A History of Rome to 565 A. D.

by Arthur E. R. Boak

CHAPTER XIX

THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION UNDER THE PRINCIPATE

I. The Victory of Autocracy

The senate and the appointment of the princeps. In the preceding chapters we have traced in outline the political history of the principate to the point where it had become an undisguised military autocracy. This change is clearly seen in connection with the imperial nomination. The appointment to the principate originally involved the conferment of the imperium, the tribunician power and other rights and privileges. The imperium might be bestowed either by a senatorial decree or through the acclamation as imperator by a part of the soldiery. Each of these forms was regarded as valid, but was regularly confirmed by the other. But the tribunician authority and the remaining powers of the princeps were conferred only by a decree of the Senate, confirmed, during the first century at least, by a vote of the Assembly of the Centuries. However, after the accession of Carus (282 A. D.), the Senate, which could no longer claim to exercise any authority in the state, ceased to participate in the appointment of the new ruler. This marks the formal end of the principate.

The Senate’s loss of administrative power. I. Rome and Italy. The constitutional history of the principate is the story of the gradual absorption of the Senate’s powers by the princeps and the supplanting of the Senate’s officers by those in the imperial service. It has been well said that Augustus aimed at the impossible when he sought to be the chief magistrate in the state without being at the same time the head of the administration. He had intended that the Senate should conduct the administration of Rome, Italy and the ungarrisoned provinces, but, as we have seen, he himself had been brought by force of circumstances to take the initial steps in infringing upon the Senate’s prerogatives. Not only did he take over the [pg 265]duties of provisioning and policing the city by establishing the prefectures of the grain supply and the watch, but he also assumed responsibility for the upkeep of the public buildings, streets and aqueducts of Rome, as well as the highways of Italy. These departments of public works were put in charge of commissioners of senatorial rank, called curators, whom the princeps nominated. However, from the time of Claudius equestrian officials, entitled procurators, were appointed to these departments and became their real directors. Finally, under Septimius Severus, the senatorial curators were dispensed with.

II. The aerarium. Augustus had left to the Senate the control of the public treasury, the aerarium, which was maintained by revenues from the senatorial provinces and Italy. But when the princeps came to assume control of those branches of the administration the expense of which was defrayed by the aerarium, it was inevitable that the treasury itself should pass in some degree under his supervision. And so in 44 A. D. the princeps began to designate two quaestors to be in charge of the treasury for a three-year period. Under Nero the place of these quaestors was taken by two prefects appointed in the same manner but from among the ex-praetors. The importance of the aerarium declined in proportion as its revenues passed into the hands of the ministers of the princeps, until in the period between Septimius Severus and Diocletian it sank to the position of a municipal chest for the city of Rome.

III. The senatorial provinces. In the early principate the senatorial provinces were administered by appointees of the Senate, all of whom now bore the title of proconsul, assisted as in former days by quaestors. However, only the proconsul of Africa was at the same time commander of a provincial garrison, and his command was transferred to the imperial governor of Numidia by Caligula. Even in the time of Augustus the imperial procurators had appeared in the senatorial provinces in charge of the revenues which were at the disposal of the princeps, and, before the close of the third century they were in complete control of the financial administration of these provinces. But long before this, by the opening of the second century, the princeps had usurped the Senate’s privilege of appointing the proconsuls. The result was that by the close of the principate all the provinces without distinction were equally under imperial control.

Restriction of Senate’s elective powers. It was Tiberius who transferred to the Senate the electoral functions of the Assembly but he, as Augustus before him, limited the Senate’s freedom of action by the recommendation of imperial candidates for the lower magistracies. From the time of Nero the consulship also was regularly filled by nominees of the emperors. The custom of appointing several successive consular pairs in the course of each year, each pair functioning for two or four months, greatly weakened the influence of the consulate, while it enabled the emperors to gratify the ambitions of a larger number of candidates for that office.

Loss of legislative functions. The rapid disappearance of the Assembly resulted in the transfer of its sovereign legislative powers to the Senate. The decrees of the Senate thus acquired the validity of laws and after the time of Nerva comitial legislation completely ceased. However, the influence of the princeps encroached more and more upon the legislative freedom of the Senate until in the time of the Severi the senatorial decrees were merely proclamations of the princeps (orationes principis) which were read to the Senate and approved by it. Furthermore, the princeps developed independent legislative power and by the middle of the second century the ordinances or constitutions of the princeps had acquired the force of law. Early in the third century legislation of this type altogether superseded the senatorial decrees. The imperial constitutions included edicts, decreta, or judicial verdicts, responses to the petitions of officers of the princeps or private citizens, and mandates or instructions to his subordinates. Originally, the edicts were only valid during the principate of their author and the other forms of constitutions merely applied to special cases. However, in course of time, they all alike came to be recognized as establishing rules of public and private law which remained in force unless they were specifically revoked by another imperial constitution.