seen, Augustus released his tenure of one of the consulships to ease the senatorial

bottleneck on the cursus honorum, but soon had to adapt his position to consular power 107 Gruen, The Making of the Principate, 36. 108 Cassius Dio 54.6; 54.10. Ronald Syme notes that after 19 BCE, electoral disorder in Rome was almost

never heard of again: Syme, The Roman Revolution, 372. 109 Cassius Dio, 54.10.1. 110 Vervaet, “Arrogating Despotic Power,” 142, n. 27. 111 Vervaet, “Arrogating Despotic Power,” 142. 112 Lacey, Augustus and the Principate, 153.

31

for life when the People wouldn’t accept his absence from the office. Gruen is right to

describe the trial and error nature of the collection of Augustus’s powers as ‘ad hoc’ and

‘piecemeal.’113

Tacitus summarises the legal developments of 28-19 BCE succinctly:

“[Augustus] gradually pushed ahead and absorbed the functions of the senate, the

officials and even the law.”114 But our detailed discussion of those developments, and

our examination of the constitution that had emerged by 19 BCE, will still prove

worthwhile. It allows us to investigate Augustus’s reign as a whole, and assess how

much of the power he wielded was legitimized by his constitutional rights. Just as

importantly, we can study the political parameters of the Senate, and analyse whether

they fulfilled their constitutional prerogatives.

113 Gruen, The Making of the Principate, 35. 114 Tacitus, Annals, 1.1.

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CHAPTER TWO

THE IMPERIAL SENATE

2.1 INTRODUCTION The powers that Augustus collected between 28 and 19 BCE were voted to him

specifically. There was no official position of princeps, this word was used in the

Augustan era to describe the sum total of the powers Augustus accumulated.115

Constitutionally, he was a senator who had several extraordinary powers and rights

voted to him by the Senate and the People of Rome. To understand the prerogatives of

the Senate in the Augustan era it is essential to understand the exact position of

Augustus within that body. The aim of this chapter is to establish the position of the

Senate in the Roman state between 28 BCE and 14 CE. This chapter will gather exact

attestations to establish Augustus’s role in the Senate, and any direct actions of the

assembled Senate. It will be split into two parts: ‘The Emperor’s Senate,’ which will

discuss how the Senate was affected by Augustan reforms, and ‘The Emperor as

Senator,’ which will investigate how the emperor interacted with the Senate as a

member of the body.

2.2 THE EMPEROR’S SENATE

2.2.1. INTRODUCTION

This will be a brief summary of the actions of the Senate: how the membership

was organised, when meetings were held, which offices oversaw discussions and what

constituted an official decree. Special attention will be paid to the influence of the

emperor in senatorial debate: how Augustus involved himself while still maintaining the

independent appearance of the Senate. The discussion of the emperor’s Senate is split

115 The role of princeps senatus was official, but carried no power: Gruen, The Making of the Principate,

39.

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into two parts. In Section 2.1.1, we will analyse Augustus’s external relations with the

Senate: his influence on the structure of the body and how senatorial sessions were

convened. Section 2.1.2 will discuss Augustus as an agent inside the Senate. It will

detail how he addressed the senators, how discussion topics were chosen and the

procedure required to issue an edict of the Senate.

Augustus monitored and managed the Senate during his reign in a variety of

ways. He reviewed the membership on three occasions, after failing (possibly

deliberately) to devise a system in which they would review membership themselves.116

Augustus also introduced new rules to ensure reliable attendance, and revived quorums

to add legitimacy to senatorial decrees.117 He made sure he only summoned the Senate

or posed them questions in completely legitimate guises: as a senator with magisterial

power, not as a monarch. Every aspect of Augustus’s actions in organising senatorial

meetings adhered to his overall policy of representing a continuation of mos maiorum

and the traditional res publica.

2.2.2. ORGANISING ATTENDANCE

Augustus’s influence in choosing the members of the Senate is undeniable.

Three essential aspects of the imperial Senate will be discussed here: the overall

membership, the compulsory requirements for being a senator, and the benefits of

senatorial membership. The knowledge of the construction of the Senate is central to

understanding the constitutional relationship between Augustus and the foremost

Republican institution of Rome.

During the Republic, the assessment of the membership of the Senate was a

prerogative of the censors.118 Full reviews of the Senate (lectiones) had traditionally

been held every five years, but there had been few lectiones in the last fifty years of the

116 Cassius Dio, 55.13.3. There will be a discussion on senatorial censors and imperial lectiones in

chapter 3.1. 117 Cassius Dio, 55.3.4. 118 The censorship was an extraordinary magistracy of the Republic, held collegially for eighteen months

every five years (a lustrum): Berger, “Encyclopaedia of Roman Law,” 386.

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Republic.119 It was self-evident, however, that the new Augustan order needed a

revitalised Senate. The senate that he had inherited was rife with cronies and petty

rivalries.120 Augustus struggled to solve the issue of re-organising the Senate while

maintaining its perceived independence and, crucially, honour. The People, no doubt

with the encouragement of Augustus, appointed two senatorial censors in 22 BCE. While

this was a Republican gesture, these men were imbued with honour but largely

ineffectual.121 Augustus chose to implement censorial power himself. Augustus had

three options when allocating a prerogative: wield it himself; leave it to the Senate (or

magistrates) and don’t reassign the power; or delegate to his new imperial civil service.

There is no doubt that, as repeatedly attested, Augustus held and used the power to

structure the membership of the Senate in the res publica.122

2.2.3. SENATORIAL RELUCTANCE

The most surprising repercussion of the volatility of the Senate during the late

Republic was the apparent senatorial reticence to become politically involved under

Augustus. Suetonius records that Augustus encouraged participation from the Senators

as well as attendance from the sons of Senators.123 We have several direct attestations of

Augustus implementing measures to increase attendance in the Senate, and he displayed

a willingness to personally contribute to the fortunes of worthy senators who fell below

the minimum financial requirements.124 Augustus introduced two compulsory days of

119 Suetonius, Augustus, 37.2: The censorship was 'an office long left vacant.' There had been a

significant expulsion of senators in 70BCE, and a lesser one in 50 (Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, 66).

120 Syme, The Roman Revolution, 306. 121 Velleius Paterculus, 2.95.3; Cassius Dio, 54.2.1. Cf. Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 173. 122 See chapter 4.2. Dio is wrong to name Augustus as a censor with Agrippa, he instead held censorial

power from 28 BCE onwards. The Res Gestae attempted to conceal the true basis for Augustus’s power at this time, emphasising his consulship rather than the censoria potestas that he held with Agrippa (Ridley, The Emperor's Retrospect, 108; Cooley, Res Gestae, 130.) It would have been illegal in any case for Augustus to hold the consulate and the censorship concurrently: Meyer Reinhold, From Republic to Principate: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History Books 49-52 (36-29 B.C.) (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 211-212.

123 Suetonius, Augustus, 35.4; Suetonius, Augustus, 38.2. 124 Cassius Dio, 54.26.3-4. There were also special honour-allowances to convince senator's sons to

follow their fathers' footsteps: Richard Talbert, "Augustus and the Senate." Greece & Rome, Second Series 31, no. 1 (1984): 56.

35

senatorial meetings each month, to be held on the Ides and the Kalends.125 Cassius Dio

also notes that fines were introduced for absent senators at official meetings.126

Although Dio doesn't directly link the attestations, the Ides and the Kalends meetings

must have been those that senators were occasionally fined for missing.127 But there

must have been a real lack of interest amongst the senators in attending senatorial

meetings: the absentee fines were soon raised, indicating that the initial fines were

ineffectual.128 I would suggest that the cancelling of courts and business on the official

Senate meeting days can be seen as the final proof that the Senate was disinclined to

attend meetings, and that this troubled Augustus.129 In cancelling other official business

on the days of compulsory senatorial meetings, Augustus was prioritizing the image of

an active Senate perceived to act on behalf of the res publica over the necessary daily

administration of the courts and moneylenders. The evidence suggests that Augustus

yearned for, even needed, a symbolically strong Senate, and that the senators weren't

clamouring to help him in this endeavour.

2.2.4. THE CONSULAR NOBILITAS AND THE PEDARII

There is every indication that the senators who had been the ‘foot-soldiers’ of

the Senate during the Republic (known as the pedarii130) would not have had their roles

drastically changed under Augustus. It seems likely that a collection of twenty or thirty

aristocratic families who dominated the Roman political scene during the Republic, the

consular nobilitas, were those most affected by his interventions. The aristocratic 125 Cassius Dio, 55.3.1. An exception was later introduced to this rule, leaving meetings only partially

compulsory during holiday months: The Senate was represented by a quorum of senators chosen by lot (Suetonius, Augustus, 35.3).

126 Cassius Dio, 54.18.3. 127 Cassius Dio, 54.18.3. Talbert believes this measure to have been part of a lex de Senatu habendo

(passed in 9BCE) for which we have few other references. Talbert believes, with good reason, that this was a law passed to address the issues of an unenthusiastic and uninspired Senate (Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 57-58.) For Augustus’s influence on law making, see chapter 4.2.

128 Cassius Dio, 55.3.2-3. This augmented fine was given to every fifth man absent, chosen by lot. This is a classically Augustan move: the use of a lot frees him for the accusation of political targeting, and the large chance of avoiding a fine might have mitigated some senatorial resentment. Regardless, the point is clear that the Senate weren’t attending in the numbers Augustus desired, and this negatively affected the image of the Augustan res publica.

129 Cassius Dio, 55.3.2. 130 For a full discussion of the pedarii in the Republic see Ryan, Rank and Participation in the

Republican Senate, 52-72.

36

families of Rome had been undeniably ravaged by the civil wars, but there were still

representatives of the greatest families of the Republic in Augustus’s Senate. In one

study it was found that sixteen percent of Augustus’s Senate were patricians with

Republican ancestry:131 there must have therefore been almost a hundred men in the

Senate of the new res publica who would have expected to advance far in the cursus

honorum, possibly even to the consulate.132

These men are rarely seen to be politically involved. Although the nobilitas

continued to compete for the consulship, it became a quest for honour rather than

power, and one that was under the shadow of the spectre of Augustus.133 Ronald Syme,

the great expert on the Augustan aristocracy, summarised their new situation:

“The nobiles lost power and wealth, display, dignity and honour…no more triumphs after war,

no more roads, temples and towns named in their honour and commemorating the glory of the great

houses that were the Republic and Rome.”134

In the light of Augustus’s efforts to counter senatorial reluctance, I would

therefore suggest that the majority of this senatorial lack of interest came from these

erstwhile rulers of the Republic, the nobilitas. After all, the role of the pedarii in the

state was largely the same as it had been: their aristocratic patrons were simply replaced

by one grand patron, who now essentially controlled all their opportunities for

advancement. Conversely, it is easy to imagine the powerbrokers of the Republic

retreating from senatorial life rather than chasing honours that would never compare to

those of their ancestors.

Tacitus, in his introduction to the Annals, dramatically announces: “Upper-class

survivors found that slavish obedience was the way to succeed, both politically and

131 Mason Hammond, "Composition of the Senate, A.D. 68-235." The Journal of Roman Studies 47, no.

1/2 (1957): 75. Hammond’s statistics come from S.J. De Laet, De Samenstelling van den romeinischen Senaat gedurende de eerste eeuw van het Principaat (28 voor Chr.-68 na Czr.), in Rijksuniversiteit te Gent, Werken uitgegeven door de Faculteit van de Wijsbegeerte en Letteren, 92e Aflevering (Antwerp, I94I). It is possible that these numbers include patricians adlected during the civil wars.

132 After the first lectio there were 600 senators in Rome: 600/100 x 16 = 96. 133 Hurlet, “Consuls and Consulships,” 15-16. 134 Syme, The Roman Revolution, 491.

37

financially.”135 It is possible that Tacitus’s anger at the political changes of the Roman

Revolution led him to give the worst possible interpretation of the new lack of ambition

in the nobiles. ‘Slavish obedience’ could easily represent a passivity or lack of interest

among the aristocratic class in the new res publica, rather than Tacitus’s image of the

great men of the Republic dutifully following the now-depressing cursus honorum to

inevitable inferiority. Augustus tried through his measures against senatorial reluctance

to reinvigorate the nobiles, but they responded with either passive resistance or simple

lack of interest. Syme acknowledges that Augustus often promoted nobiles earlier than

their talent dictated, although he believed that, to the aristocracy, the ‘ignoble existence’

of servitude to the princeps was a worse fate than dying in the civil wars.136 The nobiles

of the Republic became increasingly rare and redundant as the principate developed,

and ultimately became lost to the res publica forever.137

2.2.5. THE FUTURE OF THE SENATORIAL ORDER

As well as actively encouraging members of the Senate to attend meetings,

Augustus faced a similar challenge in convincing senatorial youth to join the ranks of

the Senate once they reached the minimum eligible age. Augustus introduced a new rule

in 13 BCE that mandated that all men who made the financial eligibility limit, and were

physically able, must join the Senate.138 It is therefore clear that rich young men of able

body and mind must have been at least occasionally choosing a life outside senatorial

duties.139 The fear of a symbolically weak Senate induced Augustus to force senators to

join the membership of the Senate, and subsequently fine them if they didn't attend

official meetings once they were members. Dio even records Augustus doing the

135 Tacitus, Annals, 1.2. 136 Syme, The Roman Revolution, 490-508. Quote on page 492. 137 At the conclusion of the first century CE, only one percent of the Senate were Republican patricians:

Hammond, “Composition of the Senate,” 75. It should be noted that Tiberius, the blue-blooded Claudian patrician that Augustus was not, attempted to partially revive the traditional aristocracy to no avail.

138 Cassius Dio, 54.26.8-9. It should be noted that men above either 60 or 65 were allowed to peacefully retire from the Senate. The age of 60: Seneca the Elder. Declamations, Volume I, Controversiae, Books 1-6. tr. M. Winterbottom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), Controv. 1.8.4; the age of 65: Seneca the Younger, On the Shortness of Life, tr. John W. Basore. (London: William Heinemann, 1932), De Brev Vit., 20.4.

139 Many of these men preferred to enter the newly promoted ranks of the equestrians: See chapter 4.1.2.

38

physical assessments himself,140 presumably to reduce corruption and foil efforts to

avoid senatorial duty. The assumption must have been that two potential senators would

conspire to each claim the other was unfit for senatorial service, and thereby avoid

Augustus’s new mandatory membership regulations.

2.2.6. THE IDEAL SENATE?

It is peculiar, given Augustus’s clear attempts to bolster the senatorial order, that

Dio records Augustus wanting a Senate of 300, but having to settle for 600.141 This

initially seems contradictory – why would Augustus force young senators to join the

Senate, and instigate compulsory attendance, only to avow that he wished his Senate

were a smaller traditional size? Furthermore, if senatorial membership had to be

encouraged in young men, and fines were issued and raised for non-attendance, why

wasn't the emperor able to fulfill his desire for a Senate that was halved in size? The

answer is honour. To be directly stripped of an official rank in society, in this case

senatorial, by the princeps no less, was a clear dishonour for the entire family.142 The

situation is illuminated by the fact that once men had been scrapped from the Senate,

they were often allowed by Augustus still to sit with the other senators at games and

spectacles.143 In short, in a society where honour was a ubiquitous currency, declining

(perceived) promotion was acceptable but accepting demotion was not.

