The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5)

by Theodor Mommsen

Caesar had no need to have the superintendence of worship now committed to him, since he was already -pontifex maximus-.(12) as a matter of course the membership of the college of augurs was conferred on him, and generally an abundance of old and new honorary rights, such as the title of a "father of the fatherland," the designation of the month of his birth by the name which it still bears of Julius, and other manifestations of the incipient courtly tone which ultimately ran into utter deification. Two only of the arrangements deserve to be singled out: namely that Caesar was placed on the same footing with the tribunes of the people as regards their special personal inviolability, and that the appellation of Imperator was permanently attached to his person and borne by him as a title alongside of his other official designations.

Men of judgment will not require any proof, either that Caesar intended to engraft on the commonwealth his supreme power, and this not merely for a few years or even as a personal office for an indefinite period somewhat like Sulla's regency, but as an essential and permanent organ; or that he selected for the new institution an appropriate and simple designation; for, if it is a political blunder to create names without substantial meaning, it is scarcely a less error to set up the substance of plenary power without a name. Only it is not easy to determine what definitive formal shape Caesar had in view; partly because in this period of transition the ephemeral and the permanent buildings are not clearly discriminated from each other, partly because the devotion of his clients which already anticipated the nod of their master loaded him with a multitude—offensive doubtless to himself—of decrees of confidence and laws conferring honours. Least of all could the new monarchy attach itself to the consulship, just on account of the collegiate character that could not well be separated from this office; Caesar also evidently laboured to degrade this hitherto supreme magistracy into an empty title, and subsequently, when he undertook it, he did not hold it through the whole year, but before the year expired gave it away to personages of secondary rank. The dictatorship came practically into prominence most frequently and most definitely, but probably only because Caesar wished to use it in the significance which it had of old in the constitutional machinery—as an extraordinary presidency for surmounting extraordinary crises. On the other hand it was far from recommending itself as an expression for the new monarchy, for the magistracy was inherently clothed with an exceptional and unpopular character, and it could hardly be expected of the representative of the democracy that he should choose for its permanent organization that form, which the most gifted champion of the opposing party had created for his own ends.

The new name of Imperator, on the other hand, appears in every respect by far more appropriate for the formal expression of the monarchy; just because it is in this application(13) new, and no definite outward occasion for its introduction is apparent. The new wine might not be put into old bottles; here is a new name for the new thing, and that name most pregnantly sums up what the democratic party had already expressed in the Gabinian law, only with less precision, as the function of its chief—the concentration and perpetuation of official power (-imperium-) in the hands of a popular chief independent of the senate. We find on Caesar's coins, especially those of the last period, alongside of the dictatorship the title of Imperator prevailing, and in Caesar's law as to political crimes the monarch seems to have been designated by this name. Accordingly the following times, though not immediately, connected the monarchy with the name of Imperator. To lend to this new office at once a democratic and religious sanction, Caesar probably intended to associate with it once for all on the one hand the tribunician power, on the other the supreme pontificate.

That the new organization was not meant to be restricted merely to the lifetime of its founder, is beyond doubt; but he did not succeed in settling the especially difficult question of the succession, and it must remain an undecided point whether he had it in view to institute some sort of form for the election of a successor, such as had subsisted in the case of the original kingly office, or whether he wished to introduce for the supreme office not merely the tenure for life but also the hereditary character, as his adopted son subsequently maintained.(14) It is not improbable that he had the intention of combining in some measure the two systems, and of arranging the succession, similarly to the course followed by Cromwell and by Napoleon, in such a way that the ruler should be succeeded in rule by his son, but, if he had no son, or the son should not seem fitted for the succession, the ruler should of his free choice nominate his successor in the form of adoption.

In point of state law the new office of Imperator was based on the position which the consuls or proconsuls occupied outside of the -pomerium-, so that primarily the military command, but, along with this, the supreme judicial and consequently also the administrative power, were included in it.(15) But the authority of the Imperator was qualitatively superior to the consular-proconsular, in so far as the former was not limited as respected time or space, but was held for life and operative also in the capital;(16) as the Imperator could not, while the consul could, be checked by colleagues of equal power; and as all the restrictions placed in course of time on the original supreme official power— especially the obligation to give place to the -provocatio- and to respect the advice of the senate—did not apply to the Imperator.

