Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

A classification of the Emperor’s powers in detail, with an attempt to deduce each of them from a prerogative conferred on him at his accession, is rendered difficult by the facts that no Roman lawyer cared or dared to evolve a complete theory of the Imperial constitution, and that here, as in so many other departments of Roman history, we are dealing with an office which, as it grew, gradually absorbed into itself fresh spheres of influence. The Principate, in fact, finally absorbed the state, and the only adequate formula for its authority which later jurists could find was that the people had committed its sovereign power to its delegate. But yet, when we examine the spheres of the Emperor’s activity, it becomes clear that, while some are connected with an imperium, others are attached more closely to the tribunician power, while others again are associated with the relics of Republican offices held by the Princeps, or flow from certain extraordinary rights conferred on him by statute.

(i.) The first rights connected with the imperium that strike our attention are those exercised in the military sphere—rights which, on a vast scale, reflect and extend the powers possessed by the imperator of the Republic. The Princeps has the right to raise levies,[1595] to nominate officers, and to confer military distinctions. In declaring war he has replaced the comitia of the centuries; and the statutory recognition of his right to conclude a treaty[1596] settled a vexed question of Republican procedure.[1597] This recognition of the federative power was not earlier than the reign of the first Claudius,[1598] but had already become a permanent element in the imperial authority by the accession of Vespasian. The right to extend the pomerium of the city, which dates also from the reign of Claudius, is also found amongst the list of imperial prerogatives in 69 A.D.[1599]

The Republican general had often followed up a successful campaign by assigning lands and planting colonies. These acts had been done at the mandate of the people; but the new commander-in-chief needed no such permit. The Princeps divides territories that belong to the Roman people and establishes colonial settlements at his will. The gift of the franchise had also been entrusted at times to the Republican commander,[1600] and now it is placed wholly in the hands of the Emperor. He grants these gifts both to communities and to individuals. He gives Latin rights to peregrinae civitates,[1601] and citizenship to Latin towns, while he may alter the nominal status of a community by changing a municipium into a colony, or a colony into a municipium.[1602] His right of conferring citizenship on individuals was equally unquestioned,[1603] and he might remedy the defect of birth by giving ingenuitas to a freedman.[1604]

With the imperium too is obviously connected the administration of those provinces which were peculiarly entrusted to the care of the Princeps. The government of these provinces, as well as the maintenance of the army, necessitated a financial administration, separate from that of the state and peculiar to himself, and this was accompanied by a right of coinage. His criminal and civil jurisdiction over citizens as well as soldiers are also connected with some undefined idea of the imperium, while his power of legal interpretation, although specially conferred, does not differ essentially from that of the praetor, and is to be traced to the same source. The detailed consideration of these powers must be deferred until we treat of that separation of authority between Caesar and the Senate which gave its formal character to the Principate.

(ii.) The tribunicia potestas, which had been granted to Augustus in 36, reconferred in 30, and made the chief outward support of his authority in 23 B.C.,[1605] continued to serve the Emperors as the ostensible means by which all other magistracies were subject to their control,[1606] and possessed an artificial prominence from its employment as a means of dating the years of their reign. Positively it conferred the sacrosanctitas, which had encompassed the Republican tribune,[1607] the right of approaching the assembly of the Plebs, which was of value as long as the Emperors deigned to legislate through popular channels, and perhaps the only strictly constitutional power which they possessed of transacting business with the Senate.[1608] But its negative were now, as ever, of more value than its positive powers. The intercessio made its possessor the moderator of the state,[1609] and the severest means of tribunician coercion could be employed against every recalcitrant official; while this veto, when used in the Senate, became either a means of suspending the jurisdiction of that body or a method of pardoning the criminal whom it had condemned.[1610] The right of help (auxilium)[1611] based on the appeal (appellatio) becomes also, as we shall see, one of the means of establishing the first true appellate jurisdiction which the Roman world had seen.

(iii.) With respect to other Republican offices in which the Princeps was directly interested, we have only to consider the consulship and the censorship, for they were the only two whose titles or powers were sufficient to warrant their assumption by the head of the state.

The consulship was no integral part of the imperial power after Augustus had ceased to employ it in this way;[1612] but it was frequently assumed as an occasional office by the Princeps, who held it for a short time, generally at the beginning of his rule.

The censorship had disappeared as a Republican office, and we might have expected that its vast powers combined with its Republican traditions would have made it a valuable supplement to the authority of the Prince. But there were reasons against its assumption. In its pure form it was an occasional office, and its permanent tenure might have shocked Republican sentiment; while the fact that the assessment of the Roman people for the comitia and the army soon ceased to be necessary made its absence scarcely felt. On the analogy of the tribunicia potestas, the powers of the office without the office itself were, in the form of a cura legum et morum, offered to Augustus, but declined by him.[1613] There was no constitutional difficulty about exercising some of the functions of the censorship through the imperium, whether consular or quasi-consular, and this was done by Augustus when he revised the list of the Senate in 29 and 18 B.C.[1614] Two of the succeeding Principes, however, Claudius and Vespasian, thought fit to assume the office in its old temporary form, and Domitian carried out the design of making it an integral part of the Principate by assuming the position of censor for life (censor perpetuus).[1615] His precedent was not followed because it was unnecessary. The revision of the list of the Senate and equites—the only meaning that the cura morum now had—was established by consent as an admitted right of the Princeps,[1616] and even the power of creating Patricians came to be recognised as one inherent in his office. This power had been conferred on Caesar and Augustus by law; Claudius and Vespasian exercised it as censors;[1617] but, apparently without further enactment, this power of ennobling, extinct since the beginning of the Republic[1618] and no part of the Republican census, became an admitted imperial prerogative. It was only when the destined Princeps was himself a Plebeian that this honour, which was considered a necessary qualification for his office, was conferred on him by the Senate.[1619]

(iv.) The chief of the extraordinary rights conferred on the Princeps by special enactment were those which had relation to the Senate, the right of recommendation to office (commendatio) and a dispensation from the operation of certain laws.

The special privileges which distinguished the Emperor from other magistrates in transacting business with the Senate were three in number. First, he has not merely the power to put a motion (referre) when present in the house, but he can send a written recommendation (relationem facere) when the Senate meets under the presidency of another magistrate.[1620] In such a meeting the Emperor as a rule only claims priority for one item in a single sitting (jus primae relationis); hence we sometimes find, as a special privilege, the right of priority given him for three, four, or five.[1621] The power which he possesses of dividing the house upon his motion without debate (senatus consultum per discessionem facere) is not a new one, but one that might be exercised by the consul of the later Republic. Secondly, the Emperor has the power to withdraw a relatio of his own which is already before the house (relationem remittere); and thirdly, the privilege of ordering the Senate to meet under the presidency of another magistrate.