Some recent historians believe that Augustus’s dream of a senate of 300 was at

best unrealistic.144 Talbert’s view is that there simply wouldn't have been enough

senators to fill their roles and prerogatives throughout the Empire.145 Although it might

140 Cassius Dio, 54.26.8-9. 141 Cassius Dio, 54.14.1. It should be noted Augustus had earlier brought the numbers down from over a

thousand (Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 55) 142 Lendon, Empire of Honour, 111-112. Augustus actually formed the notion of an official 'senatorial

class,' first seen in his marriage legislation of 18BCE, to indicate senators, their wives and their descendants up to three generations on. (Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 56.)

143 Cassius Dio, 54.14.4-5. Dio implies that this was an act of sympathy on the part of Augustus, to avoid the dishonour of being publically stripped of status.

144 Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 56. 145 Talbert, The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 131-150. Talbert

cites evidence that at least 90 senators would have been away on official business at any one time, and another 30 would have been non-voting magistrates.

39

have put an unnecessary strain on the Senate, it should be pointed out that the state

functioned successfully with a Senate of 300 before Sulla. A possible suggestion is that

Augustus used the concept of an ideal senate of 300 to scare the Senate. As mentioned

above, no senator would want to lose standing; they were just content not to strive for

greater standing. The threat of being ostracized from the Senate may have been a further

reason for senators, especially pedarii, to attend. An alternative suggestion is that

Augustus used the threat of a Senate of 300 with the aim of compromising at 600, which

was admittedly far less than the 1000 senators of the triumviral era.146 Ultimately, a

Senate of three hundred senators was of course an unrealistic cull, but there is no doubt

Augustus was aiming for an 'outstanding elite of princes': a restricted number of rich,

statesmanlike and moral men.147

2.2.7. CONVENING THE SENATE

It was essential for Augustus to be able to summon the Senate for meetings, and

it was just as important that this was accomplished legally. It is clear that Augustus used

his tribunician power to call the Senate for meetings once it had been conferred upon

him in 23 BCE.148 This power was perpetual, but it was symbolically renewed every

year.149 Considering the importance of a legal right to summon the Senate, it isn't

surprising that Augustus orchestrated the offer of tribunician power to coincide with his

permanent retirement of the consulship as a tool of power.150 The consulship would

have served to convene the Senate between 27 and 23.151 Prior to January 27 BCE,

Augustus could have used the consulship to convene senatorial meetings, but he could

also have used his triumviral power, which was not promoted but hadn't been 146 One thousand triumviral senators: Karl Galinsky, "Augustus and the Power of Tradition." In The

Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus, ed. Karl Galinsky (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 23.

147 Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 56. 148 Cassius Dio, 53.32.5. There are some inconsistencies dating when Augustus received the tribunicia

potestas, dealt with in Chapter One. 149 annuus et perpetuus. There are several attestations of renewals throughout Augustus’s reign, despite

the perpetual nature of the power. All subsequent Emperors subsequently followed this example: Cassius Dio, 53.32.6.

150 His further two consulship had nothing to do with power in the state; they were to introduce his grandsons to the res publica, stressing the importance of family and lineage (in line with his legal reform.)

151 Homo, Roman Political Institutions, 213.

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surrendered.152 It might be expected that after 23 BCE Augustus would use the tribunicia

potestas to convene the Senate. But, as it turns out, this was not the case.

Cassius Dio notes that Augustus’s evenhandedness in court resulted in a decree

giving him a special power: the right to convene the Senate whenever he wished.153 This

power is sometimes known Augustus’s ius primae relationis.154 Dio doesn't address the

fact that Augustus clearly already had that power through the tribunicia potestas. Why

would the Senate give a power to Augustus that he already held, and why would

Cassius Dio chose to include it in his histories? The answer seems to be that the power

the Senate gave Augustus after the Primus trial was in fact the right to convene the

Senate prior to any other magistrate.155 The power of a tribune to convene the Senate in

the Republic was inferior to that of praetors or consuls.156 Therefore, the special power

of 22 allowed the emperor to convene the Senate first, before the senators filling the

posts of praetor and consul.

The ‘third settlement’ of 19 BCE saw Augustus receive the prerogatives of a

consul within Rome, finalising his constitutional statio. The special empowerment of 22

BCE was never revoked, and so the grant of full consular prerogatives effectively meant

he had the same power - to convene the Senate before any other – on two grounds.

Augustus, and his successors, used this power to convene the Senate on the majority of

occasions.157

2.3 THE EMPEROR AS SENATOR

152 Vervaet, “Secret History,” 131. 153 Marcus Primus was a governor accused of making war without the authority of the state in 22BCE; he

claimed he had been following Augustus’s orders. Augustus denied this in court, and said he was not acting for himself but for 'the public interest.' It was this answer that Dio indicates led the Senate to imbue Augustus with the special power to convene the Senate before any magistrate. (Cassius Dio, 54.3)

154 The special power conferred on Augustus in 22 BCE is sometimes known as the ius primae relationis, but there is no record of this name in ancient texts (Talbert, The Senate of Imperial Rome, 165).

155 Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 176. 156 On occasions when their powers overlapped. 157 Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 176.

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2.3.1. INTRODUCTION

By 23 BCE, Augustus had been re-elected consul every year for ten years.158 His

role as consul in the Senate was clear as it was defined by custom. Once Augustus

retired from the consulship, however, his position in the Senate was suddenly less

transparent. He responded to this ambiguity with tact, and carefully monitored his

interactions inside the Senate. As we have seen, Augustus used a grant of censoria

potestas to audit the ranks of the Senate, and he used the tribunicia potestas – and the

special powers of 22 and 19 BCE – to convene the senators. These were powers

detached from offices, effectively remnants of the Republic. Augustus saw them as

necessary to the pragmatic functioning of the res publica. Within the Senate, Augustus

had to act like a senator to maintain the integrity and dignity of the institution.

Augustus’s actions inside the Senate House were more circumspect, and indicate a

conscious carefulness not to undermine senatorial traditions.159

2.3.2. SEATING ARRANGEMENTS

It is clear that Augustus attended senatorial meetings as a private member as

well as on occasions when he was orchestrating the discussion.160 After the news of his

daughter's infidelities had become public, Augustus was too overcome with shame to

attend an arranged senatorial meeting.161 Although he was filled with rage,162 a quaestor

read a message from him to the Senate.163 This demonstrates without a doubt that

Augustus would normally have appeared in the Senate, even given the fact he was not

presiding over the session.

158 The Fasti, in A.H.M. Jones and Victor Ehrenberg, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and

Tiberius. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 32-34. 159 It should be noted here that the evidence concerning Augustus’s actions inside the Senate is

unfortunately sparse. This is largely down to the sources focussing away from constitutional politics and Republican institutions. Talbert notes that Tacitus's Annals give us exactly the sort of information about Tiberius inside the Senate that we would love for Augustus (Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 60).

160 Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 60. 161 Suetonius, Augustus, 65. Presumably one of the ‘compulsory’ meetings twice a month. 162 Cassius Dio, 55.10.14. 163 Suetonius, Augustus, 65.

42

Preferential seating was an important indicator of rank in Rome.164 In the

Republican Senate, senators sat according to their highest rank attained; the ex-consuls

with each other, right down to the ex-quaestors and aediles.165 The presiding consuls

(and perhaps other magistrates) must have sat at the end of the hall – on a curule chair

(sella curulis) opposite the door – with the ranks of senators assembled on either side.166

As the res publica changed, so did social arrangements in the Senate. Augustus’s

behavior in the Senate was seen as an indication of his role in the state. It has been

recently stated that “the relationship between society and the Roman state was one of

such close interaction that the transformations of one had an influence on the structures

of the second and vice versa.”167 Seating arrangements were undoubtedly important to

how Augustus wanted to present his role as an individual in the Senate, and hence the

state. Bearing this in mind, it is clear that he was not content to sit on the consular

benches: instead, from 19 BCE onwards – after the so-called ‘third settlement’ –

Augustus was given the right to sit in a curule chair between the two elected consuls of

the year.168 Julius Caesar had also been given the right to sit with the two consuls.169

Cassius Dio believed that this honour to Augustus was part of an award of consular

power in perpetuity.170

164 It is continually seen as important enough by Roman historians to merit mention. Augustus fining

people heavily for sitting in the wrong place in the theatre: Suetonius, Augustus, 40. 165 The more senior ex-magistrates sat further forward on the benches, and were also probably seated

more comfortably (Lily Ross Taylor, “Seating Space in the Roman Senate,” 543). 166 Lily Ross Taylor, “Seating Space in the Roman Senate,” 541. We do not have an exact idea of the

seating of either the Republican or imperial senates, but the long hall with the senators facing each other on each side and the magistrates facing the door at the far end of the senate-house are hallmarks of all extant examples.

167 Hurlet, “Consulships and Consuls under Augustus,” 3. 168 Cassius Dio, 54.10.5. At the same time Augustus received another hallmark of the consulship: twelve

fasces. 169 Cassius Dio, 43.14.5. It seems unlikely that Augustus was trying to copy Caesar in this, as (especially

with reference to the Senate) Augustus actively tried to avoid grandiose precedents set by his adoptive father. It is interesting that Claudius would sometimes leave his chair and sit with the senators; this confirms it was associated with hierarchy. (Claudius: Lily Ross Taylor, “Seating Space in the Roman Senate,” 534) It is also interesting that Julius sat with the consuls, whereas Augustus sat between them. Emperors after Augustus continued this use of the curule chair between consuls: Cassius Dio, 59.12.2, 60.16.1.

170 Cassius Dio, 54.10.5.

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There is no indication of how Augustus interacted with the Senate concerning

seating between 23 and 19 BCE.171 Without either the consulship, retired in 23, or the

grant of consular power, which he received in 19, the princeps would not have had a

formal curule chair. Augustus might have sat on the subsellia with the tribunes, the right

to which he was granted in a decree of 36.172 I would suggest it is unlikely that

Augustus would have sat with the tribunes, but this was the only official senatorial seat

that he was entitled to between 23 and 19 BCE. There is no doubt the lack of official

recognition in the curia would have rankled Augustus. Considering Augustus’s desire to

emphasise his respect for the mos maiorum, it is probable that Augustus did not take a

seat of eminence in the Senate from 23-19 BCE. While it is likely that he seated himself

with the ex-consuls on the consular benches, it is possible that he chose to join the

plebeian tribunes on the subsellia.

2.3.3. METHODS OF DISCUSSION

Methods of discussion in the imperial Senate closely mirrored the basic structure

of debates in the Republic. The presiding officer (in this period either Augustus or a

consul) would raise an issue and choose members of the house to give their opinions, or

sententiae. This system had been based on custom until the time of Augustus, when it

was officially structured and codified.173 Augustus changed his strategy of initiating

discussions as his reign progressed, as he found that senators were using their sententia

to ingratiate rather than contribute. He began asking senators for their opinions in

sporadic order, in the hope of encouraging originality of thought.174 Unless Dio is

mistakenly attributing this to Augustus, it seems certain that Augustus was genuinely

looking for practical contributions on issues he brought before the Senate. It is also clear

that the fewer genuine contributions he received, the fewer he sought. As Augustus’s

171 It should be emphasised that Augustus was away from Rome for much of the period 23-19 BCE:

Fergus Millar, Rome, the Greek World, and the East: The Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 298.

172 Cassius Dio, 49.15.6; Reinhold, Commentary on Cassius Dio, 89. He did, after all, possess the tribunician power from 23 BCE. (For the dates and evidence of Augustus’s powers, see Chapter One.)

173 Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 59. 174 Cassius Dio, 54.15.5-6; Suetonius, Augustus, 35.4.

44

years of tribunician power increased, his efforts to invigorate the Senate intellectually

become less frequent.

2.3.4. AUGUSTUS’S CONSILIUM

At some point between 27 and 18 BCE Augustus formed a consilium of senators

and magistrates designed to prepare topics for discussion in the Senate.175 It is clear that

the initial intent of this group was to ease the burden on official meetings of the Senate,

so that debate could begin as soon as the membership was assembled. An alternative

suggestion is that Augustus was trying to alleviate senatorial lack of interest by

minimizing the procedural niceties to get straight to the particular details that needed

discussion or ratification. Augustus designed his consilium so that it appeared to

impinge on the independence of the Senate as little as possible. It featured a rotating

membership that included both consuls and a designated representative of each of the

other magistracies. Fifteen other senators were rotated (by lot) through the consilium

every six months.176 Cassius Dio makes it clear that some decisions went straight to the

whole Senate, but senatorial decrees seen as important by Augustus were first

deliberated upon at length by the Augustan consilium.177 In his final years, Augustus’s

consilium became an abridged Senate, capable of issuing senatus consulta on behalf of

the entire body.178 This would not have fitted with Augustus’s priorities, and was only

instituted because he was too invalided to attend formal senatorial meetings.179 It was

175 Suetonius, Augustus, 35.4. See also a senatorial Decree of 4BCE (Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents,

311.87-88). 27-18 BCE: We do not know exactly in which stage of his settlements with the Senate Augustus introduced his consilium. Rich believes it to have been in 18BCE, connected with Augustan social legislation. (Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 154). While this is commonsensical, there is not enough evidence to be more specific than 28-18 BCE.

176 Cassius Dio, 53.21.4. Augustus seems to have fashioned his consilium so that it would be as far above reproach as possible. The only possible exception to this is that in his later years his adoptive sons and grandsons were often part of the consilium (Cassius Dio, 56.28.2-3).

177 Cassius Dio, 53.21.4. 178 The measures of the consilium ‘should be treated as valid and approved by the Senate as a whole’:

Cassius Dio, 56.28.2-3. 179 Crook, in his study of imperial advisors, suggests the change to Augustus’s consilium was in order to

prepare Tiberius for the role of managing the res publica: J.A. Crook, Consilium Principis: Imperial Councils and Counsellors from Augustus to Diocletian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 15. Even if this is the case, Augustus must have been prioritising the smooth transition of power over his ideal concept of the relationship between emperor and Senate, otherwise he would have implemented the change earlier.

45

not the political style of Augustus to disturb the mos maiorum in such a way if it was

avoidable.

2.3.5. DECREES OF THE SENATE

Augustus ensured that special quorums had to be met for the opinion of the

Senate to be issued as an official decree: a senatus consultum. A quorum dictated how

many senators had to be present for the vote, rather than the amount of senators needed

supporting the successful measure.180 If this quorum wasn't met and too few senators

were present for the official vote then the Senate issued a senatus auctoritas, which did

not carry legal weight.181 Senatus auctoritates were also issued if a tribune used his

power to veto a decree that had passed through the Senate,182 although none are known

in the Augustan period.183

Julius Caesar had introduced quorums in the past,184 a noteworthy precedent that

indicates they were especially useful when the Senate was disinclined towards

participation. There had been issues during Caesar's pre-eminence with surreptitious

senatorial meetings passing decrees without notifying the Senate at large: Cicero called

these senatus consulta surrupta.185 Augustan quorums varied according to the issue

being discussed in the Senate.186 Balsdon reports that after Caesar's reform, quorums

were used for specific cases including supplicationes, special dispensations for

individual senators, and electoral issues.187 It is likely that Augustus would have equally

enforced quorums upon matters he saw as specifically important. They played the dual

180 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 137. 181 Cassius Dio, 55.3.4. A vote that didn’t meet a quorum was often not final. Auctoritates were

sometimes reviewed and, if the quorum was met in a revote, became senatus consulta. 182 Cassius Dio, 55.3.4. 183 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 235. 184 Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 58. 185 Cicero, Letters to Atticus. tr. D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

1999), 10.4.9. 186 Ross Taylor, “Seating Space in the Roman Senate,” 532. 187 These specific issues were discussed at special senatorial meetings, described as senatus frequens:

important meetings requiring set minimums in attendance: J.P.V.D. Balsdon, "Roman History, 58-56 B.C.: Three Ciceronian Problems." The Journal of Roman Studies 47, no. 1/2 (1957): 19-20.

