Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

Caesar, on the other hand, was in origin purely a family designation, since it was the hereditary cognomen of that branch of the Julian house which had ascended the throne, and all the emperors to Caligula could claim a legitimate right to it whether by descent or adoption. Even Claudius and Nero, connected as they were with the extinct family of Caesars, might use it with some show of family right. It is only with Galba and his successors that Caesar becomes strictly an appellative; it is an assertion of a fictitious dynastic claim such as that which led the princes of the house of Emesa to adopt the revered name of Antoninus, and may be indirectly connected with a claim to succeed to the crown property.[1652] The name, even when thus artificially employed, continued to be a cognomen; it was shared by the ruling Princeps with his sons and grandsons.

With Hadrian’s reign we find the beginning of a limitation of its use. The Caesar is now the presumptive successor to the throne;[1653] the elective monarchy has been recognised as one that is, if not hereditary, at least capable of transmission through nomination, and the choice of the bearer of the name is made by the reigning Emperor, although it may be suggested by the Senate.[1654] After the beginning of the third century the name appears as nobilissimus Caesar, Geta being the first prince to bear this title. The recognition of the dual monarchy rendered it inevitable that two Caesars might be simultaneously designated for the throne.

Other honorary cognomina, such as Germanicus, Pius, Felix, were, even when transmitted, purely personal, although their adoption was now reserved for the Emperor, and such designations were no longer borne by the other nobles in the state. The designation pater patriae has more distinct reference to the political position of the Princeps. A title once conferred by popular acclamation on Cicero, it is now equally in the gift of the people as represented by the Senate. As its conferment was not necessary to the powers of the Principate, the grant of this designation, however much it might be the result of flattery, was always regarded as the reward of merit.[1655]

The order of the imperial titles admits of variations, but, as finally fixed, was usually pontifex maximus, tribunicia potestate (II. III. etc.), imperator (II. III. etc.), consul (II. III. etc.), censor (when this office was assumed, as it was by Claudius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian), proconsul (a title adopted by Trajan and occupying the last place after the reign of Hadrian).[1656]

The usual insignia of the Princeps are those of a Republican magistrate. Within the walls he wears the scarlet-striped gown (toga praetexta); outside them he may don the scarlet paludamentum. But the laurel crown, which he might wear anywhere and at any time,[1657] and the laurel-wreathed fasces[1658] are peculiar to him. At festivals and games the embroidered robe of triumph (vestis triumphalis) might also be assumed. Like other magistrates he has lictors[1659] and viatores, but he also boasts a special bodyguard as well, other than the praetorian cohorts. This guard was composed of mounted foreign mercenaries, usually of German horsemen.

But other peculiar honours seemed to lift the Princeps to more than magisterial rank. Regular vows (vota) were offered for him, as for the state,[1660] by the consuls and the colleges of priests; his birthday and the days of his victories were celebrated as public festivals;[1661] his statue and image are sacred and may not be profaned even by juxtaposition with unclean things;[1662] his genius is the most binding power by which a man can swear; for while perjury in the name of the gods is punished only by heaven, to swear falsely by the Emperor’s name is treason on earth.[1663] Coins, whether struck by the Senate or the Emperor, show only his head or that of members of the imperial house.

The domus Caesaris was, in fact, raised far above the position of the other noble houses in the state. It was especially the agnatic descendants of the founder of the dynasty that were thus honoured, and the Roman idea of the unity of the household even led to the inclusion of the name of Caesar’s relatives in the soldier’s oath of fealty.[1664] Their effigies, too, appear on coins—a right originally restricted to such members of the family as actually shared in the government, but which was in later times granted as a compliment to ladies of the imperial house.[1665] Caesar’s relatives might also be distinguished by commands which could be interpreted as a promise of the succession. We shall speak elsewhere of this meaning which might be read into the gift of the proconsular or tribunician power, and almost equally significant was the appointment of some young member of the family to the honorary command of the corps of equites (princeps juventutis).[1666] There was, indeed, one title which seemed to signify a dignity absolutely equal to that of the Princeps himself. This was the name Augusta, which was borne by certain ladies of the ruling family. It was originally reserved for a single member, such as the mother, the grandmother, or the wife of the reigning Emperor, and may have originally implied some share in the throne. The Principate was not a regular magistracy, and there was no valid constitutional ground for excluding women from the throne, although the actual influence of queen-mothers, such as Livia, Agrippina, or Mamaea, however powerful it may have been, was wholly informal.[1667] The name Augusta came, however, to be employed merely as an honorary designation, to be borne by such a woman as Marciana, the unaspiring sister of Trajan.[1668] A stranger title was developed by the ambition of ladies of the second and third century. Faustina, wife of Marcus Aurelius, and Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus, were both designated “mothers of the camp” (mater castrorum). One important and disastrous result of this elevation of the imperial house was that its members were protected, like its head, against all the attacks of laesa majestas. As even the most indirect reflection on the Princeps was treason, because he represented the state, a similar view was taken of constructive wrongs to members of the imperial family, because they were one with the Princeps. This view was too purely Roman to need time to develop. Even in the reign of the second Princeps we find that a poet has to expiate by death the folly of an obituary poem on the Emperor’s living son.[1669]

As the Princeps was not a king he had no court, and “Augustus or Trajan would have blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial offices which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain.”[1670] Yet, although the entourage of the early Principes was simplicity itself, the stately life of the Republican noble had already furnished precedents for distinguishing the grades and privileges of those who sought the Emperor’s presence. The younger Gracchus and Livius Drusus had, at the daily salutatio, drawn distinctions amongst their numerous adherents; at the morning audience some were received singly, others in larger or in smaller groups;[1671] and it is not surprising that this distinction should have been revived for the great throng of callers who filled the hall of the imperial palace. The amici of the Princeps were those “received at court,” and were divided into friends of the first and second “audience.”[1672] From this body were selected the judicial and administrative advisers of the Emperor (consilium) as well as the comrades (comites) whom he took with him when he quitted Italy on business of state. From the latter, who consisted of senators or knights, he selected a group for a special journey,[1673] and employed them as delegates in matters administrative, judicial, and military.

§ 3. Creation, Transmission, and Abrogation of the Principate

The Principate was, in the theory of the constitution, an elective office, and one based on the principle of occasional delegation. It was necessary for the life of the state that there should be a magistracy,[1674] but it was not necessary that there should be a Princeps. Hence there was no institution such as the Republican interregnum to fill up the gap left by the vacancy of the throne,[1675] and the fact that such gaps did occur in the history of the Principate shows that the possibility of government by magistrates, senate, and people was no mere fiction. The abstract idea of a Principate was indeed perfectly realised at the death of the very first Princeps, in so far as responsible men in the Roman world had a perfectly definite idea of the precise powers that must be vested in an individual in order to save that world from anarchy. Yet Tiberius can pretend to hesitate, not merely about assuming the office, but about the nature of the office which he assumes;[1676] and, although on the accession of his successor, Gaius Caesar, the soliti honores were conferred en bloc, yet the idea that the creation of a Princeps was an act of special investiture always clung to the office. It was obvious so far as the choice of the person was concerned, but it even affected the powers conferred, and we have seen that the grants made to Emperors of the second and third centuries were in all probability different, both in form and in matter, from those made to Emperors of the first.[1677]