The office of tribune bore a sacred character in the eyes of the Romans. The most glorious deeds of the nation as a whole in the palmy days of the republic were associated with the tribunate of the people; the plebs regarded it as the palladium of their liberties and legal status; from the days of Coriolanus down to the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey, the broils of political factions had raged around this magistracy of the people. Its solemn bestowal upon Augustus therefore supplied him with a religious consecration; by this alone a sacred and indissoluble bond was knit between the people and the supreme head of the state; the prince (princeps) was recognised as the protector of the people, and the magistracy of the popular community was transferred to its ruler. The rights of protection and intercession inherent in the tribunate were then expanded into an imperial prerogative of appeal and pardon and extended to the whole empire. In civil and criminal cases alike, an appeal to the emperor’s judgment-seat might be made from all tribunals and all parts of the empire, and thus the highest judicial authority in the whole sphere of government was committed into the hands of Augustus. The clemency and humanity for which he was famous caused these appeals to the imperial court to exceed all measure. Special courts of appeal had soon to be erected in the city and in the provinces, in the one case under the presidency of the prefect of the city, in the other under special consular authorities to whom the emperor delegated his judicial supremacy. By this means not only was an imperial court of appeal, such as Cæsar had attempted to introduce, established throughout the empire as the supreme tribunal, which gradually drew before itself all important suits after judgment had been pronounced in the prætorian or senatorial courts, but a far-reaching prerogative of mercy became a recognised attribute of the imperator’s power, a prerogative that could pour forth its cornucopia upon free and unfree, citizen and provincial. “Every temple, every shrine of the emperor in Italy or the provinces was a sheltering asylum, his statues and portraits became wonder-working images of deliverance, which paralysed the arm of justice or revenge.”
At the altars of the emperor even slaves found protection against harshness or inhumanity on the part of their masters. Augustus so highly prized the bestowal of this protective office of Tribune of the people, that he even had the day (27th of June, 23 B.C.) recorded on coins and monuments as the beginning of his reign. Three years later the imperial power received its consummation in the grant of the consular authority to Augustus for the term of his life, with the right to nominate his colleagues or representatives and to propose them for election, and with an extension of the right of issuing legal ordinances (edicts). From that time forward he took his seat in the senate upon a curule chair placed at a higher level between the two consuls.
By these means all political power was concentrated in his person, and when, soon after, the office of pontifex maximus fell vacant by the death of Lepidus, Augustus had this dignity also conferred upon himself, and thus combined the authority of high priest with supreme political power. In virtue of this office the care of the state religion and public worship, the interrogation of the oracular books and the interpretation of their utterances, the appointments to priestly offices and even the choice of vestals, devolved upon the emperor. And as through the fulness of his consular and imperatorial power he exercised the highest judicial authority over the army and in all cases affecting the safety of the state, so as supreme pontifex he had the right of deciding upon all violations of religion and transgressions of the priesthood.
TIGHTENING THE REINS OF POWER
This union of the hierarchic with the temporal power completed the skilfully constructed edifice of the principate. By this means the whole executive and judicial authority in matters spiritual and temporal, human and divine, was placed in the hands of the emperor, and if for a while the people retained the show of legislative power it was a mere shadow of the ancient sovereignty of the people, since the legal tradition which gave magisterial edicts the force of law during the magistrate’s tenure of office reduced every other kind of legislative authority to an empty form when all official power was centred in a person who held office for life.
The imperial decrees were legally valid throughout the empire. They formed the nucleus and basis of the “constitution” which in process of time ranked on an equality with the comitial laws. The wise moderation of Augustus—which induced him to ask the opinion or approval of the senate in all decrees concerning peace and war and withheld him from exercising the power of life and death which he possessed over senators and citizens in an offensive manner, and led him to treat traditional forms with reverential observance—conduced greatly to the establishment and preservation of the legislative authority of the emperor.
“Thus,” says Hoeck,[d] “the constitution of the young empire was a monarchy in which the rights of sovereignty were shared between the nation and its head.
“No law or election could be carried through in opposition to the express will of the emperor, because he could invalidate by his tribunician veto every assertion of magisterial or popular authority; on the other hand, according to law, his will was not sufficient to ensure the acceptance of a candidate or of a statute, since the emperor had no right to command either the senate or the people. Nevertheless this reciprocal limitation and supplementation of the supreme political authority existed in theory only, not in fact. For where the legal competence of the emperor came to an end its place was taken by a power of which the constitution took no cognisance, but which held all political affairs in the embrace of its mighty arm. This was the effective sovereignty of Augustus, outflanking and controlling all other authority, which broke down the bulwarks erected against absolute government and opened the way for the despotism of his successors. The senate was composed of his creatures, the populace was won over by bread and games, the army attached to him by booty and presents; and thus he had in the curia an obedient instrument of his schemes; the comitia were the echo of his will, and the legions gladly fulfilled the commands he gave. The senate and people might enjoy meanwhile the ancient forms of a free state; they were but vain shadows when the supreme head was minded to accomplish his win.”[e]