46

role of increasing attendance and promoting discussion, as well as ensuring that the

legitimacy of the decree was above reproach.

The Senate decreed the famous Cyrene edict of 4 BCE, which concerned a charge

of extortion, with a quorum of 200.188 This had been lowered from a quorum of 400

recorded in 11 BCE.189 Talbert believes that this quorum was a leftover from the

Caesarean Senate, and was lowered to correlate with reduced numbers due to

Augustus’s reviews of the senate, the lectiones.190 This was undoubtedly a factor, but

surely general lack of interest in senatorial attendance also contributed. Augustus

introduced Caesarean quorums into the new res publica as a method of instilling

integrity in official decrees of the Senate. Once again, a symbolically powerful and

well-attended Senate was preferable for Augustus to the political convenience of a less

complete membership.

2.4. CONCLUSION

Some conclusions are apparent from the analysis of Augustus’s attested

interactions with the Senate. Firstly, Augustus was careful not to exceed the

prerogatives of his official power, at least until his ultimate illness in 13/14 CE.

Furthermore, Augustus was content to use non-traditional methods in the Senate if they

were effective and couldn't easily be proven to be hypocritical or non-constitutional.

The princeps after 19 BCE had the power to dominate the res publica in a despotic

manner, but actively chose means that would satisfy the Senate whenever possible.

Augustus clearly tried to keep the Senate symbolically strong and actively involved in

debate while not allowing any significant deviation from his desired outcomes. It was in

many ways mission impossible. The senators could see that Augustus chose the

membership of the Senate, convened meetings, tried to force attendance, fined

absentees, orchestrated discussion (before meetings and often during) and revived

quorums for official senatus consulta. Despite his desire for an enlivened Senate

188 Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, 311.106-7. 189 Cassius Dio, 54.35.1. 190 Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 57.

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resounding with astute debate, Augustus’s need for control had undermined any real

possibility of independent thought. The senators, as they always had, voted with their

feet: this time through non-attendance of the Senate, even despite increasing fines, and a

growing aversion to a career in the Senate for young men of the senatorial order.

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CHAPTER THREE

THE SENATE’S ATTESTED ACTIONS

3.1. INTRODUCTION

Chapter Three documents and analyses the exact actions of the Senate. Its aim is

to record and discuss each attested decision or decree emitted from the Senate during

the forty years of Augustan supremacy. The majority of the attestations come from

Cassius Dio, which is unsurprising given his attention to the constitution and the

political statio of Augustus.191 Conversely, Tacitus's Annals contain almost no direct

attestations of the actions of the Senate under Augustus.192 Suetonius, Velleius

Paterculus, collected inscriptions and the Res Gestae offer a variety of evidence of

differing degrees of reliability. Chapter Three depends partly on the definition of an

'action of the Senate,' and what registers as a senatus consultum. I have taken a cautious

approach, only counting references that are completely clear that the attested action was

the result of a senatorial decree.193 This is not an infallible method: Cassius Dio notes

that Augustus banned equestrians playing gladiators; Suetonius makes it abundantly

clear that this was the result of a senatorial decree.194

191 Cassius Dio yearned for the constitutional nature of Augustus’s era, compared to the absolutism of the

Severans. Dio therefore emphasises situations in which the Senate is engaged in activities that were no longer senatorial prerogatives when Dio was writing in the third century. J.W. Rich, The Augustan Succession, 17.

192 There are two main reasons why this would be true: Firstly, Tacitus kept his narrative of Augustus’s reign short, and focussed largely on his successors. This was his stated task, remembering that the Annals were actually entitled ab excessu divi Augusti. Secondly, Tacitus believed he was seeing through constitutional niceties to the true nature of power in the state: the imperial role. Tacitus gives Augustus direct responsibility for matters that would have clearly involved the Senate. (Tacitus, Annals, 1.1-4) Tacitus consciously ignores the main focus of this thesis: the nuances and scaffoldings of power in the Augustan era.

193 Dr Abele, writing in 1907, created a list of senatus consulta that included every reference in the Age of Augustus to an action that should have been a senatorial prerogative. As a result, many 'actions of the Senate' are in fact attested as “he commanded,” or “he enacted,” referring to the character of the emperor. (Stobart, The Senate under Augustus, 296-97) This thesis is significantly more constrained, and this section only refers to attestations that unambiguously involve the Senate.

194 Cassius Dio, 54.2.5, Suetonius, Augustus, 43.

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The third chapter is divided into five thematic sections. Each section will begin

by listing key attested decrees of the Senate, followed by an analysis of the available

evidence. The aim is to outline and discuss the direct attestations of the Senate making

decisions on behalf of the res publica. The discussion will cover only actions of the

official Senate, rather than motions decreed by the consilium or the magistrates. Quite

clearly, for example, the actions of three senators chosen by Augustus to greet foreign

embassies do not constitute the Senate acting as a corporate body. It will, however,

include instances where Augustus encouraged or manipulated the Senate to pass a

decree.195 The attestations are divided into five major spheres of control for the early

imperial Senate: Foreign Policy; The Senatorial Court; Administrative Roles;

Legislation; and Ceremonial Roles.

3.2. FOREIGN POLICY

3.2.1. KEY ATTESTATIONS

Cassius Dio records that in 27 BCE officials stationed in provinces (imperial or

public) were not permitted to raise troops or levy funds, 'unless the Senate should pass a

decree or the emperor issue an order.'196 Two foreign kings made accusations against

each other in 23 BCE, and Augustus brought the issue before the Senate.197 The Senate

responded by entrusting the issue back to Augustus.198 From 19 BCE onwards, Marcus

Agrippa chose not to send dispatches of his military achievements back to the Senate.199

In 2 CE, according to Cassius Dio, 'Augustus and the Senate' handed the province of

Armenia over to a client king, Ariobarzanes.200 In 8 CE, when Augustus was too ill to

receive embassies, he chose to delegate diplomatic matters to a committee of three

consulars. These consulars were to meet any delegation 'except for matters concerning

195 In any case, outside pressures on senatorial decisions was a constant in the Republic, whether from

aristocratic families or successful military men. 196 Cassius Dio 53.15.5. The rights of the princeps in war are referred to in the lex Julia maiestatis:

Digest, 48.4.3. 197 Cassius Dio, 53.33.1. 198 Cassius Dio, 53.33.2. 199 Cassius Dio 54.11.6 200 Cassius Dio, 55.10A. 7.

50

which the final decision had to be made by the Senate and the emperor.'201 This practice

is again attested in 11 CE.202 The Senate repeatedly voted triumphs for Augustus and the

imperial family.203 The Senate also voted the ornaments of a triumph to Marcus

Vinicius,204 Lepidus,205 and three other senators.206

3.2.2. FOREIGN POLICY IN ROME

The Senate is not attested as making any major foreign policy decisions as a

group between 28 BCE and 14 CE. Needless to say, this was an important prerogative of

the Senate during the Republic.207 The Senate lost the ability to communicate directly

with generals early in Augustus’s reign. As Augustus was effectively commander-in-

chief of the legions of Rome, the senators had to deal with him rather than being able to

communicate with individual generals. The proconsuls of public provinces theoretically

held their own imperium and could communicate with the Senate, but they wouldn’t

challenge the auctoritas of Augustus; not to mention that foreign policy was the sphere

in which he was least likely to allow the Senate any measure of control. Agrippa in 19

BCE did not send dispatches to the Senate, which would have effectively presented his

case for a triumph; every other general tellingly followed this example: in fact, it

became 'a kind of law.'208 There is no doubt the Senate was becoming increasingly

uninvolved in foreign policy during the Augustan era, despite no changes to its official

prerogatives.

The senatorial influence on military decisions dwindled to complete

insignificance early in Augustus’s reign. Augustus was fully entitled to levy troops to

201 Cassius Dio, 55.33.4-5. 202 Cassius Dio, 56.25.7. 203 Augustus: Cassius Dio, 56.17, RG 1.4; Agrippa: Cassius Dio, 54.24.7-8; Tiberius: Cassius Dio,

54.31.1, 56.17, Velleius Paterculus, 2.97.4, 2.121.2-3; Drusus: Cassius Dio, 54.32.1. 204 Velleius Paterculus, 2.104.2. 205 Velleius Paterculus, 2.115.3. 206 Velleius Paterculus, 2.116.1. 207 The Senate revoked a treaty made by Tiberius Gracchus on the grounds that it was too lenient. The

Republican Senate had the power to strip a general's rank and annul his decisions: Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, X. tr. Bernadotte Perrin (Bury St Edmunds: St Edmunsbury Press, 1921), Tiberius Gracchus, 7.


51

the extent that he desired,209 and possibly even had the right to execute anyone who

made war without his direct order.210 This may not be so surprising since, even during

the late Republic, military control rested increasingly with consular generals rather than

the Senate. It may have remained true in Augustus’s time that military deployment was

impossible without the authorization of the emperor or the Senate, but this senatorial

prerogative was never employed. Any disagreement with Augustus on military levies or

deployment would have been tantamount, in all likelihood, to political suicide.211

3.2.3. EMBASSIES AND DIPLOMACY

During the Republic the reception of embassies was one of the most important

roles of the assembled Senate.212 It was a traditional and exclusive senatorial

prerogative.213 The Senate is reported to have received embassies and heralds during the

Augustan years,214 although there are also many accounts of embassies being greeted

instead by the emperor.215 The Republican Senate was also in the habit of sending out

embassies to foreign states, but nothing of the kind is attested in the records of the

Empire.216 The Senate is in fact only attested as sending embassies to the emperor

himself, at times when he was touring the provinces.217 Cassius Dio makes his opinion

of the Senate's influence on foreign policy clear: he believed that Augustus essentially

set the political realities for the public provinces as well as those controlled by

209 This was still a senatorial prerogative throughout Augustus’s reign: P. A. Brunt, "C. Fabricius Tuscus

and an Augustan Dilectus." Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 13 (1974): 170. 210 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 429. 211 Futhermore, it would have been tantamount to actual suicide under his successors: Marcianus, The

Digest of Justinian, ed. Alan Watson (Philiadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), Digest, 48.4.3.

212 Polybius, The Histories, tr. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 6.13.7-8. Even in the Republic this gave the wrong impression of Roman government to foreigners, and obfuscating the sharing of powers with magistrates: Fergus Millar, "Government and Diplomacy in the Roman Empire During the First Three Centuries." The International History Review 10, no. 3 (1988): 348.

213 During the reign of Tiberius, Tacitus exclaims with joy that the Senate is (for once) being allowed to fulfil its traditional and honorific prerogatives in foreign policy (Tacitus, Annals, 3.60).

214 'On certain occasions' the Senate conducted negotiations with heralds and embassies (Cassius Dio, 53.21.6).

215 Millar, “Diplomacy and Government,” 348-350. Embassies were not the sole prerogative of the Emperor until the mid-second century CE.

216 Miller, “Government and Diplomacy,” 367-68. 217 Cassius Dio, 54.6.2-3. Res Gestae 12.

52

Augustan legates.218 The evidence in the attestations supports this theory, with the

allowance that Augustus also used the Senate to receive certain types of embassies and

diplomats. There is no reason to disbelieve Dio; the Senate surely did on occasion

receive embassies from 'kings and people.'219 However, these were most likely the least

important embassies, ones that Augustus had decided not to meet personally. While

there are few attestations of the Senate receiving diplomatic delegations, it stands to

reason that such encounters, being perceived as unimportant, would have been the least

likely to be recorded.220

Late in Augustus’s reign, Dio reported that the three consular senators still

greeted embassies on the emperor's behalf.221 It seems likely that Augustus used the

three ex-consuls during his illness in 8 CE, and consequently retained the system after

finding it useful in his convalescence. Furthermore, there is no doubt that Augustus

would have returned this prerogative (greeting embassies) to the Senate if they had

complained about the innovation. We can conclude that members of the Senate

understood their inability to significantly affect foreign policy through their prerogative

of greeting embassies, and so were content for the duties to be assigned to senatorial

members of the Augustan bureaucracy. Foreign policy was clearly an area in which

Augustus had little or no patience for political posturing.

3.2.4. TRIUMPHS

Triumphs were given solely by decree of the Senate throughout the Augustan

period.222 This was undoubtedly true of triumphs for Augustus and the domus Augusta.

218 Cassius Dio 54.9.1-10. 219 Cassius Dio, 53.21.6. 220 The only direct attestation in Dio is found at 53.33.1-2, when the Senate received delegations from

Eastern client kings Phraates and Tiridates, but passed the matter to Augustus. Dio's excerpt is almost tongue-in-cheek: he emphasises Augustus’s willingness to share prerogatives in letting the Senate decide the fate of these kings. The following line begins: 'Subsequently, when the resolving of the issue had been entrusted to [Augustus] by the Senate...' Clearly, the Senate was either unwilling to become involved in foreign policy or were genuinely afraid of making the wrong decision and displeasing Augustus.

221 Cassius Dio, 56.25.7. 222 Tacitus implies that Augustus orchestrated the triumphs of Tiberius and Drusus but still uses the

expression 'the emperor had [Tiberius and Drusus] hailed publicly.' Tacitus would have been fully

53

A senatorial decree was also the procedure for entitlement to the ornaments of a

triumph, which was the ultimate military honour for a general outside the imperial

family.223 On more than one occasion, however, the Senate voted a triumph for a

member of the imperial family only to have Augustus veto the celebration. Augustus

himself also declined triumphs that had been officially voted to him.224 The Senate was

trying to please Augustus by showering the domus Augusta with honours, but Augustus

was extremely careful to avoid unnecessary fêting of his family. Ultimately, he allowed

some triumphs to be celebrated. Perhaps the best example of Augustus avoiding

sycophantic honours was his dismay about his grandson, Gaius, being elected as

consul.225 Gaius was several years too young to have even been available as a candidate,

and so Augustus admonished the Popular Assembly and postponed Gaius' consulship by

five years.226 Velleius Paterculus, as a long-serving military man, pays particular

attention in his historical narrative to military awards. The ornaments of a triumph

(ornamenta or insignia triumphalia) are attested as being given by the Senate to a series

of victorious generals. He makes it very clear that the ornaments of a triumph, just like

full triumphs, were given by decree of the Senate. Velleius adds in the case of Lepidus

that prior to the Augustan era the general would have 'properly' celebrated a triumph.227

The Senate “endorsed the recommendation of the Caesars,” and granted Lepidus the

lesser honour of the ornaments.

The prerogative of voting triumphs was such an important role that it was

singled out amongst senatorial prerogatives in 2 BCE. Augustus built a new forum and a

temple of Mars, and it was voted that the Senate would always meet to discuss the

granting of triumphs in the new temple.228 This special condition indicates that the

symbolic prerogative of voting when a successful general should be honoured by the

state was perceived as central to the role of the Senate under Augustus. There is no

doubt that the Senate possessed the prerogative to grant triumphs and ornaments in the

aware that triumphs were the result of senatorial decrees (Tacitus, Annals, 1.1-2). 223 Velleius Paterculus, 2.115-16. For Velleius’ account of his own participation in a triumph, see 2.121.3. 224 Res Gestae, 1.4. There is a debate on how many triumphs Augustus actually declined. It is most likely

that he celebrated three and declined three more (Ridley, The Emperor's Retrospect, 96-97). 225 Cassius Dio 55.9.2. 226 Cassius Dio, 55.9.2-3. 227 Augustus mandated that all generals were fighting under his auspices and were therefore not entitled

to celebrate a triumph as if they had been in ultimate command. 228 Cassius Dio, 55.10.3.