Re-establishment of the Regal Office

In a word, this new office of Imperator was nothing else than the primitive regal office re-established; for it was those very restrictions—as respected the temporal and local limitation of power, the collegiate arrangement, and the cooperation of the senate or the community that was necessary for certain cases— which distinguished the consul from the king.(17) There is hardly a trait of the new monarchy which was not found in the old: the union of the supreme military, judicial, and administrative authority in the hands of the prince; a religious presidency over the commonwealth; the right of issuing ordinances with binding power; the reduction of the senate to a council of state; the revival of the patriciate and of the praefecture of the city. But still more striking than these analogies is the internal similarity of the monarchy of Servius Tullius and the monarchy of Caesar; if those old kings of Rome with all their plenitude of power had yet been rulers of a free community and themselves the protectors of the commons against the nobility, Caesar too had not come to destroy liberty but to fulfil it, and primarily to break the intolerable yoke of the aristocracy. Nor need it surprise us that Caesar, anything but a political antiquary, went back five hundred years to find the model for his new state; for, seeing that the highest office of the Roman commonwealth had remained at all times a kingship restricted by a number of special laws, the idea of the regal office itself had by no means become obsolete. At very various periods and from very different sides— in the decemviral power, in the Sullan regency, and in Caesar's own dictatorship—there had been during the republic a practical recurrence to it; indeed by a certain logical necessity, whenever an exceptional power seemed requisite there emerged, in contradistinction to the usual limited -imperium-, the unlimited -imperium- which was simply nothing else than the regal power.

Lastly, outward considerations also recommended this recurrence to the former kingly position. Mankind have infinite difficulty in reaching new creations, and therefore cherish the once developed forms as sacred heirlooms. Accordingly Caesar very judiciously connected himself with Servius Tullius, in the same way as subsequently Charlemagne connected himself with Caesar, and Napoleon attempted at least to connect himself with Charlemagne. He did so, not in a circuitous way and secretly, but, as well as his successors, in the most open manner possible; it was indeed the very object of this connection to find a clear, national, and popular form of expression for the new state. From ancient times there stood on the Capitol the statues of those seven kings, whom the conventional history of Rome was wont to bring on the stage; Caesar ordered his own to be erected beside them as the eighth. He appeared publicly in the costume of the old kings of Alba. In his new law as to political crimes the principal variation from that of Sulla was, that there was placed alongside of the collective community, and on a level with it, the Imperator as the living and personal expression of the people. In the formula used for political oaths there was added to the Jovis and the Penates of the Roman people the Genius of the Imperator. The outward badge of monarchy was, according to the view univerally diffused in antiquity, the image of the monarch on the coins; from the year 710 the head of Caesar appears on those of the Roman state.

There could accordingly be no complaint at least on the score that Caesar left the public in the dark as to his view of his position; as distinctly and as formally as possible he came forward not merely as monarch, but as very king of Rome. It is possible even, although not exactly probable, and at any rate of subordinate importance, that he had it in view to designate his official power not with the new name of Imperator, but directly with the old one of King.(18) Even in his lifetime many of his enemies as of his friends were of opinion that he intended to have himself expressly nominated king of Rome; several indeed of his most vehement adherents suggested to him in different ways and at different times that he should assume the crown; most strikingly of all, Marcus Antonius, when he as consul offered the diadem to Caesar before all the people (15 Feb. 710). But Caesar rejected these proposals without exception at once. If he at the same time took steps against those who made use of these incidents to stir republican opposition, it by no means follows from this that he was not in earnest with his rejection. The assumption that these invitations took place at his bidding, with the view of preparing the multitude for the unwonted spectacle of the Roman diadem, utterly misapprehends the mighty power of the sentimental opposition with which Caesar had to reckon, and which could not be rendered more compliant, but on the contrary necessarily gained a broader basis, through such a public recognition of its warrant on the part of Caesar himself. It may have been the uncalled-for zeal of vehement adherents alone that occasioned these incidents; it may be also, that Caesar merely permitted or even suggested the scene with Antonius, in order to put an end in as marked a manner as possible to the inconvenient gossip by a declinature which took place before the eyes of the burgesses and was inserted by his command even in the calendar of the state and could not, in fact, be well revoked. The probability is that Caesar, who appreciated alike the value of a convenient formal designation and the antipathies of the multitude which fasten more on the names than on the essence of things, was resolved to avoid the name of king as tainted with an ancient curse and as more familiar to the Romans of his time when applied to the despots of the east than to their own Numa and Servius, and to appropriate the substance of the regal office under the title of Imperator.

The New Court
The New Patrician Nobility