[45] The name of Augustus is twice found in the Acta Fratrum Arvalium, once in May, 767, in recording a vote, and in Dec., 767, in the record of the nomination of his successor.
[46] Tacitus says the Titian Sodality was instituted by Titus Tatius for keeping up the Sabine ritual. Cf. Ann. I, 54. The record here is all that is known of Augustus’ connection with it.
[47] The fetials had charge of the formalities in declaring war and peace. Dio L, 4, says that Augustus went through the old-fashioned ceremonies in declaring war against Cleopatra.
These three colleges had fallen into abeyance in the time of Cicero. Augustus undoubtedly revived them. Cf. Suet. Aug. 31. Such restoration, and religious conservatism in general, as even in the case of Domitian, marks the policy of the emperors for two hundred years, and was one of their favorite methods of posing simply as restorers of the good old times.
[48] In 725. The Saenian law, passed by the people in 724, authorized this proceeding, and the senate’s decree followed. Hence the order, “people and senate.” Cf. Tac. Ann. XI, 25; Dio, LII, 42. An earlier creation of patricians is assigned by Dio to the year 721. But he is probably mistaken, as Tacitus, in the passage just noted, says that Claudius was obliged to create more patricians, “because the number had declined even after being recruited by the dictator Cæsar under the Cassian law, and by Augustus the princeps under the Saenian law.” Such a creation was not a right of the principate. Cæsar and Augustus did it by special authorization of people and senate. Claudius did it in virtue of his censorship, and this status continued till Domitian absorbed the censorship in the principate, and assumed the right as a permanent one.
[49] During most of the republican history the senate numbered, ideally, three hundred. In Cicero’s time it had over four hundred members. Julius Cæsar raised it to about nine hundred. Suet. Aug., 35, says: “By two separate scrutinies he (Augustus) reduced to their former number and splendor the senate, which had been swamped by a disorderly crowd; for they were now more than a thousand, and some of them very mean persons, who, after Cæsar’s death, had been chosen by dint of interest and bribery, so that they had the name of Orcini among the people.” They were also called Charonites, because they owed their elevation to the last will of Cæsar, who had gone into Orcus to Charon. Dio, XL, 48, 63, tells of freedmen in the senate and, XLIII, 22, of a private soldier; Gell., XV, 4, of a muleteer, cf. Juvenal, Sat. VII, 199.
Dio, LII, 42, cf. LIII, 1, tells of the first scrutiny, in 725-6. A hint from Augustus was enough to cause the withdrawal first of sixty, then of one hundred and forty senators. He also tells, LIV, 13, 14, of a further revision in 736, by which the number was brought down to six hundred. He assigns a third sifting to 743 (LIV, 35), and a fourth to 757 (LV, 13). Mommsen, however, is inclined to connect the three revisions of Augustus with the censuses of 726, 746 and 767, and to regard those of 736 and 757 as extraordinary, and therefore not named by Augustus, in his desire to appear entirely within constitutional lines. Cf. Mommsen, R. G., p. 35.
[50] Suetonius evidently depends on this inscription when he says, Aug. 27: “Three times he took the census of the Roman people, the first and third times with a colleague, the second time alone.” This first census was in 725-6. Cf. Dio, LII, 42; LIII, 1; C. I. L. IX, 422, imp. Cæsar VI, M. Agrippa II cos.; idem censoria potestate lustrum fecerunt.
The lustrum was strictly the expiatory offering made at the close of the census. The census had not been taken for forty-one years. The number of Roman citizens of military age in 684 had been given as but 450,000. This census of 726 reported 4,063,000. Probably the vast apparent increase rose from the fact of the earlier enumeration counting only such as presented themselves before the censors in the city, while at the later time the citizens throughout the empire were counted. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, III, 461, estimates a total free citizenship of more than 17,000,000. The total population of the empire at this time, including citizens, allies, slaves and freedmen, has been estimated at 85,000,000. Cf. Merivale, Rom. cc. XXX, XXXIX.
The Greek of the inscription here reads erroneously 4,603,000.