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Augustan period. However, an investigation of the evidence indicates that Augustus was

able to dictate the type of honour awarded, and was not hesitant to downgrade a triumph

that already had the force of a senatorial decree. Augustus could veto these triumphs by

using his tribunician power, but would have been more likely in general to undermine a

decree supporting a triumph through other means – a veto would have been a powerful

gesture likely to humiliate the Senate. Augustus was too clever to offend the Senate

unnecessarily. Velleius, always careful to monitor military awards, ends his Augustan

narrative by stating that Tiberius had only celebrated three triumphs during this era

when he in fact (in Velleius' eyes) had deserved seven.229

3.3. THE SENATORIAL COURT


In 26 BCE a powerful revolutionary equestrian, Cornelius Gallus, was

condemned to banishment (and ultimately 'forced to die') after the passing of a senatus

consultum.230 A quorum of 200 was needed in 5 BCE to decree an extortion charge

against a senator.231 In 7 CE, the Senate ratified Augustus’s decision to exile Agrippa

Postumus.232 From 8 CE onwards Augustus stopped attending the courts, and entrusted

to the Senate 'the decision of most cases without his presence.'233

3.3.2. THE SENATE AS A COURT

229 Velleius Paterculus, 2.122.1-2. 230 Suetonius, Augustus, 66; Cassius Dio 53.23.7. It is not certain in which year the Gallus trial took

place, but 26 BCE seems the most likely. (Rich, Commentary, 157) Cornelius Gallus: PIR C1369. 231 Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, 311.106-7; Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” 58. The so-called

Cyrene edict: plate of inscription: Fernand De Visscher, Les Edits D'auguste Decouverts a Cyrene (Paris: Societe d'Edition Les Belles Lettres, 1940), 17.

232 Tacitus, Annals, 1.6; Suetonius, Augustus, 65. Suetonius notes that it was Augustus who enacted the exile 'through' a senatorial decree.


55

The Senate as an advisory institution had rarely performed the role of a court in

the Republic.234 Senators in the Republic sat on juries in trials conducted in the Forum

known as quaestiones. These courts were initially ad hoc but became permanent

institutions of the state. Some of these quaestiones remained uncodified, such as the

court that dealt with charges of maiestas in the Augustan period.235 The quaestiones

continued to operate throughout the reign of Augustus, and were presided over by

senators as well as equites.236 This discussion will focus on occasions when the Senate

made judicial decisions independent from the quaestiones.

There is not a great deal of evidence concerning the Senate's attested

actions as a court between 28 BCE and 14 CE. Quite simply, there were few occasions

when it would have been appropriate for the Senate to pass judgment as a court. The

main role of the senatorial court seems to have been in making judgments on issues of

treason, whether for extortion or unauthorised military action in the provinces. On each

of these occasions, the man on trial was a senator or a powerful equestrian (being

judged by a jury of his peers). Unfortunately, the exact actions of the Senate in these

trials can be difficult to deduce. It is likely that the Cyrene edict of 5 BCE set the

procedure to be followed in later trials under subsequent emperors.237

3.3.3. THE CASE OF CORNELIUS GALLUS

There is an historical disagreement between Suetonius and Cassius Dio as to the

influence of the Senate in the condemnation of the equestrian Cornelius Gallus in 26

BCE. Dio implies that the Senate convicted Gallus, and passed a decree recommending

his exile. But it seems that the senators were not acting as a court themselves.238

Suetonius records that Augustus exiled Gallus, but Gallus was then 'forced to die'

234 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 460. 235 Ulpianus, Digest, 48.4.11. Discussion in Robert Samuel Rogers, Criminal Trials and Criminal

Legislation under Tiberius. (Middletown, Connecticut: American Philological Association, 1935), 6. 236 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 463. 237 Rogers, Criminal Trials, 10-11. 238 Cassius Dio, 53.23.7. It is interesting, however, that Dio gives the impression that the Senate could

dictate the outcome of a trial in an independent quaestio.

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because of condemnations and senatorial decrees.239 If Augustus had already banished

Gallus, why was he still killed by ‘senatorial decree’? A likely solution is that the

Senate passed a senatus consultum, which transferred the matter to the court, with

instructions that Gallus was to be convicted and exiled.240 Gallus, who had been prefect

of Egypt, predictably chose suicide over the dishonour of banishment. In short,

Augustus felt that Gallus was guilty of maiestas, an affront to the res publica as well as

Augustus, and renounced their friendship.241 We can only conclude from the Gallus

incident that the Senate had the ability to act in a judicial function but on this occasion

did not. Augustus would not have allowed the Senate to deal with Gallus if he knew

there was no action it could take. The only reason he didn't send Gallus directly to the

quaestio must have been to give the members of the Senate the option to convict the

esteemed eques themselves.

The case of Cornelius Gallus demonstrates that the senatorial court was not part

of the usual judicial apparatus of the res publica. Augustus allowed the Senate to act as

a court when the issue was too delicate for the emperor to be seen passing judgment on,

or to be conducted in the Forum. Therefore the Senate as a court can only be seen in

treason and extortion trials. The Senate, with the clear indication that Gallus would be

found guilty, sent Cornelius Gallus to the court of maiestas.242 This incident is found in

the histories of both Cassius Dio and Suetonius.243 There is no doubt that the Senate

ipso facto decreed the death of this eques accused of extortion. This practice was

codified during the reign of Augustus: from the reign of Tiberius onwards all treason

charges were held in front of the full Senate.244

Dio stressed that while the Senate judged cases on its own, 'nothing was done

that didn't please Augustus.'245 Augustus’s influence – imperial auctoritas – was

239 Suetonius, Augustus, 66. 240 Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 158. We have no real way of knowing what form these instructions

would have taken. 241 Gallus' initial crimes aren't noted, but the historians stress his vile temper (Suetonius, Augustus, 66)

and wild arrogance (Cassius Dio, 53.23.5) An inscription records Cornelius Gallus' achievements in Egypt with no mention of Augustus (Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, 21).

242 Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 158. 243 Suetonius, Augustus, 66; Cassius Dio 53.23.7. 244 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 465. 245 Cassius Dio, 53.21.6.

57

essential in the constitutional operation of Rome’s judicial courts. Late in Augustus’s

reign, the Senate produced a decree stating that Agrippa Postumus should be imprisoned

on an island in perpetuity.246 In this instance, either the Senate was doing exactly what

Augustus asked, or pre-empting his desires. Dio adds that Augustus in his dotage left

the Senate to make most judicial decisions without the emperor.247 It is worthwhile to

note that the Senate became well established as a court during the reigns of Augustus’s

successors.248 While it is difficult to ascertain the exact role of the Senate as a court

under Augustus, it is apparent the senatorial court was only used for extraordinary cases

that were directly referred to them by Augustus.249

3.4. ADMINISTRATIVE ROLES


In 27 BCE, immediately following the ‘first settlement’, the Senate granted

double pay to the Praetorian Guard.250 In 23 BCE, the Senate voted that Augustus be

given the power of a tribune.251 A senatorial decree of 16 BCE allowed Drusus to take

over Tiberius' duties as praetor, after Tiberius left for campaign mid-term.252 Cassius

Dio records that the Senate passed a decree that allowed equestrians to hold vigintivirate

246 Suetonius, Augustus, 65. Postumus was a failed attempt at finding a successor after Gaius and Lucius. 247 Dio doesn't specify the exact meaning of the Senate being allowed to issue decisions 'in most cases'

without Augustus (Cassius Dio, 55.34.2). Presumably Dio is not referring to extortion trials, as Augustus wouldn't have been involved regardless of his health. It is never mentioned whether Augustus participated in the senatorial court as a independent senator himself, but it has to be assumed that this would negate the attempt to deflect judicial judgement of accused senators to the Senate itself.

248 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 461-63. 249 Richard Talbert believes that the system for referring judicial matters to the Senate was largely ad hoc.

He notes “such lack of concern simply reflected the wider constitutional uncertainty of the age.” (Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 464) The evidence suggests to me that we are simply unaware of the exact process, and so to the modern observer it necessarily seems disjointed. Augustus strove throughout his reign to eliminate constitutional uncertainty.

250 Cassius Dio, 53.11.5. 251 Cassius Dio, 54.32.5. This is of particular interest as future grants of tribunician power are often

described as being given by Augustus, rather than by the Senate. [to Agrippa (Velleius Paterculus, 2.90.2) and Tiberius (Cassius Dio, 55.9.5, 55.13.2, 56.28.1; Velleius Paterculus 2.99.1, 2.103.3)] The majority of Augustus’s renewals, however, are phrased as senatorial decrees. (Cassius Dio, 55.12.2, 56.28.1) Suetonius simply says he 'accepted the tribunician power in perpetuity.' (Suetonius, Augustus, 27.5)


58

positions and not have to join the Senate.253 Through the works of Frontinus we know

that the Senate passed several decrees dictating how aqueducts were to be managed and

maintained.254 Late in the reign, the Senate ratified a decree allowing Augustus’s

consilium to pass senatus consulta.255 Other administrative actions of the Senate include

granting Augustus ten men to help prosecute equestrians,256 allowing gladiatorial

shows,257 and ordering book burnings.258

3.4.2. GRANTS OF POWER

The Senate was active during the reign of Augustus in making administrative

changes in Rome and throughout the Empire. The influence of Augustus on the decrees

of the Senate is immediately obvious: the first attested action of the body after Augustus

formally returned its Republican powers was to double the pay of the Praetorian Guard -

the emperor's ultimate defence.259 The most important of the Senate's administrative

actions in the Augustan era was their role in the transformation of Octavian the triumvir

to Augustus the princeps. Every change in Augustus’s role in the res publica was built

upon legal foundations: Senatus Populusque Romanus voted Augustus his extraordinary

powers in accordance with proper constitutional procedure.260 The Senate also passed

senatus consulta that promoted members of the imperial family as well as Augustus.

Marcellus and Tiberius were both given the ability to hold early magistracies by dint of

senatorial decree.261

253 Cassius Dio, 54.26.5. This has been proven by Rich to be incorrect: It had always been possible to

hold vigintiviri positions without joining the Senate, as shown by Ovid, who held two. (Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 204). The Senate's action here was in fact reducing the senatorial minimum for the office (1 million sesterces) to the equestrian minimum (400 000 sesterces). We have seen in Chapter One that many equestrians who were rich enough to become senators chose not to.

254 Frontinus, Stratagems. Aqueducts of Rome. tr. Mary B. McElwain (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1925), De Aquaeductu, 99-127.

255 Cassius Dio, 56.28.1-3. For a discussion of the Augustan consilium see Chapter 2.1. 256 Suetonius, Augustus, 39. 257 Cassius Dio, 54.2.3-4, 54.19.5. 258 Seneca the Elder, Controversiae, 10. 259 Cassius Dio stressed this first action as proving the control Augustus had over the new res publica:

“This shows how sincere had been his desire to lay down the monarchy.” Cassius Dio, 53.11.5 260 For a full review of Augustus’s powers in the res publica, see Chapter One. 261 Magistracies could traditionally only be held by those who met the age minimum. Marcellus and

Tiberius: Cassius Dio, 53.28.3-4. In 19 BCE, five years later, Tiberius and Drusus were similarly promoted, but it is conferred by Augustus; a senatorial decree is not mentioned: Cassius Dio, 54.10.4.

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The cornerstone of Augustus’s official supremacy in Rome was his tribunician

power, given to him by the Senate in 23 BCE. Later in his reign, he shared this power

with other members of the domus Augusta, as a mark of singular distinction. Augustus’s

initial grant of tribunician power is quite transparently phrased as a senatorial decree.

This was also true of the repeated renewals of this Augustan power.262 Suetonius simply

says he 'accepted the tribunician power in perpetuity.'263 This was theoretically true,

Augustus held the tribunician power annuus et perpetuus: annually and perpetually. The

phrasing of the Senate's influence on the Augustan grants of power is of particular

interest when compared to the descriptions of Agrippa and Tiberius's grants of

tribunicia potestas. The grants of tribunician power to Augustus’s associates were given

for periods of five years.264 These allocations of tribunician power are often described

as being ‘given’ by Augustus, rather than by the Senate.265 It should immediately be

noted that there is no chance that a power of such importance in the state was not

accompanied by a senatorial decree and a lex populi.266 The Res Gestae notes the

influence of the Senate in these grants;267 Tacitus, Suetonius, Velleius and Cassius Dio

all ignore any influence other than that of Augustus. Augustus’s official retrospect

stressed the legal procedure, while the historians recorded the political reality. It should

not be missed that Augustus could only rule the res publica with constitutional

legitimacy if his actions were condoned and supported by the Senate. Augustus’s

influence on senatorial decisions is debatable; the necessity of the Senate in the

constitutional state that Augustus created is not.

3.4.3. NEW IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION

262 Cassius Dio, 55.12.2, 56.28.1. 263 Suetonius, Augustus, 27.5. 264 Cassius Dio, 54.28.1; 55.9.5. 265 To Agrippa: Velleius Paterculus, 2.90.2. To Tiberius: Cassius Dio, 55.9.5, 55.13.2, 56.28.1, Velleius

Paterculus, 2.99.1, 2.103.3. Suetonius, in the same sentence in which he notes that Augustus 'accepted' his tribunician power, adds that Augustus 'on one occasion and then another chose a colleague.' The implication is that Augustus, once he had been given his tribunician power, also received the power to install it in others (Suetonius, Augustus, 27).

266 This is confirmed in the Res Gestae, 6.2. Augustus also displayed remarkable constitutional consistency throughout his forty-year reign, and doling out significant powers without decrees of the Senate did not fit with his legal modus operandi.

267 Res Gestae, 6.2: “I myself [Augustus] spontaneously on five occasions requested and received from the Senate a colleague.

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The Senate also produced several decrees that set new administrative rules in the

state. The consistency of governance in the Augustan res publica allowed a great deal of

administrative infrastructure to be built, much of which was then administered by

Augustus's bureaucracy. These new rules, which often restricted senatorial power, were

introduced or codified by senatus consulta. Frontinus, in his treatise on aqueducts,

wrote: “resolutions were passed in the Senate and a statute was promulgated to deal

with the matter of routine administration, for hitherto this had been handled in only a

semi-official way and there had been no specific legal basis.” We are lucky to have

specific evidence about the management of aqueducts in Rome. It is likely that

pragmatic administrative changes would have been introduced through senatorial

decrees. Administrative order was a high priority to Augustus, as can be seen in his

creation of a new imperial bureaucracy.

The administrative changes that the Senate made, apparently without Augustus’s

involvement, specifically concern Rome and Italy.268 It is possible that the Senate

believed changes to these areas lay closer to their traditional jurisdiction. I would also

suggest that the Senate was aware that Augustus was more concerned with the peace of

the empire and wouldn’t interfere with their administrative prerogatives in Rome and

Italy. The final attested action of the Senate in administrative roles is the decree giving

Augustus’s consilium the power to issue senatorial decrees without the involvement of

the Senate. This simply emphasises the influence that Augustus had on the decisions of

the Senate, which increased as his reign progressed. The consilium was disbanded early

in Tiberius' reign, when the second emperor was trying to enliven the Senate.

