The people had lost all its power since the assemblies (the Comitia) were suppressed in the reign of Tiberius. The population of 2,000,000 souls crowded into Rome was composed only of some thousands of great lords with their slaves and a mob of paupers. Already the state had assumed the burden of feeding the latter; the emperors continued to distribute grain to them, and supplemented this with donations of money (the congiarium). Augustus thus donated $140 apiece in nine different distributions, and Nero $50 in three. At the same time to amuse this populace shows were presented. The number of days regularly appointed for the shows under the republic had already amounted to 66 in the year; it had increased in a century and a half, under Marcus Aurelius, to 135, and in the fourth century to 175 (without counting supplementary days). These spectacles continued each day from sunrise to sunset; the spectators ate their lunch in their places. This was a means used by the emperors for the occupation of the crowd. "It is for your advantage, Cæsar," said an actor to Augustus, "that the people engage itself with us." It was also a means for securing popularity. The worst emperors were among the most popular; Nero was adored for his magnificent spectacles; the people refused to believe that he was dead, and for thirty years they awaited his return.[146]
The multitude of Rome no longer sought to govern; it required only to be amused and fed: in the forceful expression of Juvenal—to be provided with bread and the games of the circus (panem et circenses).
The Prætorians.—Under the republic a general was prohibited from leading his army into the city of Rome. The emperor, chief of all the armies, had at Rome his military escort (prætorium), a body of about 10,000 men quartered in the interior of the city. The prætorians, recruited among the veterans, received high pay and frequent donatives. Relying on these soldiers, the emperor had nothing to fear from malcontents in Rome. But the danger came from the prætorians themselves; as they had the power they believed they had free rein, and their chief, the prætorian prefect, was sometimes stronger than the emperor.
The Freedmen of the Emperor.—Ever since the monarchy had superseded the republic, there was no other magistrate than the emperor. All the business of the empire of 80,000,000 people originated with him. For this crushing task he required assistants. He found them, not among the men of great family whom he mistrusted, but among the slaves of whom he felt sure. The secretaries, the men of trust, the ministers of the emperor were his freedmen, the majority of them foreigners from Greece or the Orient, pliant people, adepts in flattery, inventiveness, and loquacity. Often the emperor, wearied with serious matters, gave the government into their hands, and, as occurs in absolute monarchies, instead of aiding their master, they supplemented him. Pallas and Narcissus, the freedmen of Claudius, distributed offices and pronounced judgments; Helius, Nero's freedman, had knights and senators executed without even consulting his master. Of all the freedmen Pallas was the most powerful, the richest, and the most insolent; he gave his orders to his underlings only by signs or in writing. Nothing so outraged the old noble families of Rome as this. "The princes," said a Roman writer, "are the masters of citizens and the slaves of their freedmen." Among the scandals with which the emperors were reproached, one of the gravest was governing Roman citizens by former slaves.
Despotism and Disorder.—This régime had two great vices:
1. Despotism.—The emperor was invested for life with a power unlimited, extravagant, and hardly conceivable; according to his fancy he disposed of persons and their property, condemned, confiscated, and executed without restraint. No institution, no law fettered his will. "The decree of the emperor has the force of law," say the jurisconsults themselves. Rome recognized then the unlimited despotism that the tyrants had exercised in the Greek cities, no longer circumscribed within the borders of a single city, but gigantic as the empire itself. As in Greece some honorable tyrants had presented themselves, one sees in Rome some wise and honest monarchs (Augustus, Vespasian, Titus). But few men had a head strong enough to resist vertigo when they saw themselves so elevated above other men. The majority of the emperors profited by their tremendous power only to make their names proverbial: Tiberius, Nero, Domitian by their cruelty, Vitellius by his gluttony, Claudius by his imbecility. One of them, Caligula, was a veritable fool; he had his horse made consul and himself worshipped as a god. The emperors persecuted the nobles especially to keep them from conspiring against them, and the rich to confiscate their goods.
2. Disorder.—This overweening authority was, moreover, very ill regulated; it resided entirely in the person of the emperor. When he was dead, everything was in question. It was well known that the world could not continue without a master, but no law nor usage determined who was to be this master. The Senate alone had the right of nominating the emperor, but almost always it would elect under pressure the one whom the preceding emperor had designated or the man who was pleasing to the soldiers.
After the death of Caligula, some prætorians who were sacking the palace discovered, concealed behind the tapestry, a poor man trembling with fear. This was a relative of Caligula; the prætorians made him emperor (it was the emperor Claudius). After the death of Nero, the Senate had elected Galba; the prætorians did not find him liberal enough and so they massacred him to set up in his place Otho, a favorite of Nero. In their turn the soldiers on the frontier wished to make an emperor: the legions of the Rhine entered Italy, met the prætorians at Bedriac near Cremona, and overthrew them in so furious a battle that it lasted all night; then they compelled the Senate to elect Vitellius, their general, as emperor. During this time the army of Syria had elected its chief Vespasian, who in turn defeated Vitellius and was named in his place; thus in two years three emperors had been created and three overthrown by the soldiers. The new emperor often undid what his predecessor had done; imperial despotism had not even the advantage of being stable.
The Twelve Cæsars.—This regime of oppression interrupted by violence endured for more than a century (31 B.C. to 96 A.D.).
The twelve emperors who came to the throne during this time are called the Twelve Cæsars, although only the first six were of the family of Augustus. It is difficult to judge them equitably. Almost all of them persecuted the noble families of Rome of whom they were afraid, and it is the writers of these families that have made their reputation. But it is quite possible that in the provinces their government was mild and just, superior to that of the senators of the republic.