Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

The second special right has reference to the elections of magistrates, and introduces us to the question how far the Princeps could control them. Two functions are attributed to him by our authorities, that of nomination and that of commendation; but the effects of the two are very different. The nominatio is merely the negative power possessed by the Republican magistrate of receiving names and excluding unqualified aspirants from candidature. With respect to most offices—the praetorship, for instance—it was exercised by the Princeps conjointly with the consuls, and the number of candidates whom he nominated was, at least in the early Principate, limited.[1622] The practical effect of the Prince’s nomination on the election might be great, but its legal influence was nil.[1623] Commendatio, on the other hand, a privilege developed from the Republican practice by which candidates were recommended by distinguished persons for election, is a right legally conferred, and one which absolutely secures the choice by the electing body of the person so commended.[1624] The extent to which it might be employed differed with the various magistracies; thus in Tiberius’ reign, out of at least twelve candidates for the praetorship only four were commended by the Emperor.[1625] Magistrates, who had gained their position by this act of imperial favour, were designated candidati Caesaris.[1626] The highest office of all, the consulship, seems, at least in the early Principate, never to have been awarded on a formal imperial recommendation; for the description of the method by which Tiberius filled up this post at his pleasure shows that the Emperor effected his object by a clever use of the nomination.[1627] This may have been a limitation of practice, not of theory, for the words of the law as we have it exempt no office from this imperial control, and it is certain that from the time of Vespasian onwards the consulship too was subject to the commendatio.[1628]

The Princeps, according to the enactment which confers powers on Vespasian, was dispensed from certain laws (legibus solutus).[1629] There is no implication here of an exemption from the operation of the ordinary civil and criminal law. The Princeps is not above the laws, nor are the courts of the community his courts; and, if he was exempt from prosecution during his year of office, this was the normal privilege of the Republican magistrate. What is meant is the dispensation from certain principles of the constitution or enactments, which the Principate as a magistracy necessarily violated or which were found inconvenient to the Princeps. Such were the leges annales, or the rule forbidding the holding of the imperium within the walls. In choosing an heir the Emperor was also exempted from following the precise formalities of adrogation;[1630] he could manumit without the vindicta[1631] and was not subject to the disabilities of the Julian and Papian law.[1632]

(v.) The separation of religious from political duties, which had been a characteristic of the Republic, was continued theoretically under the Principate. The Emperor was in no sense a high priest, and ritual was still a function of the sacerdotal colleges. But he was a member of the great religious guilds which dealt with augury and with the jus divinum,[1633] and the law gives him the power to carry out the orders of such societies if he thinks it to be in the interest of the state.[1634] We have not, however, merely the phenomenon of the civil assisting the religious arm, for the Prince, as pontifex maximus, represents both in his own person. The chief pontificate was specially conferred on him with the other imperial powers; he may originally have been invested, like the pontifex of the Republic, by the assembly of the seventeen tribes,[1635] but later the creation seems to have been wholly the work of the Senate, although a formal announcement of the result (renuntiatio) was still made before the assembly.[1636] When the Principate came to admit the principle of colleagueship, only one of the Augusti was made chief pontiff,[1637] and the association of the highest religious and civil power continued until the stole was rejected by the piety of Gratian.[1638]

It is obvious that the attempt to keep the rôles of pontiff and Princeps apart, even if made, could never have been successful. Where crime was also sin the pontiff could now utter authoritative law and exercise coercion; the lay and the religious character are strangely mixed in the methods adopted by Domitian for the punishment of incest,[1639] and when the jussio principis speaks on a question of burial law,[1640] it must have been difficult to tell whether it was the Prince or the pontiff who was giving his decision.

Apart from its influence on law, the chief pontificate was valuable for its powers of patronage. Few distinctions were more earnestly sought by young nobles than admission to the religious colleges, and the door to them lay chiefly through the Princeps. His influence might be exercised by his right of nomination or by his commendation to the electing body.[1641]

§ 2. Titles, Insignia, and Honours of the Princeps

In dealing with the titles of the Princeps, it is as well to begin with those which were not in the list of official titles, for, impressed on the ruler, as they were, by current usage, they were often the most significant. The word Princeps, although it described no office or peculiar authority, was yet a semi-official designation; even as employed in the later Republic it had signified a political pre-eminence over other citizens,[1642] and now it denoted not so much the “chief citizen” as the “head” or “chief man” in the state, the director of the Republic, to whom all looked for guidance, who was responsible for its failures and credited with its successes, even when these were the result of the actions of other magistrates.[1643] It was above all a title which tended to emphasise the continuance of the life of the Republican government under the new régime, and suggested a mental contrast, at once to the Emperor’s position as the commander of his legions, expressed in the title imperator, and to that absolute headship which, as exercised in family life at Rome, was known as dominium.[1644] The name, indeed, of dominus inspired such a horror in the mind of Augustus that he disliked this mode of address (a familiar one from the members of a family to its head) to be employed even by his sons and grandsons,[1645] and Tiberius insisted that he was dominus only to his slaves.[1646] But the language of courtly life, perhaps at times of real affection, forced the title into use, and the younger Pliny employs it constantly in his correspondence with Trajan. It is not, however, until the time of Severus that it appears on the public addresses of corporations, and Aurelian is the first emperor who is dominus on his coins.[1647] It is probable that these niceties of western nomenclature were always lost on the oriental mind. To it the Principate is a monarchy, and Caesar, when he is not a god, is either αὐτοκράτωρ or βασιλεύς.

If we turn now to the titular designation of the Princeps, we find that this consists partly of titles of office, partly of those of honour. The word imperator occupies a doubtful place between the two; for while denoting no office, it signifies the possession of an active and untrammelled imperium. It occupies a twofold place in the list of titles. Augustus employed it as a praenomen, perhaps in accordance with the view that he had inherited the title from his uncle, who had borne it (apparently as a cognomen[1648]) during the later years of his life, and as a praenomen it was used by most succeeding emperors.[1649] But it appears a second time in the titular designation of the Princeps with its old Republican significance—that of an appellation borne by a commander who had been acclaimed after a victory.[1650] As so employed it was qualified by numerals to mark the number of the salutations; amongst these was reckoned that which had acclaimed him Emperor, and, consequently, after the first victory won under his auspices, he appears as imperator II.

A more distinctive title of office is that of proconsul. Although it merely expresses the fact of a proconsulate imperium, it was a designation that was avoided by the early Principes, probably out of deference to the senatorial administration of the public provinces, which was exercised through proconsuls, and it was first employed by Trajan. Its employment hints at the practical disappearance of the dual control abroad, and suggests the all-embracing nature of the Emperor’s imperium.

Amongst the honorary appellations of the Emperor, Caesar and Augustus take the foremost place. The latter, although appended to the Emperor’s name like a cognomen, was never looked on as a family designation. It was the highest of all personal titles of honour, since it expressed the sanctified majesty of the Prince alone,[1651] and was not borne even by that subordinate partner on the throne (consors imperii), the holder of the proconsulate imperium or tribunicia potestas, through whose assistance the earlier emperors sometimes lightened the burden of their administration. It was not until the collegiate principle was fully recognised in 161 A.D. that the duo Augusti appear.