3.5. LEGISLATION


268 For example, a vote in 19 CE to guard a consul in a time of crisis: Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome,

383.

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In 24 BCE, the Senate freed Augustus from the laws of the res publica.269 In 18

BCE, the Senate recommended to the People the moral reform laws known as the Leges

Iuliae.270 And in 5 CE, the Senate and the People passed laws guaranteeing soldiers

greater pay rates.271 The exact role of the Senate in the law-making process in Rome is

difficult to ascertain.272 Bills were planned in the Senate during the Republic: it was the

Forum in which prospective new laws were first discussed.273 Constitutionally the

Senate had no legal power,274 however, and no measure was ever enacted in Roman

history to formally invest senatus consulta with legal authority.275 Nonetheless, through

gradually established precedent and convention, by the Augustan period they had come

to be accepted as having legal force. The comitia tributa, however, was still often

required to pass significant senatus consulta, such as the Leges Iuliae, as new laws.

3.5.2. AUGUSTAN LAWS

Augustus is credited in most sources for a series of laws that were issued around

18 BCE.276 These were moral reform laws, designed to encourage family as the centre of

social life and a political career. Cassius Dio doesn't initially mention the role of the

Senate in the establishment of the laws,277 but later in his history confirms that

Augustus’s moral reforms were ratified in the Senate. Suetonius elaborates that 269 Cassius Dio, 53.28.1. There is some conjecture on this issue, and Rich believes that Dio is being

anachronistic and Augustus was only freed from a portion of the laws. (Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 151, 164.) This only concerns the overall freedom from laws that can be seen in the lex imperii Vespasiani, (Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, 364). Rich does not doubt that the Senate decree in 24CE freed Augustus from the law of electoral corruption.

270 Cassius Dio 55.2.6; Suetonius, Augustus, 34. 271 Cassius Dio, 55.23.1. 272 To the extent that Richard Talbert avoids confronting the issue entirely in his 600-page Senate of

Imperial Rome, contenting himself with a conspectus of senatus consulta passed (Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 431-459).

273 Jolowicz, Introduction to Roman Law, 30. 274 Jolowicz, Introduction to Roman Law, 30. 275 By the time of the late Republic it was simply accepted that senatus consulta concerning certain topics

carried the force of law, especially in finances, foreign affairs and public order. (Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 432-33) By the Augustan period, all senatorial decrees were considered to carry legal force “because the emperor himself upheld their validity.” (Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 433)

276 The only source that implies the Senate was responsible for moral reform legislation is Augustus’s own retrospect, the Res Gestae. Augustus, referring to the reform laws (Ridley, The Emperor’s Retrospect, 171-72), notes: “What the Senate wished performed through my agency at the time I carried out through the tribunician power.” Res Gestae, 6.2. He references the tribunician power to confirm that he convened the Senate constitutionally.

277 Cassius Dio, 55.16.

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Augustus had to make changes to the reforms before they were accepted, but doesn't

mention who had protested the initial bill.278 Members of the equestrian class were

definitely involved in the protest, but whether the Senate protested the laws as a group

is not clear.279 It has to be assumed that the Senate ratified the bill rather than playing a

significant role in designing the new moral laws. There were many laws passed in this

era that became known as Augustan Laws, such as the law guaranteeing pay increases

for soldiers. While they are not all attested, as with the changes to administrative roles,

it should be assumed that many were simply too insignificant to mention in a history of

the whole reign. Once again, we can see Augustus’s reign as a period of legal transition

and the beginning of transformation. Dio notes that during his era – the Severan period

– emperors no longer needed to consult the Senate for special dispensations to the

marriage laws.280

3.5.3. AUGUSTUS’S IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION

The Senate invested Augustus with the right not to be subject to the laws of the

res publica. The emperor, as it is put, was legibus solutus: he could not be brought

before the courts for any crime. There doesn't seem to be any precedent for this action in

Roman history.281 It is remarkable in many ways that the Senate held the power to

declare that any individual was not bound to the laws of the state. This freedom from

laws was extended to all future emperors, and it was part of the package of imperial

powers allocated in 69 CE by the lex de imperio Vespasiani.282

278 Suetonius, Augustus, 34.1. 279 Cassius Dio, 56.1-10. Suetonius, Augustus, 34. Following Ridley, The Emperor's Retrospect, 172. 280 Cassius Dio 55.26. Discussion of the change under later emperors: Rich, The Augustan Settlement,

220; Richard Saller, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 54.

281 Cassius Dio, 53.18.1-2. 282 Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 151. There is a debate as to whether Augustus held general

dispensation from all the laws of Rome, or a series of individual specific dispensations issued when the need arose. The lex de imperio Vespasiani claims that Vespasian would be free from any laws that did not bind Augustus, Tiberius or Claudius. (Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, 364) It is therefore clear that Augustus was free from one or more of the laws of Rome, but didn't hold overall freedom from them all as Dio implies. In any case, no-one in Rome would have been inclined to test Augustus’s inculpability. We have one example of a specific law that no longer bound Augustus: the inheritance tax that the Senate decreed he would not have to adhere to in his will, so as to be able to bequeath a third of his estate to Livia. (Cassius Dio, 56.32.2)

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3.6. CEREMONIAL ACTS


The senatorial decree of 27 BCE, confirming the powers of Augustus, celebrated

him with very carefully chosen words.283 In 8 BCE, the Senate changed the name of the

month of Sextilis to August.284 The Senate twice closed the doors of the Quirinus Gate

by virtue of senatorial decrees. A third decree to close the gates was passed but not

enacted due to the outbreak of war.285 Augustus was named pater patriae in 2 BCE, but

without decree or proclamation. This is likely to have been an announcement from

Valerius Messalla on behalf of the entire Senate.286 The Senate engaged in many other

ceremonial acts including granting permission to a town to rename itself Augusta;287

forcing a praetor to feast the entire Senate for Augustus’s birthday;288 reserving – for

themselves – the front row at the theatre;289 banning equestrians from performing in

plays and shows;290 and adding Augustus’s name to the Salian Hymn.291

3.6.2. THE PHRASING OF SENATORIAL DECREES

The Senate also passed many senatorial decrees for essentially ceremonial

reasons. Although they are easy to dismiss in a study of the power and influence of the

Senate, it is important to notice the language used in these decrees. The emphasis in 283 They celebrated the emperor for the qualities that he prized – emphasising those of the clupeus

virtutis, the shield of honour. These values were repeated in later S.C., such as that of 2BCE. (Potter, “Political Theory,” 76)

284 It is announced the Sextilis was lucky for having seen the end of Civil War (Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, 37; Potter, “Political Theory,” 80) Talbert, without good reason, dates this to 27 BCE. (Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 361)

285 Cassius Dio, 51.20, 53.26. The Quirinus Gate was only closed twice in the Augustan period. It was not shut three times, despite the claims of Augustus in the Res Gestae (Res Gestae, 13). As Cassius Dio indicated, the doors of the temple were never actually closed on a third occasion, although the S.C. was issued. (Cassius Dio, 54.36.1-2) Further Discussion: Ridley, The Emperor's Retrospect, 114-116.

286 Suetonius, Augustus, 58. 287 Cassius Dio, 54.23.7. 288 Cassius Dio, 54.26.2. 289 Suetonius, Augustus, 44. 290 Suetonius, Augustus, 43. 291 Res Gestae, 10.

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decrees that the Senate produced in celebration of Augustus and the Augustan era is

peace and stability. The Senate lauded Augustus as the deliverer of pax and prosperity,

which can be seen in the presentation of the ‘first settlement’. The naming of Augustus

as the father of the fatherland in 2 BCE also echoed the themes of peace and

consensus.292 Potter rightly points out that the Augustan period was one of constant

border warfare, but this is not recognised in either the decrees of the Senate or the

'Augustan line' in the Res Gestae.293 The conclusion must be that that the attested

ceremonial actions of the Senate closely reflected Augustus’s own propaganda.

3.7. CONCLUSION

Tiberius celebrated the achievements of Augustus in his eulogy: 'When the

Senate's decrees needed to be passed, he did not abolish their right to vote, but even

added safeguards to protect their freedom of speech.'294 Tiberius wasn't lying; Augustus

did maintain the right of the Senate to vote. However, this issue is further illuminated by

an investigation of attested senatorial decrees between 28 BCE and 14 CE. Every senatus

consultum was either obviously in-line with Augustus’s political motives, or was a

matter of small concern to the state. In foreign policy the Senate lost the exclusive

prerogative to greet embassies, and ceased to be involved in foreign policy decisions

almost entirely. The nascent senatorial court was used to ratify Augustus’s decisions,

and the body is attested as delegating the case of Gallus to the quaestiones. The Senate's

attested actions in administrative roles revolved around establishing the constitutional

powers of Augustus and the infrastructure for his new administrative civil service.

Senatorial decrees had unofficially acquired the power of law, but the decreed laws that

are attested are distinctly Augustan. Even the Senate's decrees of a ceremonial nature

celebrated Augustus and his family in the manner they desired, emphasizing peace and

general consensus: pax and consensus omnium.

292 Suetonius, Augustus, 58.2. Valerius Messala, who had sided against Augustus during the civil wars,

delivered a key speech during the ceremony naming Augustus pater patriae. This represented ‘the very embodiment of political concordia: Tom Stevenson, “Acceptance of the Title Pater Patriae in 2 BC,” Antichthon 43 (2009), 103.

293 Potter, “Political Theory,” 75-81. 294 This, of course, is Tiberius’s eulogy as Dio imagined it: Cassius Dio, 56.40.

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An important conclusion that can be drawn from this methodical analysis of the

imperial Senate is that although Augustus strove to include members of the Senate in

every aspect of state that they had controlled prior to the foundation of the Empire, there

was no facet of political control in which their influence hadn't lessened to token status

or total insignificance. In fact, I would suggest that Augustus had created a political

system in which the Senate pre-empted his desires and enacted them as if

independently. There are of course some issues with the evidence. Suetonius, for

example, attributes many actions to Augustus that must constitutionally have been

supported with a decree of the Senate. Many of these are attributed to the Senate in

other sources. Suetonius clearly believed that many senatorial decrees were not even

worth mentioning,295 and that the actions were those of Augustus, legally cast as senatus

consulta.296 This ignores the importance of law and constitutionalism in Augustan

Rome. The historical importance of the Augustan era is the mastery of the constitution

that the emperor displayed in choosing his powers and influence so carefully.

295 Suetonius not only omitted reference to the Senate when he felt it was a hidden action of Augustus,

but also when senatorial decrees were simply too servile: 'The decrees of the Senate I pass over as they could be motivated by necessity or reverence.' Suetonius, Augustus, 57.

296 For example, the Senate must have passed the decrees that enacted Augustus’s social laws, but Suetonius simply notes that the emperor revised some laws and innovated others. (Suetonius, Augustus, 34.)

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CHAPTER FOUR

IMPERIAL ENCROACHMENT

4.1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter will discuss occasions when the actions of Augustus encroached

upon senatorial realms of influence. It is separated into two parts: The first describes

how new officials completed tasks associated with senatorial prerogatives, and the

second looks at the direct encroachment of the emperor on senatorial prerogatives. More

specifically, the first part discusses the new imperial bureaucracy that was given tasks

and responsibilities that would have traditionally been prerogatives of the Senate. The

Senate was not directly stripped of any power or prerogative. Instead, the specific tasks

that the Senate usually administered were given as briefs to individuals and small

committees of Augustus’s choosing. This Augustan bureaucracy consisted of a cross-

section of Roman society: senators, equestrians, freedmen and slaves. The second part

examines areas of governance in which Augustus encroached upon the prerogatives of

the Senate himself. This section focuses in particular on foreign policy, especially war-

making, and the emperor’s use of the Senate in moral reform legislation. The question

of whether Augustus increasingly encroached on senatorial prerogatives as his reign

progressed will also be investigated. The main focus of this chapter has to be the

emperor and his bureaucracy on occasions when they could be perceived as encroaching

upon the prerogatives of the Senate. There is not enough space to discuss other aspects

of the civil service, which are of great interest but minimal relevance. Many imperial

officials were vital to Augustus’s bureaucracy but fulfilled the prerogatives of

magistrates rather than the Senate. For example, the praefectus urbis essentially

encroached upon the roles of the consuls, and so is not directly relevant to this

discussion.

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4.2 THE IMPERIAL BUREAUCRACY

4.2.1. INTRODUCTION

The Augustan bureaucracy has not received the historical attention that it

deserves. One key reason for this lack of detail is the haphazard structure of the civil

service, and the nature of its formation. It was essentially a needs-based piecemeal

construction, emerging in the same manner as the new powers that Augustus created for

himself, as discussed in the first chapter. Once he had begun his reinvention of the res

publica in 28 BCE, the emperor began to re-assign duties that he thought were not being

satisfactorily fulfilled. He chose new men who he believed to be trustworthy and

efficient. Many who were given positions of administrative importance had been

members of Augustus’s private household.297 Many others had been of great service

during the civil war, or were part of his political coterie.298 It was only the continuity of

Augustus’s position as princeps that allowed his servants and clientele to become the

imperial bureaucracy. In Republican times, magistrates had their own aides that helped

them with research and decisions. These aides, often freedmen or slaves, would serve

the senator in his administrative role but at the end of the senator’s magisterial

allocation these men remained in the service of the individual rather than the state.299

There had been a small Republican group of professional scribes, who were used as

aides to minor magistrates, but they were few in number and used as resources rather

than practicing administration themselves.300 The Republican system, which placed the

emphasis on the magistrates rather than their staff, led to a haphazard bureaucracy with

minimal continuity in motive or method.

297 An in-depth review of state jobs offered to members of Augustus’s household can be found in Beth

Severy, Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire (New York: Routledge, 2003). 298 Jolowicz, Introduction to Roman Law, 331. While many of the new administrators in Rome came from

Augustus’s patronage circles, the bureaucracy in the provinces developed more from existing military positions that became administrative (A.N. Sherwin-White,. "Procurator Augusti." Papers of the British School at Rome 15 (1939): 13. While this discussion is interesting, it is not directly relevant and will not be discussed further.

299 Examples of this sort of trusted administrative servant include Cicero’s loyal slave and secretary Tiro, and the historian Polybius, who served Scipio Aemilianus (and saw their relationship as one of friendship: Polybius, Histories, 31.23.3.)

300 Berger, “Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Roman Law,” 692. These scribae existed essentially as the nucleus of Republican bureaucracy, but are rarely mentioned by the elite Republican historians and scholars. We know very little of their specific roles, except that they were essentially magisterial clerks.

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4.2.2. SENATORIAL OFFICIALS

It may be surprising at first that senators performed many of the most important

roles in the new imperial Bureaucracy. After all, these men were part of a body that was

directly losing influence in the state because of the new role of the emperor and the new

influence enjoyed by the domus Augusta and the wider familia Caesaris.301 Julius

Caesar offered a precedent for the use of senators in administration, but Augustus

carefully avoided relying on the methods of his adoptive father. Julius had tried to use

experienced and senior senators in new administrative positions, but made a crucial

mistake. He attempted to create new positions for senators without direct consultation of

the wider Senate, thereby creating a slavish office rather than a Republican one.302

Clearly, this strategy was unsuccessful in convincing the senators that the Caesarean

cause was worthy and Augustus was careful not to employ it in the same way; he was

anxious, as always, not to offend the Senate or senators wherever possible.

