The two concluding chapters of the first book of the Annals are also remarkable in their unfairness or want of perspicacity; and yet the grievances suggested by them have been alluded to again and again by historians of repute without criticism and as real grievances, for it is the melancholy fate of most students of Tacitus to lose all sense of consistency.
“Poppæus Sabinus was continued in the governorship of Moesia, Achaia and Macedonia being added to the province. This too was one of the ways of Tiberius, to prolong the periods of office and to keep most of the officials in command of the same armies or at the head of the same jurisdictions to the ends of their lives. Various reasons are given. Some said that through mere distaste for fresh exertion he treated appointments once made as eternal, others that he was envious and wanted few to enjoy power; some think that selections were a matter of serious anxiety to him because he was cunning; he had little regard for eminent virtues, and again he disliked vices; he feared danger to himself from worthy men, public disgrace from bad men. At length he went so far in this kind of dilatoriness that he assigned provinces to some men, whom he did not intend to leave the city.”
The frequent change of Governors, Generals, and other officials had been the curse of the Republican Government. Again and again it had been necessary, when serious work was to be done, to lengthen the limited terms of office allowed by the old senatorial constitution; the old arrangements had not been made in the interests of the provincials or the administration of public business, but so that the members of the oligarchy at Rome might share and share alike in the plunder of the conquered countries, and that no single one of them should acquire sufficient money or power to set himself above the laws. When the old arrangements were rigorously carried out, no Roman Governor had more than a transitory glance of the province which he occupied; he himself and the train by which he was attended devoted their energies to making as much as they could in the short time at their disposal; the evil had been pointed out again and again; and as Tacitus has himself told us, the burden even of the reformed senatorial government was such that two impoverished provinces begged to be relieved of it. The policy of Tiberius was the only sound one for the provinces, and the sole objection to it was an objection which he, if he had been a suspicious ruler, might have felt to be a strong one. There was a danger that the men who stayed in their provinces long enough to feel their strength might be tempted to set up an independent government. This danger Tiberius preferred to risk, and that he did so acquits him of the charge conveyed in the insinuation that he was jealous of the enjoyment of power by a number of persons. Eventually, as we shall see later on, he made the Governors of provinces Secretaries of State for the countries which they governed; they did not leave Rome, but were the channels through which the business of the provinces was conducted at Rome. The language which Tacitus here uses is not the language of an experienced official working under Trajan with the records of a century of the Empire behind him, but the language of a reactionary of the reign of Tiberius. The breed of Romans who could see nothing in greater Rome but a field for plundering in the name of governing never quite died out; even in Trajan’s reign there were probably more aspirants than offices, and many discontented men, who thought that there were not sufficient opportunities of promotion. Tiberius certainly was careful in his selection of the great officials, but his caution was in the interests of the unhappy provincials. There were doubtless many noble Romans in his day who believed themselves to be possessed of the eminent virtues necessary to a provincial governor, but who somehow failed to secure promotion.
Tacitus on this occasion, as on many others, skilfully substitutes contemporary comment for contemporary evidence. All that he really tells us is that some of the contemporaries of Tiberius disliked his policy; what he wishes to tell us is that the government of Tiberius was radically bad, and that his contemporaries were right in saying so.
The last chapter deals with the elections of the Consuls, a subject which Tacitus professes to find obscure. The reality of election by the Comitia Centuriata had already been abolished; it had become a mere form, and nobody noticed its abolition; Augustus practically appointed the Consuls; Tiberius seems to have wished the Senate to elect them, but found that there were practical difficulties. After mentioning various ways in which Tiberius secured the election of his own candidates, Tacitus says: “Generally he discoursed to the effect that those men only were candidates whose names he had given to the Consuls, but that others were at liberty to stand if they had confidence in their own influence or deserts. This was plausible enough in words, but meaningless or insidious in fact, and the more it was involved in the appearance of liberty, likely to break out into the more deadly slavery.”
This imposing malediction ends the book. As a matter of fact the Consular Office was by this time purely ornamental.
XIV
The Case of Scribonius Libo
Enough has been said in the previous chapter to show the bias under which Tacitus wrote, and the dexterity with which he substituted inferences and insinuations for evidence. It must, however, be conceded to Tacitus that the operation of the “Lex Majestatis” was attended by many and serious evils; for those evils Tiberius and the men of his time were not responsible. The period was one of transition in most departments of social organization, and especially in all matters connected with the administration of justice. Under the Republic every head of a great family was in theory, and even in practice, a skilled lawyer; there was no legal profession. The Prætors who presided in the law courts were not specially trained judges; any Senator might become a Prætor, and preside in one of the law courts for his year of office; similarly any Senator might be called upon to take his place as a juryman, and give his verdict after listening to the evidence and the speeches of counsel. In course of time the Equestrian Order shared this duty with Senators.
Similarly there was no such thing as a professional advocate; every Senator was bound to plead on behalf of his own clients, and no Senator could recover fees as an advocate; indeed, advocates were strictly forbidden to ask for fees. The relation between the advocate and his client was held to be a personal one, not professional. The word client still in use reminds us of this relation; we have lost the corresponding word “patron,” which Tacitus and Suetonius employ precisely in the technical sense of advocate. Such a system could not be maintained under the increased complexity of life caused by the expansion of Rome, and the professional advocate was inevitably evolved; “patrons” who were noticeably successful in winning their cases naturally attracted “clients”; and hence we have even in the Republican period men occupying positions not easily distinguishable from those of our own barristers, and in virtue of various legal fictions actually making large fortunes by the exercise of their profession. Cicero and Hortensius were eminent examples of the non-professional and yet professional advocate.