Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

The non-financial procurators, who were actually governors of districts, will be discussed when we are dealing with the organisation of the provinces.

The tenure of office by a procurator was indefinite, and depended on the imperial pleasure. Technically their posts expired when the Princeps who had appointed them died,[2041] and the renewal of their office by his successor, although it must have been the rule, was treated as a new appointment. The posts were well paid and procurators bore the titles trecenarius, ducenarius, centenarius, and sexagenarius, according as their salaries varied from 300,000 to 60,000 sesterces. The salaries of the procurators at Rome were probably higher than those belonging to the same departments in Italy and in the provinces. Thus the procuratio rationis privatae was probably in Rome a trecenaria, in the provinces a ducenaria, in Italy, where it would be merely a branch of the central office, a centenaria procuratio.[2042] Promotion seems to have been determined chiefly by merit, and one of the strong points of the system was that there was no mechanical system of advancement. It was possible for a secretary, who had never been a procurator proper, to be appointed to a praefecture,[2043] but, as a rule, several procuratorships were passed through before this summit of equestrian ambition was attained.[2044]

(iv.) Personal Assistants.—The secretariate of the Principate was, as we have seen, but the business side of the organisation of a Roman household, but so rapidly did the importance and official aspect of these posts develop that already by Nero’s reign a Roman noble, who kept assistants with such titles as ab epistulis and a libellis, might be suspected of treasonable designs.[2045] These secretaryships became, in fact though not in law, great offices of state. They required more highly trained ability than most of the procuratorships, and, as they brought their holders into close relations with the Princeps, the influence and the power of patronage which they conferred must have been enormous.

The official ab epistulis put into shape all the decisions of the Princeps which took the form of letters, so far as these were not written personally by the Princeps himself. The answers to the consultationes of officials, to the despatches of generals and provincial governors, or to deputations from foreign communities, together with the nomination of officials and officers and the conferment of privileges, passed through his hands.[2046]

The official a libellis drew up the answers to petitions (preces, libelli)[2047] made by private individuals to the Emperor. The answer was generally given in a short subscriptio appended to the document.[2048] The framing of such replies required considerable legal knowledge; hence it is not surprising to find that jurists like Papinian and Ulpian held this post.

The official a cognitionibus was the adviser of the Emperor on legal points, which were settled by imperial decree. The points on which advice was given were perhaps wholly those of civil jurisdiction, and were probably such as did not need to come before the imperial consilium.[2049] The office was in existence at the beginning of the third century,[2050] but is thought to have been subsequently merged in that a libellis.[2051]

The official a memoria is first mentioned about the time of the Emperor Caracalla. His function was probably to put into form and reduce to writing (often by dictation to a secretary)[2052] such speeches and verbal decisions of the Emperor as did not fall under the competence of the other officials.

(v.) The Consilium.—The consilium of the Princeps[2053] was merely a renewed manifestation of that eternal principle of Roman public life which directed that a magistrate should seek advisers. A council was necessary for public confidence, but an imperial consilium was originally no part of the constitution of the Principate. Tiberius imitated Augustus in seeking advice before coming to a decision on important matters;[2054] yet when he sat as a high court of criminal jurisdiction, his board of assessors could be described as consisting of a “few friends.”[2055] The board may have become more determinate in succeeding reigns, but the first Princeps whom we hear of as giving it a definite organisation was Hadrian. That Emperor, we are told, when he held a court of justice, summoned as his advisers jurisconsults approved by the Senate.[2056] It is only a judicial council that is here described, and there is nothing to show that these legal experts were necessarily consulted on administrative matters. The basis, however, was laid for a permanent council of state, and the consiliarii Augusti of this period became a definite and salaried class.[2057] They included both senators and equites,[2058] and some bore the title jurisperiti.[2059] Others may not have been gifted with special knowledge of the law, and may have been employed in cases where general ability or experience may have been of more value than juristic training. Actual jurisdiction was not, however, the only occasion on which legal knowledge was indispensable in an adviser. The help of the jurist had to be sought in the framing of the imperial constitutiones,[2060] and we are told that for this purpose Severus Alexander was assisted by twenty jurisperiti out of a consilium numbering seventy in all.[2061] A difference of personnel for different branches of administration is easily comprehensible, for it is improbable that the Emperor needed to summon all his councillors on every occasion on which he took advice.[2062] The mode of consultation was wholly informal and depended on the discretion of the Princeps. Augustus in the exercise of his jurisdiction distributed voting tablets (tabellae) to his councillors, on which they could inscribe acquittal or condemnation or a modified verdict.[2063] We cannot imagine that the votes were reckoned as in the jury system. The tabellae were for the enlightenment of the Princeps, and he may have decided according to the weight of the names of those who handed them in. Nero, we are told, took opinions on paper, and, after reading them, gave his own judgment as though it were that of the majority of his advisers.[2064] Under Severus Alexander opinions were given verbally and taken down in short-hand.[2065]

We have already shown that it is probable that the imperial consilium in its developed form was employed by the praefect of the praetorian guard when he gave judgment vice the Princeps.[2066]