An appropriate case study for the use of senators in the imperial administration

is the governors and the provinces. From 27 BCE and the ‘first settlement’ there were

two types of province – imperial and public – and senators governed both.303 Senators

governing imperial provinces reported directly to the emperor, while the governors of

public provinces also reported to the Senate. Governors of imperial provinces were

usually deployed for a period of several years. They were known as legati Augusti pro

praetore, regardless of whether they had attained praetorian or consular rank.304 The

legati Augusti pro praetore reported directly to the emperor, and otherwise administered

the provinces according to the instructions that would have been given to them by

301 The familia Caesaris was a term used to describe the wider Augustan household, including slaves and

freedmen. The domus Augusta is not as broad a term, and in this thesis is used to mean the imperial family. See P.R.C. Weaver, Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor's Freedmen and Slaves. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972): 298-300. See also Richard Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 74-101.

302 Alban Dewes Winspear, and Lenore Kramp Geweke. Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government and Society (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1935), 105.

303 Cassius Dio, 53.13.2. The only exception was Egypt, which will be discussed in 4.1.2: Equestrian Officials. Suetonius’s discussion of the provinces: Suetonius, Augustus, 46-48.


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Augustus before they left Rome.305 The title legati Augusti pro praetore indicated that

theirs was both a military role, and a subservient one.306 Their titulature made their role

as Augustan proxies clear.

The governors of public provinces had distinct roles and prerogatives from the

legati pro praetore. They were known as proconsuls, again regardless of whether they

had achieved the position of consul.307 In fact, most of the promagistrates of public

provinces were only ex-praetors, and as such these positions must have been less

esteemed than those in imperial provinces.308 Finally, Augustus also sent quaestors with

praetorian imperium to each public province; these were known as the quaestores pro

praetore.309 In addition, each public province was given legati pro praetore, known as

‘assessors’ by Dio, who theoretically worked for the proconsul.310 These men served on

the proconsuls’s council, and performed largely judicial functions.311 Proconsuls had the

right to choose their own assessors, but Dio stresses that these nominations were

‘subject to the emperor’s approval.’312 Augustus clearly had men, whose livelihood

relied on his approval, monitoring the actions of the senators governing public

provinces. While these legati were not exactly delatores, any governor would have been

aware that they reported to Augustus.313 Augustus’s willingness to rely on his legati was

demonstrated when the governor of Achaea died suddenly, and Augustus commanded

that the quaestor and the legatus should dually govern the province.314

305 Cassius Dio, 53.15.4. A century later, we have many letters sent back and forth between Pliny (A

governor of an imperial province) and Trajan, the emperor, containing fine details on how the province should be run: Pliny the Younger. The Letters of the Younger Pliny. tr. Betty Radice. (London: Penguin Books, 1963).

306 The term legati was usually associated with military officials, and pro praetore was to be contrasted with pro consulare, which indicated superiority and non-delegated imperium. The names had of course originally been associated with ex-consuls and ex-praetors, but Augustus used them symbolically. Pompey had used this same method during his governorship of Spain in 55-49 BCE. (Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 144-45) For examples of Augustus following Pompeian precedent rather than Caesarean, see Vervaet, “Arrogating Despotic Power,” 133-166.

307 Cassius Dio, 53.13.2-4. 308 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 393. The exceptions are the governorships of Asia and Africa,

which were highly sought after and only held by consular senators. 309 Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 146. 310 Cassius Dio, 53.14.5. 311 Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 146. 312 Cassius Dio, 53.14.7. 313 Augustus quite likely used the information these quaestors provided (as well as the equestrian

financial officials) to restructure the administration of each public province while he toured the empire (Cassius Dio, 54.7.5).

314 Cassius Dio, 55.27.6. Suetonius reports that Augustus arbitrarily replaced one proconsul for his

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More often than not the senatorial members of the Augustan public service were

encroaching on the prerogatives of the magistrates rather than those of the Senate.

Suetonius gives some examples of new positions for senators in Augustus’s

administration: a consular urban prefect, a curator of the water supply, two curators of

public works and five consular curators of the Tiber, whose brief was to control

flooding.315 Augustus directly administered the curatores viarum, who looked after the

roads of Italy.316 He also had direct control over the quaestor Augusti, whose role was to

aid Augustus in his dealings with the senate. This quaestor would occasionally read

addresses in the emperor’s absence.317

Where Julius Caesar had created his bureaucracy without reference to the

Senate, Augustus was more careful.318 He had learnt from his adoptive father’s mistake.

We know that many of the positions in the Augustan bureaucracy intended for senators

were officially created in the Senate.319 Inscriptions referring to new senatorial

administrators, such as the curatores viarum were often followed by ex s.c.: by decree

of the Senate.320 This was not an innovation of the Senate but rather a sign that

Augustus was outwardly respecting the traditional prerogatives of the Senate in

designating special administrators. Talbert surmises that senators who wished to

emphasise that the Senate had officially created their position specifically chose to

include the ex s.c. on inscriptions.321 An ‘ex s.c.’ on an inscription could either mean

that the post was created by the Senate, or that the Senate had asked the holder of the

office to perform a specific task. Talbert’s point is valid, that it could well signify pride

in the senatorial origins of the holder’s office, a form of Republican honour. However,

significantly more administrators simply listed the name of their office, without

lackadaisical spelling (ixi as ipsi). This is highly unlikely, but emphasises the perceived clout of Augustus in provincial administration. Suetonius, Augustus, 88.

315 Suetonius, Augustus, 37. 316 An inscription recalls that T. Mussidio Polliana was one of these curators of roads: ILS 913. He was

also later praefectus frumenti dandi , a role given by senatorial decree: Hermann Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. Vol. 1. (Berolini: Apud Weidmannos, 1892), 201. Cf. T. Mussidius Ti.f. Pollianus (CIL 6, 41072; 6,01558)

317 Cassius Dio, 25.5. 318 Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government, 105. 319 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 372-73. 320 ILS 914, 915. 321 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 373.

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indicating that it was created by senatus consultum. It seems more likely that the ex s.c.

attached to new roles was dropped in inscriptions once the new office had become

unquestionably part of the imperial administration.322

While senators were important in Augustus’s bureaucracy, they were never the

administrative force that the equestrians became. They never could have been a great

force, since they were prohibited from being directly involved in practicing public

finance and they were not accustomed to quotidian administrative positions. I would

suggest that the senators who filled the roles in the new imperial administration were

mostly pedarii.323 These were senators whose families did not have grand Republican

ancestries and therefore felt less debased by these new essentially servile positions.

Even these senators were not expected to work as hard as the equestrians or freedmen,

who filled positions requiring great diligence.

While Augustus created bureaucratic positions for senators, he was careful to

impose checks and balances on their power. The proconsuls of public provinces, for

example, could only hold that esteemed office five years after having held an official

role in Rome.324 Later in Augustus’s reign, this was extended to a ten-year interval. It

was initially a Pompeian law, re-introduced by Augustus for all the provinces of Rome

between 27 BCE and 19/18 BCE.325 It was clearly a measure designed to ensure that

Augustus was the only senator capable of simultaneously holding magisterial and

promagisterial power.

It might be suggested that Augustus’s senatorial bureaucracy encroached more

on the prerogatives of the magistrates than the Senate as a body. Augustus employed

sound administrative policy by not using senators in positions that overlapped with

prerogatives of the whole Senate. In that way he avoided creating any unnecessary

conflicts of interest, and helped to maintain senatorial honour. But why were senatorial

322 Cf. Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 374. For a further discussion on [EX] S C and the coinage of

this period see Aase Bay, "The Letters S C on Augustan Aes Coinage." The Journal of Roman Studies 62 (1972): 111-22.

323 See chapter 2.2.3. Senatorial Reluctance: nobiles and pedarii. 324 Cassius Dio, 53.14.2. Suetonius, Augustus, 36. See also, Hurlet, “Consuls and Consulships,” 15. 325 Rich, The Augustan Settlement, 144.

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bureaucrats used at all by Augustus? Winspear believed the extent of their involvement

in the new administration to be ‘remarkable.’326 The answer surely lies in the new

honorific positions that were being created (at least nominally ex s.c.) during a period

when the cursus honorum was being redefined by changes in the res publica. Astute

senators who prioritized ambition over Republican pride must have seen their

opportunity for advancement as the road to success became increasingly more reliant on

the goodwill of the emperor than public canvassing or senatorial coteries.

4.2.3. EQUESTRIAN OFFICIALS

The emperor chose not to rely upon bureaucrats from the senatorial order in

many areas of administration. Equestrian officials were of great use to Augustus in his

bureaucracy, especially because they were willing, even eager, to undertake tasks that

senators felt were beneath them.

Financial administration was central to all aspects of the bureaucracy, and it was

an area dominated by equestrian officials. Augustus understood the importance of

smooth financial management, especially in keeping the People content and

supportive.327 The Senate as a body had managed the finances of the Republic.328

However, Senators themselves were traditionally forbidden from practicing finance or

commerce on a large scale, as it was seen as below their station.329 Because of the taboo

on senators practicing commerce, most powerful men in the Republic employed skilled

equites to act as their financial agents.330 These men came to serve Augustus as his

personal bureaucracy, which expanded into the Empire-wide administration that

Tiberius inherited.

326 Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government, 101. 327 Augustus learnt the importance of financially supporting the Roman People from his adoptive father

as well as his own experiences fighting against Antony for the hearts and minds of the People. 328 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 375. 329 Livy, History, 21.63.3-4. Winspear somewhat harshly calls the original senatorial decisions to ban

themselves from commerce ‘characteristically shortsighted.’ (Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government, 114)

330 Sherwin-White, “Procurator Augusti,” 14.

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Augustus was careful to uphold the moral standing of senators in society. His

moral reform bills, for example, were constructed so that they did not greatly impinge

upon senatorial honour. It was the emperor’s aim, after all, to keep individual senators

working for the res publica and following the cursus honorum in the quest for honour.

The financial officials of the equestrian order are ideal examples of the new Augustan

bureaucracy encroaching upon a prerogative of the Senate without formally removing

the powers of the Senate or challenging their honour. Augustus did occasionally involve

the Senate in major decisions, as an indication that they hadn’t been entirely

circumvented in matters of financial administration. Cassius Dio notes an occasion in

which the Senate is consulted concerning major taxes, and another when Augustus was

trying to increase the standard rates of pay for the army. 331 It seems likely that

Augustus’s goal was keeping the Senate involved in the machinery of the state rather

than seeking their collective opinions. It would have been a slight to senatorial honour

to introduce major taxes without an official senatus consultum, whereas the bureaucracy

would have directly handled smaller expenditures. These small issues would

presumably have involved the actual logistics of taxation.

Perhaps the most important financial officials of the equestrian order were those

assigned to work in the provinces. They were known as procurators, and were sent to

both public and imperial provinces.332 The emperor constitutionally held imperium over

one giant province, which included all the borderland and trouble areas, where the

military forces of the Empire were concentrated. The other provinces each had a

senatorial promagistrate, and although these provinces were mostly not militarized they

represented significant potential taxation for Rome. Senatorial governors had repeatedly

extorted goods and money from provincials during the Republic, especially during the

civil wars. Augustus’s response to endemic corruption was to send an imperial

procurator of equestrian rank as an advisor to the senatorial governor of each public

province.333 These men, sent out with express orders from the emperor, were

theoretically designed to manage the finances of the province. However, as men directly

331 Cassius Dio, 55.24-25, 56.28.4. 332 Cassius Dio, 53.15.3. These positions were usually equestrians, but occasionally a freedman could be

named as a procurator. 333 Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government, 109.

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loyal to the emperor,334 we can assume they acted at least partially as imperial

watchdogs.

Some equestrian positions in the new bureaucracy were so important that their

holders figured among the most powerful men in Rome. These formidable prefectures

will be discussed briefly with reference to their place in the bureaucratic encroachment

on the prerogatives of the Senate. The most unusual equestrian role in the Empire was

the position of prefect of Egypt. This province was left out of the provincial divide

during the first settlement (27 BCE), and Augustus chose to delegate its administration to

an equestrian, rather than either a legatus Augusti pro praetore or a proconsul. Augustus

was only able to ignore the Senate (as well as individual senators) in Egypt because it

was such a recently acquired province; he was willing to circumvent tradition in order

to keep such a powerful and resource-rich province out of the grasp of an ambitious

senator. Egypt was truly an anomalous province: it already had an effective bureaucratic

system, which was a remnant of the pharaonic system adopted by Ptolemy in the fourth

century BCE.335 As such, Augustus was able to administer the most lucrative province of

Rome as a princedom, outside of the context of the prerogatives of the Senate or the

traditional structure of the provinces of Rome.336 This is obviously another example of

Augustus favouring political assurance in important situations over the continuation of

the mos maiorum of symbolic senatorial precedence.

Two other extraordinary bureaucratic positions for equestrians should be

mentioned. One was the praetorian prefect who was the commander of the Praetorian

Guard, the only armed force allowed within Rome. Giving the role of such a powerful

military commandant to an eques would have been unthinkable in the Republic.337 The

other extraordinary bureaucratic position that equestrians held was the prefect of the 334 The loyalty of the equestrian order to Augustus is largely unquestioned, unsurprising given the social

and political advancements he allowed the equites. On an individual basis, potential advancement clearly lay with supporting the emperor.

335 William C. Beyer, "The Civil Service of the Ancient World." Public Administration Review 19, no. 4 (1959): 243-45.

336 There is conjecture amongst historians about why Augustus treated Egypt so differently. Many believe that he did not wish to allow a Senator to govern such an important province; it seems just as likely that he was enamoured with the efficiency of their bureaucracy – and taxation – and didn’t wish to undermine a successful system.

337 The praefectus praetorii became a permanent position in 2BCE: Sherwin-White, Procurator Augusti, 12.

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grain dole. This was an office that had been claimed by only Pompey and Augustus in

the 60 years preceding 6 CE.338 When famine struck in that year, 6 CE, Augustus

nominated two consular senators to monitor the grain supply on his behalf.339 However,

the need for continued administration was clear, and Augustus gave the newly

permanent role of cura annonae to an eques.340 From this point onwards, Augustus

operated the grain dole almost like an imperial province, ensuring that it was closely

monitored and governed by an equestrian legate directly answerable to the emperor. The

reason this role became equestrian is twofold. Firstly, it avoided establishing a senator

in a powerful permanent post, especially one that would ingratiate the senator with the

People. Secondly, Augustus could rely on the administrative diligence of the equestrians

more than the senators, and this office (like monitoring the Tiber) was designed to avert

potential crises in Rome. Put simply, Augustus could promote equites based on their

merit, whereas senators had traditionally been promoted based upon their powerful

connections and vaunted ancestry.

The powerful equestrian prefectures were the ultimate prizes of the Augustan

bureaucracy, but achieving these positions did require prestige and family patronage as

well as a long and hard-working career in the equestrian order.341 These special

positions in the equestrian bureaucracy essentially created a ‘patronised meritocracy.’342

While the offices did not directly encroach upon senatorial provinces the message for

senators was clear: that Augustus was content to use equites in the most powerful roles

throughout the Empire, depriving senators of these important and honorific positions.

The significant roles played by equestrians came in different forms. Thus some

equestrians were absolutely central to the domus Augusta. The figure of Maecenas

338 Vervaet, “Arrogating Despotic Power,” 154. Augustus’s use of the role of cura annonae is discussed

in Chapter One. 339 Cassius Dio, 55.31.4; G. Rickman, The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1980), 63. The extraordinary role of monitoring the grain supply is distinct from the administrators of the corn dole, which had been administered by senators since 22BCE: Brunt, “Princeps and Equites,” 60.

