The Senate
For all his moderation Augustus had successfully gathered all the strings of policy into his own hands. In his three revisions of the senate-list he succeeded in securing a body absolutely subservient to his wishes, and the only trouble it caused him was by its excess of zeal for his dignity. As a rule it merely registered his decrees, conferred honours on the kinsmen he delighted to honour, and sometimes shouldered the responsibility for an unpopular proposal. It was to some extent a safety-valve for the expression of public opinion, but the more tyrannical emperors (and Augustus undoubtedly became more absolute as his system developed) kept a very tight hand upon it. When an embassy came from an independent foreign power, such as Parthia, it went first to a powerful senator, just as in republican days to seek a patronus or champion. Now that champion was, of course, none other than the princeps. By him the ambassadors were introduced to the senate, who heard their case and deliberated upon it. As of old, they would necessarily entrust the settlement of the matter to a commissioner chosen from their own body. Again, the commissioner was of course the princeps. The senate sometimes undertook state impeachments as a high court of justice, but now it was only Cæsar’s enemies whom they impeached, and in one case—that of the prefect of Egypt—they displayed an excess of zeal in Cæsar’s cause which brought down a rebuke upon their heads. The senate was used often as a medium of publication. Cæsar would go down to the house and read a speech to them when he intended to reach a wider public. When he was abroad, he would send regular reports and despatches to them. Cæsar, like all Roman magistrates, had his consilium or board of advisers. This was now organised to consist of so many representative senators, who sat in conjunction with the young princes of the imperial house, and any other important people whom Cæsar might select for his privy council. Towards the end, when Augustus grew old and infirm, a committee of senators sitting in the palace was competent to transact business. But as a rule he was very careful to respect the senatorial traditions. Decrees of the senate and laws were passed with all the old formalities, but now they were all in reality Cæsar’s laws and Cæsar’s decrees. On the whole, however, we may well believe that the senate’s decline into impotence was largely its own fault. So far as the records show, the Augustan senate never displayed the least trace of spirit or, if that is too much to expect, even of initiative or efficiency. There was grumbling and a little feeble plotting, but if the senate had chosen to take Augustus at his word whenever he spoke of abdication, they might easily have recovered real power, though indeed they could not have done without a princeps. For one thing the mob would not have suffered it. Cæsar was, and remained, the patron of the inarticulate commons, and that was not only the origin of the principate but the main support of its power throughout. When we speak of unpopular emperors such as Nero or Domitian we generally mean only that they were unpopular with the notables of the senate. If they failed to retain the regard of the common people and the common soldiers their reigns speedily came to an end. Cæsar’s pretended abdication in 23 B.C. was shortly afterwards followed by a famine at Rome and the populace besieged the senate-house, threatening it with fire unless fresh powers were conferred upon their champion.
Plate XXXVII. RELIEF, FROM THE “ARA PACIS”
German historians have invented the term Dyarchy to describe the balance of power between Cæsar and senate. The government of Rome had always been to some extent a Dyarchy of senate and people as its title shows—“Senatus Populusque Romanus.” In many respects the princeps had taken the place of the people. But such a description loses sight of reality. You cannot in this whole period show an army set in motion by a senatorial governor without authority from Augustus, save in the single case of M. Primus when it was instantly followed by a prosecution; nor a single tax imposed, nor a law so much as proposed without Cæsar’s authority, nor a candidate elected without his concurrence, nor a treaty made otherwise than in accordance with his suggestion. The true relation between them is practically that of a monarch and his council. Three times Cæsar revised the roll of the senate, reducing it from over one thousand members to six hundred, and for all his tact and ingenuity arousing the fiercest resentment. There were violent scenes in the house, Augustus wore a shirt of mail, and went accompanied by ten stalwart senators. It is clear that he was purging the house of his opponents just as Cromwell did. On other occasions he would present his friends with the amount of property needed to complete their qualification for the senate. Thus it is no exaggeration to call the senate his council of state. If it is objected that the senate still governed rich and important provinces, that is more apparent than true. No longer did the governor of a senatorial province go out girt with the sword that signifies imperium or wearing the military cloak. Now he goes in his toga as a mere civilian functionary. That little change must have been bitterly galling to the proud aristocracy. Augustus had persuaded them to pass an ordinance forbidding them to go abroad without his permission. He made them fine their members for non-attendence, and it is highly significant that it was difficult to keep a quorum of the senate for public business. He chose his own order for asking their opinions and thus promoted them in honour or degraded them as he pleased. It was mainly the poor and unimportant provinces which had fallen to their share. Asia was the richest and most important, but almost throughout the period there is some scion of the imperial house with a general control over the affairs of the East. There is an inscription in Cyprus which proves that even when that island was under senatorial government a proconsul was sent out “by the authority of Cæsar and a decree of the senate” to restore order. Finally by the end of the reign the senate had become so feeble and unreal that twenty of its members sitting in Cæsar’s house were able to pass decrees which had the full validity of the old sovereign council of Rome.
Plate XXXVIII. SILVER PLATE FROM BOSCOREALE
These considerations are enough to prove that Monarchy is the only term which can properly describe the real nature of the new government. Nevertheless, here as elsewhere in this system of compromise and half-way houses, we must walk warily between two fallacies. The senate is there and will always be there. When Constantine made a new Rome he made a new senate. As we study the subsequent progress of the Empire we shall sometimes find the senate really supreme. It chose Galba and Nerva. It dared to depose Maximin. It really governed through Tacitus and Probus. It was its constant aim to get its members declared immune from prosecution and sometimes it succeeded; but more often it served as a whipping-stock when Cæsar was in a bad temper. Only in this sense is there any meaning in the term Dyarchy: if we take the whole period of the principate from Augustus to Diocletian there is some trace of equilibrium, faint though it be. And we must not fall into the error of despising the letter of a constitution for the sake of its spirit. Though a king of England never refuses a bill in practice, it nevertheless remains important that he may. The letter is always there for reference, if not for use, and the spirit is always liable to be brought up for trial before it. The practice depends upon personal forces which are transitory, the theory is always there awaiting its opportunity.