Augustus: The Life and Times of the Founder of the Roman Empire

by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh

The imperial powers.

As the imperial powers may now be considered as fully developed, future extensions being merely logical deductions from the constitution as now established, it will be convenient here once for all to point out their nature and extent. They may be classed under two headings—(1) imperium; (2) potestas tribunicia.

The first—imperium—embraces all those powers which Augustus obtained as representing the curule magistrates, or from special law and senatorial decrees. As imperator, then, he had supreme command of all forces by land or sea. The military oath was now taken in his name, no longer to individual officers raising legions. He alone had the right to enrol soldiers; he nominated the officers; his procurators paid the men in his name; from him proceeded all rewards. The Senate, indeed, still awarded triumphs and triumphalia ornamenta, but it was at his suggestion, and the tendency was to confine the right of triumph to the Emperor himself.

By the same imperium he decided on questions of peace or war; on the distribution of the ager publicus, and the assignation of lands to veterans and coloni generally.

Finally, the right of conferring the citizenship, complete or partial, and settling the status of all colonies and municipia, and of interpreting the laws by a constitutio principis, expressed in an edict or decree, which amounted, in fact, to legislative power.

The second—potestas tribunicia—was superior to the ordinary powers of the tribunes, because by it he could veto their proceedings, while they could not veto his. “It gave him”—to use Dio’s words—“the means of absolutely putting a stop to any proceeding of which he disapproved; it rendered his person inviolable, so that the least violence offered him by word or deed made a man liable to death without trial as being under a curse.” From the ancient constitution of the office also it made him president of the comitia tributa (representing the old consilia plebis), gave him the right of interposing in all decisions of magistrates or Senate affecting the persons or civil status of citizens (auxilii latio), and that of compelling obedience by imprisonment or other means, as in the republic the tribunes had done even to the consuls in extreme cases (coercitio). Though this power was given the Emperor for life, it was also in a sense annual; and it was in effect so much the most important of all his powers, while at the same time in origin and professed object so much the most popular, that it became the custom from henceforth to date all documents, inscriptions, and the like, by the year of the tribunician power from 27th of June this year (B.C. 23). The imperium was renewed at intervals of ten or five years, the tribunician power of Augustus went on from year to year without break. It was now unnecessary any longer to hold the consulship, for the imperium given him in other ways covered all, and more than all, which the consulship could give. It was convenient to use it for rewarding others, as it retained all its outward signs of dignity, and still in theory made its holder head of the state, though in reality its duties had become almost wholly ceremonial. He therefore abdicated the consulship, which he did not hold again till B.C. 5, when he desired to give éclat to his grandson’s deductio in forum.

The clause in the lex, quoted above, also gave Augustus supreme control of all religious matters, and made him able, among other things, to nominate most of the members of the sacred colleges. He did not become Pontifex Maximus till the death of Lepidus (B.C. 13). When that took place he became official, as well as real, head of the Roman religion.

Certain other arrangements in regard to the city of Rome itself followed, all in the direction of centralisation. Thus Augustus presided at the review of the equites, which used to be held by the censors. Public works were mostly entrusted to curatores appointed by him; for the supply of corn he named a præfectus annonæ; and for police a præfectus urbi, under whom were the cohortes urbanæ, the night-watch and fire brigade (nocturni vigiles). Each of these bodies had their own officers or præfecti; but Augustus from time to time appointed some one as præfectus urbi, to whom all alike would be subject. Such an officer, however, did not always assume the name, and really as well as theoretically the ultimate authority was Augustus himself, who later on, by dividing Rome into regiones and vici, made elaborate arrangements for the effective policing of the city.

The succession.

Augustus might pose as a constitutional magistrate enjoying a life-tenure of his office, without the right of transmitting it to an heir. This view was strictly legal, but it was evident that such a power could not safely be left by its holder without any understanding as to a successor. The matter was indeed in the hands of Senate and people; but in the minds of possible heirs, as well as of the Senate and people themselves, it began to be thought natural and necessary that some arrangement of the sort should be made. The cases are numerous in all history of rulers, whether new or hereditary, who have wished to found or continue a dynasty, or who have thought to prevent confusion and danger after their own death by naming a successor, or by taking him into present partnership. Such a scheme was not as yet fully developed, even if it was contemplated. But Marcellus, who had been adopted by Augustus on his marriage to Iulia, betrayed his hopes by protesting against the preference shewn by the apparently dying Emperor to Agrippa; and Augustus yielded so far as to send Agrippa from Rome as governor of Syria.