340 C Turranius: Tacitus, Annals, 1.7. Rickman contends that the appointment of Turranius occurred later in Augustus’s reign, sometime between AD 8 and 14 (Rickman, The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome, 63.)

341 Sherwin-White, “Procurator Augusti,” 17. As the bureaucracy developed post-Augustus, it became possible to rise from the lowest equestrian positions to the highest.

342 Pers. comm., Frederik Vervaet, 14.10.11.

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dominated the establishment of the Augustan res publica, and he played a key role in

the formation of the nascent bureaucracy.343 Furthermore, equites were occasionally

used in irregular situations in provinces in the place of a proconsul, such as in Sardinia

in 6 CE.344 Aside from this example, Cassius Dio rarely mentions these stopgap

equestrian officials,345 but it is clear that Augustus was content to use equestrians even

in positions usually reserved for senators, if the situation required direct action.346 While

he maintained senatorial traditions whenever possible, he was prepared to ignore them

in times of pressing need.

Despite their increasing significance in the administration of the res publica,

only a few select equites rose to a position of genuine prominence.347 The majority

filled middle roles in administration, often as communication aides throughout the

empire.348 The role was still vague, and the cursus honorum for civil administration

wasn’t fully separated from the equestrian military career until the reign of Hadrian.349

Augustus always carefully monitored the equites, as they were vital to the management

of his plan for the Roman state. He personally censored the equestrian order, with a

special task force of senators that he was given, on his request, by a senatus

consultum.350 It has even been argued that the intended audience of the Res Gestae was

the equestrian order of Rome.351 He relied on these men, and was willing to make it

clear to them that they could enjoy promotion and honour under his rule.

343 His exact role is not clear, but Dio notes that he was often left ruling the city in Augustus’s absence:

Cassius Dio, 55.7.1. The character and role of Maecenas in Rome will not be discussed in depth, but suffice to say the material could easily fill another thesis.

344 Cassius Dio, 55.28.1. 345 Millar suggests Dio ignores these exceptions as a sign of disapproval. Millar, A Study of Cassius Dio,

113. 346 Brunt, “Princeps and Equites,” 56. The use of these officials in senatorial provinces has been much

debated. Brunt believes that it was simply a lack of trust of senators. 347 Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government, 107. 348 These roles as mediums in the Empire eventually became part of the equestrian cursus honorum,

which was less regimented but after a time became more appealing than the senatorial cursus: Harold Mattingly, The Imperial Civil Service of Rome. (Westport: Hyperion Press, 1910), 64.

349 Raymond Henry Lacey, Equestrian Officials of Trajan and Hadrian. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1917), 38.

350 Suetonius, Augustus, 39. Suetonius reports that Augustus especially trawled the equestrian order for usurers, again emphasizing the importance of their financial nous to the res publica.

351 Ron Ridley, The Emperor’s Retrospect, 231-32. The importance of the equites and their future in the res publica to Augustus is equally well demonstrated in his speeches to the gathered order concerning the importance of marriage and starting families.

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The vast majority of equestrian roles were for unofficial members of Augustus’s

household performing tasks for the state on the emperor’s behalf. Examples of

equestrians in non-military roles include a new prefect of the food supply, and a prefect

of the watch.352 As Sherwin-White proves, the only equites with official roles in the

bureaucracy were those who had military connections; an official military bureaucracy

had preceded Augustan reforms.353 But the majority of the new bureaucratic roles for

equites were not military in character. The role of an equestrian bureaucrat had become

an attractive career-path under Augustus. Indeed, the emperor had to enact a new rule

giving equestrians permission to not join the Senate (and so not be subject to associated

restrictions) after holding an administrative role in the vigintivirate.354

4.2.4. OTHER OFFICIALS

The role of freedmen and slaves in the Augustan bureaucracy should not be

ignored. They were the least influential of the three social groups involved in the

administration, but were undeniably important for small and sometimes intimate tasks.

Just as the equestrian bureaucracy filled roles that were seen as below senatorial dignity,

the slaves and freedmen of the bureaucracy performed tasks that neither noble order

wished to undertake. The senators and the equestrians formed only a tiny percentage of

the overall Roman population. As such they were the administrative organs of the

bureaucratic body but there were many other men involved in the successful running of

the res publica, especially throughout the empire. While we don’t have many particular

attestations of the role played by these men, some exist by chance: for example, a

reference to two freedmen grammatici who worked as researchers in Augustus’s

library.355

352 The role of the prefect of the watch was essentially to control urban fires in Rome. Suetonius,

Augustus, 37. 353 Sherwin-White, “procurator Augusti,” 15. 354 Cassius Dio, 54.26; Discussion: Alan Astin, “Censoria Potestas,” 227. Specific examples of men who

chose an equestrian career over a senatorial career include Crispus and the father of Velleius Paterculus: G.V. Sumner, "The Truth About Velleius Paterculus: Prolegomena." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 74 (1970): 265.

355 Suetonius, De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), De Gramm. 20-21. From Sherwin-White, “Procurator Augusti,” 15.

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Freedmen and slaves that had made up the bureaucracy of important senators

were put directly to use by Augustus in the new civil service. They were, as Winspear

extols, a ‘weapon of incalculable usefulness.’356 They were seen as loyal, hard-working

and without conflict of interest.357 There were freedmen in almost every bureau of

Augustus’s civil service.358 Freedmen and slaves could be found serving Augustus as

accountants, secretaries, paymasters and treasurers, all of which are attested on

Augustan-era inscriptions.359 Some reached positions of significant power, but this was

less common under Augustus than his successors.360 The rise of powerful freedmen was

speedy (culminating in the mid-first century with Pallas and Narcissus) but so was their

fall. By the reign of Hadrian, the major freedmen procuratorships had been filled by the

ever-rising equestrian order.361

4.2.5. CONCLUSION

The Augustan bureaucracy has not received the attention that it deserves. It is an

important area of focus, for his new bureaucracy first allowed Augustus to revolutionize

large-scale governance, and ultimately became the foundation of an empire that lasted

centuries. However, the evidence is difficult to gather and the continued need for

relying on inscriptions is obvious. Crook expresses this need elegantly: “It must be

appreciated that most of the important milestones on the twin carriageways to absolute

monarchy and all-embracing bureaucracy have not yet been found.”362 The civil service

that Augustus initiated allowed his centralized control of the Roman Empire.

Conversely, as Wallace-Hadrill notes, it was the “sheer inertia” of the pre-Augustan

356 Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government, 116. 357 There was no real conflict of interest during the Augustan period. For freedmen wielding power for

their own benefit at the emperor’s expense one only has to look to the reign of Claudius. 358 Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government, 122. 359 ILS 1602, 1603, 1605, 1650. For discussion, see Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of

Roman Government, 123. 360 One exception is Licinus, a powerful freedman clearly trusted by the emperor. His role is well

discussed in P.R.C. Weaver, "Social Mobility in the Early Roman Empire: The Evidence of the Imperial Freedmen and Slaves." Past & Present 37 (1967): 3-20.

361 Scriptores Historiae Augustae. tr. David Magie (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), Hadrian, 22.8.

362 J.A. Crook, "Review of Mason Hammond, The Antonine Monarchy (Rome: American Academy, 1959): Constitutional Development of the Roman Empire." The Classical Review, New Series 11, no. 3 (1961): 275-76.

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bureaucracy that gave the new emperor the ability to consolidate his power through

administrative efficiency.363 Many prerogatives of the Senate, as well as those of the

traditional magistracies, quietly passed into the hands of the bureaucracy. Augustus

undoubtedly realized their potential to ease the administrative “inertia” of the res

publica. Augustus himself was at the top of the administrative hierarchy, and played the

Republican role of the Senate in foreign policy and urban administration. If a province

of the People was under threat of rebellion, the emperor could simply give his

permission for the governor to stay longer than his constitutionally allotted term.364 The

Republican procedure was, however, still observed. The Senate would have passed a

senatus consultum in response to Augustus’s explicit and formal request, which would

be recorded as ex sententia or auctoritate principis.365

Augustus’s use of every rung of the Roman social hierarchy was an effective

method of constructing a new administration. The evidence suggests to me that the

emperor tried to use senators to encroach upon magisterial prerogatives, and equestrians

to undertake tasks that were senatorial prerogatives during the Republic. As well as

avoiding conflicts of interest, this clearly efficacious system could also have reflected

social hierarchies inherent in the mos maiorum: equestrians could enact tasks that

senators didn’t deign to perform, and in turn freedmen and slaves could perform duties

that the equestrian order felt were beneath them.

Sherwin-White concludes that Augustus made use of bureaucrats while actively

not setting up a bureaucracy.366 This is an overstatement. While Augustus’s civil service

was scaffolding-only, it was clearly a bureaucracy in nascence.367 Not least, it was

structured with the capability to expand to administer the whole empire. However,

Brunt is right not to compare the efficiency of the regime to modern concepts of

363 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, "The Emperor and His Virtues." Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 30,

no. 3 (1981): 298. 364 Cassius Dio, 55.28.1. Augustus also ignored the province lottery if there was a military or logistic

benefit to the decision. 365 Senatus consulta ex auctoritate principis: a senatorial decree following the sententia or relatio of the

emperor. See Berger, “Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Roman Law,” 695. 366 Sherwin-White, “Procurator Augusti,” 19-20. 367 Jones reminds us that it was also a remarkable undertaking to organize a new centralized bureaucracy

given the difficulty in empire-wide travel and communication: A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire: 284-602. (Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 403.

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bureaucracy.368 Winspear implies that Augustus used his bureaucracy to muscle

prerogatives away from the Senate.369 This is too harsh a view. My interpretation is that

Augustus preferred administrative efficiency whenever possible. While he actively

worked to keep the Senate docile, the impression that he was locked in a power struggle

is wrong. Simply put, if Augustus’s administration could be more efficient without

offending an important stakeholder, then the change would be implemented.

Augustus’s forays into creating a civil service paled in comparison to the empire-wide

bureaucratic structure that was built on Augustan foundations by his successors. The

equestrian financial offices, for example, became a powerful force and by extension

highly prestigious positions to hold. Conversely, the senatorial treasury was ultimately

made obsolete by the emperor’s private funds, dutifully administered by his

bureaucracy of equestrians.370 The Republican system of relying on individual

magistrates was simply too weak to administer an empire the size of Rome, and after

Augustus the imperial bureaucracy inevitably encroached upon senatorial prerogatives

at an increasing rate.371

4.3 ENCROACHMENT BY THE EMPEROR

4.3.1. INTRODUCTION

It was not only Augustus’s new imperial officialdom that encroached upon the

prerogatives of the Senate during the Augustan period. The emperor himself took

actions that infringed upon the legal responsibilities of the Senate, most obviously in the

realm of foreign policy.

4.3.2 FOREIGN POLICY 368 Brunt, “Princeps and Equites,” 48. 369 Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government, 115. 370 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 379. See also Pliny the Younger, Letters and Panegyricus. tr. Betty

Radice. (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1969), Panegyricus, 36.3 on Trajan controlling the aerarium.

371 Leon Homo stresses the incapabilities of the remnants of the Republican administration: Homo, Roman Political Institutions, 218-19.

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It has been fully established that during the Republican period the Senate and

senatorial governors handled all of the administration of the provinces.372 Throughout

the settlements of 28-19 BCE, we have no evidence of any motion to remove the ability

to administer the provinces from the Senate. In fact, resolutions of the Senate

concerning the provinces continued to be obeyed in the imperial provinces as well as

the public provinces of the res publica.373 There is no doubt that overall provincial

administration remained an official prerogative of the Senate. Constitutionally,

Augustus was just another proconsul, albeit one with an enormous province and

unchallengeable promagisterial prerogatives. The actions of Augustus, however,

ignored the senatorial prerogative of provincial administration as he repeatedly made

decisions concerning the provinces and their armies without reference to the Senate.

This dichotomy is the source of historians’ difficulty in understanding the legal

provincial prerogatives of the Senate and the emperor during the Augustan era. On one

occasion a proconsul allowed certain actions to occur in ca. 4-5 CE (then forbidden)

because of a senatus consultum of 80 BCE.374 Roman law was reliant upon precedent,

which in this case had become confused. Clearly, both the authority of Augustus (and

his delegates) and the Senate were sufficient for administrative control in at least some

provinces.

The manner in which Augustus officially governed about half the Empire as a

Republican proconsul but could exert his auctoritas over the public provinces too was

typical of his administration. He could make military decisions without worrying about

senatorial procedure (knowing the armies were under his imperium) but still maintain

the image of Republican reconstruction.

The administrative pragmatism of Augustus has been illustrated throughout our

discussion. As Republican proconsuls had imperium, Augustus could administer ‘his’

provinces as a single ruler. Therefore in the imperial provinces there was nothing that

372 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 392. 373 Dio Cassius, 53.15.5. 374 Robert Kenneth Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East: Senatus Consulta and Epistulae to

the Age of Augustus (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), 70. Following Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 394.

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Augustus was doing that wasn’t in-line with Republican tradition, with the caveat that

his province was gigantic.375 In the Republican system, of course, the proconsuls were

answerable to the Senate if they were seen to have acted against the good of Rome. It

was this link that was broken: the Senate wouldn’t dare to call Augustus to account for

his provincial administration, although it was still their legal prerogative. Augustus

could therefore hold a Republican post without observing the tenure restrictions of the

Republic. The Senate could feel content with the Republican precedent,376 and the

emperor could command the armies of Rome unchallenged. Conversely, the fact that

Augustus claimed only half the provinces still allowed senators to strive towards a post

as governor, and it didn’t interrupt the cursus honorum. It has been well established that

the number of positions available for senatorial advancement was an issue that

Augustus strove to ameliorate. His provincial administration gave more senators a

chance to attain a position of honour, and the senatorial career must have risen at least

slightly in attractiveness.377

Although Augustus acted legally as an extraordinary (and unrivalled)

Republican proconsul in the imperial provinces, there is no doubt he was encroaching

upon senatorial prerogatives in the public provinces. Augustus’s auctoritas was

sufficient to make administrative changes in public provinces, which should have been

the legal domain of the Senate. For example, Cassius Dio notes that provincial

governors could raise taxes with the permission of either the Senate or the emperor.378

On his tour of the provinces in the late 20s BCE Augustus reorganized the majority of

the provinces of Rome, regardless of their legal status.379 Dio represents Augustus’s

involvement as almost fatherly,380 a reflection of his literary opinion that Augustus’s

new administration was a boon for the Empire.381 While Dio can be anachronistic about

375 Large or conflated provinces had precedent in the Republic in the form of Pompey’s Spain or Caesar’s

Gaul. 376 Again, it would be likely that the vast majority of pedarii reacted with redoubled ambition, and the old

aristocracy with an increasing lack of interest. 377 Chapter Two details the lengths that Augustus undertook to try to make a senatorial career appealing

in the new political landscape of the Empire. 378 Cassius Dio, 53.15.6. 379 Cassius Dio, 54.6.1; 54.7.1-6. 380 Cassius Dio, 54.7.5: “[the provinces] were deemed to belong to the People, he did not for that reason

neglect them but took care of them all without exception.” 381 This can be easily deduced from a study of Dio’s writing. Disscussion: Rich, The Augustan

Settlement, 13-18.

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the legal standing of the emperors, there are too many examples of Augustus

influencing decisions in the public provinces to ignore. Dio’s enthusiasm for Augustan

control of the provinces can be understood in the light of the fact that the emperor’s

financial and military capabilities were superior to those the Senate. For example, after

an earthquake in 13 BCE Augustus personally paid all of Asia’s taxes,382 an expenditure

that the Senate-administered state treasury could surely not have afforded.

Making war and peace in the Republic had been a prerogative of the People but

the Senate had always controlled diplomacy.383 Chapter Three discussed the prerogative

of the Senate to greet foreign embassies, which was a prerogative that Augustus

significantly encroached upon. There are repeated references to Augustus conducting

diplomacy directly with foreign kings and emissaries without mention of the Senate. In

2 CE the emperor did not involve the Senate in key negotiations with Parthia, Rome’s

greatest rival of the era.384 Furthermore, Suetonius records that when the smaller nations

fringing the Roman Empire required new client kings Augustus simply chose them

himself.385 The Senate is however attested as having been involved in ceremonial

diplomacy. In the same year as the Parthian negotiations, Dio records that “Augustus

and the Senate” handed Armenia to the administration of client kings.386 It was an

imperial province, but the involvement of the Senate acknowledged that the res publica

was still legally the possession of the SPQR.

It has also already been noted that Augustus sent specific orders to the provinces

with every proconsul, procurator and propraetor, which included the governors of public

provinces. Cassius Dio claims that from as early as the first settlement (27 BCE) the

emperor sent out mandates with each governor, whether they were bound for an

imperial or a public province.387 These were thought to be sets of instructions detailing

382 Cassius Dio, 54.30.3. 383 An example of the legal power of the Senate over magistrates with imperium in the provinces comes

with the Senate not ratifying the peace treaty signed by Tiberius Gracchus, and the surrender of his commanding officer, naked and bound, to the people of Numantia.

384 Cassius Dio, 55.10.20-21. 385 Suetonius, Augustus, 21. 386 Cassius Dio, 55.10A.1. 387 Cassius Dio 53.15.4.

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areas of concern in each specific province. However, there is no direct evidence of any

of these instructions from the reign of Augustus.

As well as imperial mandates, historians have discussed how extra orders were

given to proconsuls already in their positions. Talbert assumes that more imperial

legates were sent to public provinces than senatorial legates,388 which is not directly

supported by the evidence but makes sense. If a governor needed to be aware of special

circumstances during his tenure then an imperial message would clearly have been more

readily prepared than a senatus consultum. We have seen that Augustus respected the

Senate whenever possible, but would circumvent their prerogatives if an urgent decision

was needed.389

There is no doubt that foreign policy was the area in which Augustus most

brazenly encroached upon the prerogatives of the Senate. Augustus was proconsul of

half the Empire and could exert imperium maius over any other proconsul. Despite

these abilities, the emperor still encroached upon the prerogatives of the Senate by

giving every imperial official and proconsul who was travelling to the provinces

specific instructions, as well as sending commands from Rome to provinces of both

types. The provinces themselves had suffered during Rome’s expansion under the

SPQR and the Civil Wars, and by all accounts preferred the dominance of one man to

constitutional dyarchy.390

4.3.3. LAW-MAKING

Augustus’s moral reforms are often discussed, but not a great deal of attention

has been given to the process by which bills became laws in the Augustan era. Laws

were passed in the Augustan period by the comitia tributa, as they had been in the late

Republic.391 The vote of the comitia, however, was always commensurate with the

388 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 400. Talbert points to indications that Tiberius and later emperors

sent legates with special orders to public provinces in times of crisis. 389 See Chapter Two. 390 Tacitus, Annals, 1.1. 391 Homo, Roman Political Institutions, 301. Prior to the late Republic Roman laws had been passed by

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desires of Augustus. Augustus’s influence with the People is undeniable; the emperor

had freed them from the civil wars and given them peace, games and food. If Augustus

made his preference clear in a vote of the People they supported him.392 The final vote,

in Republic and Empire, lay with the Roman People, and the Senate played an

important consulting role in Republican legislation. Under the principate, the Senate

became more than a powerful consultant to legislation: senatus consulta received de

facto force of law.393 Augustus is credited with introducing several news laws during his

ascendancy, which are known as leges Iuliae.394 The laws passed in his reign

represented Augustus’s ideals, and were clearly of Augustan design.395 Suetonius

famously simplifies Augustus’s legislation as “revising some [laws] and enacting new

ones.”396

But through which process did they become law? Many laws that Dio and other

historians attribute to Augustus were passed after consultation in the Senate, such as the

legal advantages of having children, the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus.397 Cassius

Dio reports that in 18 BCE, at the tail end of the emperor’s constitutional amendments,

Augustus was given ius edicendi.398 This was the traditional right of a magistrate to

issue edicts, which stemmed from his imperium.399 Leon Homo believes that this gave

Augustus “unlimited, discretionary power in legislative matters.”400 He could also issue

special types of imperial decree, known as constutitiones principum, which also

the comitia centuriata.

392 The one obvious exception is when he asked them not to make him consul, but this is a convoluted situation that is not relevant to legislative process.

393 Mousourakis, A Legal History of Rome, 102. Many Augustan laws were still passed through the comitia, but this was discontinued by the end of the first century CE: Mousourakis, A Legal History of Rome, 100-101.

394 This means specifically that Augustus raised the motion in the Senate for the bill to be enacted. Consuls could equally raise motions, and the laws would be in their name, such as the lex Aelia Sentia: Mousourakis, A Legal History of Rome, 103. Of course, laws not named Iuliae could still have been instigated by Augustus, but just not officially raised.

395 Further evidence of the Augustan nature of the laws lies with the senator who suggested that all of Augustus’s laws should be inscribed on a commemorative arch along with his military achievements: Tacitus, Annals, 1.7.

396 Suetonius, Augustus, 34. Velleius Paterculus, our earliest post-Augustan source, makes a similar comment: “old laws were usefully amended, new laws passed for the general good.” (Velleius Paterculus, 2.89.4)

397 Cassius Dio, 55.2.6. 398 It seems possible that this ius came with Augustus’s magisterial imperium, rather than having to be

especially given after the third settlement. 399 Berger, Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Roman Law, 528; Mousourakis, A Legal Hisory of Rome, 50. 400 Homo, Roman Political Institutions, 214.

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developed the force of law.401 We have no evidence, however, of Augustus legislating

either directly as a magistrate or directly as princeps. The emperor would either suggest

laws in the Senate or instruct his agents to do so, and the Senate would issue a decree

that the People should vote on the issue.402 The People passed the laws, presumably

without much delay. It was clear that these bills were Augustan, not least because so

many were known as Leges Iuliae. It should also be noted that any senator canvassing

for a law against the will of the emperor was surely destined for a short political career.

Augustus was careful to respect the Republican prerogatives of the Roman

People. Dio and Suetonius both record that Augustus would consult the People in cases

of major legislative change,403 but whether these consultations significantly influenced

his decisions is unknown. The ability of the People to legislate withered away, as

Mousourakis notes: “The substance of legislation had become too complicated to be

entrusted to a metropolitan electorate renowned for volatility and generally ill-

informed.”404

Ultimately, there was a plethora of ways in which a Roman law could be created

in the Augustan period. The People, the Senate, the emperor and the magistrates could

all effectively legislate on behalf of the res publica.405 Each of these methods possessed

a different degree of auctoritas and honour, but each was a constitutionally legitimate

source of law.406 Thus, while Augustus was encroaching upon a senatorial prerogative

in his law making, it was not a traditional right of the Senate. It can be understood why

the Senate allowed Augustus to legislate without complaint: if any stakeholder felt

disempowered it should have been the Roman People. However, the People were

occasionally consulted before the decisions,407 and, in any case, the writings of Tacitus

401 Mousourakis, A Legal Hisory of Rome, 100. 402 For a brief discussion on the nature of senatorial legislation in the Augustus era see Talbert, Senate of

Imperial Rome, 431-435. It is still an area obfuscated by lack of evidence. 403 Cassius Dio, 53.12.3; Suetonius, Augustus, 34. This seems to have been early in the law-making

process, before issuing a senatus consultum. Bills had to be raised with the People directly, and so there was no scope during the voting for discussion.

404 Mousourakis, A Legal Hisory of Rome, 104. 405 Not to mention new interpretations from jurists studying old legislation: Mousourakis, A Legal Hisory

of Rome, 100-101. 406 Mousourakis, A Legal Hisory of Rome, 100-101. 407 Cassius Dio, 53.12.3.

87

indicate that this wouldn’t have greatly concerned the People of Rome: for them

Augustus seemed like a saviour.408

4.3.4. OTHER IMPERIAL ROLES

Augustus encroached upon the senatorial prerogative of civic administration in

the city of Rome. Dio records that Augustus separated the city into several districts,

which were administered by elected magistrates, usually freedmen.409 The organization

of vici (neighborhoods) in Rome would have been a traditional prerogative of the

Senate, presumably one of their earliest responsibilities. The urban prefect, an office in

Augustus’s bureaucracy that became immensely powerful in the later empire,

administered these municipalities.410

Augustus is repeatedly referenced as extending the pomerium, the sacred

boundary of Rome. This had been a prerogative of the college of augurs, commissioned

by the Senate. Dio notes that Augustus extended the pomerium himself, but this seems

to be the historian’s mistake.411 We have inscriptions proving that the Senate changed

the name of Sextilis, which Dio attributes to Augustus in the same sentence as the

pomerial extension.412 More tellingly, the emperor requested the Senate to commission

the augurs for an extension of the pomerium in 120 CE,413 a formality Trajan would

surely have ignored if Augustus had not also requested the Senate to commission the

extension.

The emperor also took over the prerogative of minting and coinage, presumably

to facilitate his ideological representation. This had been an entirely senatorial domain,

408 Upon losing their right of political elections in 14 CE Tacitus remarks: “The public, except in trivial

talk, made no objection to their deprival of this right.’ (Tacitus, Annals, 1.15) Augustus, after all, showered the People with food and games. I see no reason to believe the People would have been greatly perturbed by new alternative routes to legislation in the Augustan period and beyond.

409 Cassius Dio, 55.8.6-7. 410 Julius Caesar had initially revived the post of urban prefect, from an ancient office in the kingdom.

(Winspear, Augustus and the Reconstruction of Roman Government, 212-13.) Augustus was encroaching upon senatorial prerogatives in his reorganisation of vici, but the urban prefect was encroaching upon the prerogatives of the consuls and the urban praetor.

411 Cassius Dio, 55.6.6. 412 Cassius Dio, 55.6.6. 413 CIL 4.31539, following Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 390.

88

but there is no evidence of any involvement of the Senate in coinage administration

during the Empire.414 This is unsurprising, and surely falls in the category of tasks

undertaken by the emperor that the Senate did not feel strongly about losing.415

Augustus continually advanced the domus Augusta, but he almost certainly got

special dispensation from the Senate each time. Augustus could legally adopt Marcellus,

Gaius, Lucius, and Tiberius because he was adopting them as his sons not his heirs.

There wasn’t even a constitutional position for Tiberius to inherit, as all of Augustus’s

powers had been voted to the individual rather than to the role of emperor. Tiberius

ultimately created his own position, founded upon the tribunician power, by

reassembling the Augustan elements of control in the state. Although Cassius Dio and

Suetonius don’t mention the Senate’s involvement, the actual anointing of Tiberius with

tribunicia potestas would surely have been through a senatus consultum.

4.4. CONCLUSION

The key to the encroachments of the emperor and his bureaucracy is the lack of

laws redefining the traditional prerogatives of the Senate. While the encroachments

were not subtle, they were at least outwardly constitutional. Augustus could exert his

influence in unsubtle ways when necessary. As we have seen throughout this

dissertation, the emperor was willing to abandon tradition in favour of expediency. His

decision to appoint every magistrate in 7 CE is an apt example of Augustus tightening

the free rein of his bureaucracy.416

414 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome, 381-383. The evidence here is indicative rather than certain. 415 Further discussion of senatorial influence on bronze coinage in the period: Andrew Wallace-Hadrill,

"Image and Authority in the Coinage of Augustus," The Journal of Roman Studies 76 (1986): 81-84. 416 If Dio (55.34.2) is to be believed. The historian claims Augustus accomplished this by posting a list of

candidates for each position that he personally preferred. That Augustus’s choices, so brazenly displayed, would not be elected was an impossibility.

89

CONCLUSION

The Senate under Augustus held the same prerogatives and tried to operate in

the same manner that it had in the late Republic, albeit now under the emperor. The

Senate had the right to set foreign policy, inform legislation, advise the courts, and

make significant administrative changes to Rome. In reality the emperor or his nascent

imperial bureaucracy performed these senatorial prerogatives. The Senate’s role in the

res publica was constitutionally unchanged, but a closer investigation reveals that

Augustus carefully monitored the prerogatives and actions the Senate was allowed to

perform.

The construction of Augustus’s powers between 28 and 19 BCE was reactive

and ad hoc, mostly as a response to the difficulty of creating a state that honoured its

traditions while changing in structure almost entirely. The Senate wouldn’t tolerate a

perpetual consulship, and the People wouldn’t accept the lack of any consulship for

Augustus: after a degree of trial and error they were contented by Augustus’s new

mandate of perpetual and annual consular power without office. There was no sharp

transition of state from oligarchy to monarchy. Augustus found an ingenious way of

holding incomparable power throughout the empire without being condemned for

maiestas or for fatally damaging the mos maiorum.

Augustus’s political attitude to the prerogatives of the Senate was calculated and

simple. His first priority had been to achieve unchallengeable power and influence in

the res publica; if this was not in doubt then the emperor was content to appease the

Senate in whatever ways they wished: by organising their own adlections, by having the

right to prosecute accused senators, or by reserving themselves special seats in the

theatre. Augustus allowed these measures to placate the Senate but lost patience if they

impinged upon the smooth functioning of the state, which was at all times his primary

focus.

90

The new imperial bureaucracy was perhaps the most lasting and effective of the

Augustan reforms. We have seen the extent to which Augustus used his bureaucracy to

encroach upon the prerogatives of the Senate; by the Severan period the imperial

administration was a highly efficient bureaucratic machine that comprised almost every

significant office in the res publica. This was mirrored by the continued and dramatic

rise of the equites: a development that Augustus supported as a response to the lack of

ability, desire or loyalty in the individual senators. The senators who did become

involved in the bureaucracy were much more likely to be pedarii, the foot-soldier

senators of the Republic, than nobiles, who seem to have retreated from political pre-

eminence due to political lack of interest or were thwarted due the threat they posed to

Augustus. Ambitious aristocrats unsurprisingly had a short lifespan in the early

empire.417

The genius of the Augustan system was that once Augustus returned the res

publica to SPQR and resigned his triumvirate in 28/27 BCE the emperor didn’t have to

make any direct changes to the status or prerogatives of the Senate. The new imperial

bureaucracy that he had created was given many of the specific duties of the Senate, and

by encroaching upon many senatorial spheres of control himself, Augustus had

reinvented the res publica as an institution that was constitutionally identical to the

traditional Roman state but had subtly transitioned from Republican oligarchy to

imperial autocracy.

417 Juvenal, late first century CE: “surviving to old age among the nobility has long been like a miracle.”

Juvenal, Juvenal's Satires, with the Satires of Persius. (London: Dent, 1954), 4.98.

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Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne

Author/s:

Pettit, Owen P.

Title:

The constitutional powers of the senate during the reign of Augustus

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2011

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Pettit, O. P. (2011). The constitutional powers of the senate during the reign of Augustus.

Masters Research thesis, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of

Melbourne.

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The constitutional powers of the senate during the reign of Augustus

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