CHAPTER XVI

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PRINCIPATE: 27 B. C.–14 A. D.

I. THE PRINCEPS

*The settlement of 27 B. C.* During his sixth and seventh consulships, in the years 28 and 27 B. C., Octavian surrendered the extraordinary powers which he had exercised during the war against Antony and Cleopatra and, as he later expressed it, placed the commonwealth at the disposal of the Senate and the Roman people. But this step did not imply that the old machinery of government was to be restored without modifications and restrictions or that Octavian intended to abdicate his position as arbiter of the fate of the Roman world. Nor would he have been justified in so doing, for such a course of action would have led to a repetition of the anarchy which followed the retirement and death of Sulla, and, in disposing of his rivals, Octavian had assumed the obligation of giving to the Roman world a stable form of government. Public sentiment demanded a strong administration, even if this could only be attained at the expense of the old republican institutions.

But while ambition and duty alike forbade him to relinquish his hold upon the helm of state, Octavian shrank from realizing the ideal of Julius Caesar and establishing a monarchical form of government. From this he was deterred both by the fate of his adoptive father and his own cautious, conservative character which gave him such a shrewd understanding of Roman temperament. His solution of the problem was to retain the old Roman constitution as far as was practicable, while securing for himself such powers as would enable him to uphold the constitution and prevent a renewal of the disorders of the preceding century. What powers were necessary to this end, Octavian determined on the basis of practical experience between 27 and 18 B. C. And so his restoration of the commonwealth signified the end of a régime of force and paved the way for his reception of new authority legally conferred upon him.

*The imperium.* Nothing had contributed more directly to the failure of the republican form of government than the growth of the professional army and the inability of the Senate to control its commanders. Therefore, it was absolutely necessary for the guardian of peace and of the constitution to concentrate the supreme military authority in his own hands. Consequently on 13 January, 27 B. C., the birthday of the new order, Octavian, by vote of the Assembly and Senate, received for a period of ten years the command and administration of the provinces of Hither Spain, Gaul and Syria, that is, the chief provinces in which peace was not yet firmly established and which consequently required the presence of the bulk of the Roman armies. Egypt, over which he had ruled as the successor of the Ptolemies since 30 B. C., remained directly subject to his authority. As long as he continued to hold the consulship, the _imperium_ of Octavian was senior (_maius_) to that of the governors of the other provinces which remained under the control of the Senate. In effect, his solution of the military problem was to have conferred upon himself an extraordinary command which found its precedents in those of Lucullus, Pompey and Caesar, but which was of such scope and duration that it made him the commander-in-chief of the forces of the empire.

*The titles Augustus and Imperator.* On 16 January of the same year the Senate conferred upon Octavian the title of Augustus (Greek, _Sebastos_) by which he was henceforth regularly designated. It was a term which implied no definite powers, but, being an epithet equally applicable to gods or men, was well adapted to express the exalted position of its bearer. A second title was that of Imperator. Following the republican custom, this had been conferred upon Augustus by his army and the Senate after his victory at Mutina in 43 B. C., and in imitation of Julius Caesar he converted this temporary title of honor into a permanent one. Finally, in 38 B. C., he placed it first among his personal names (as a _praenomen_). After 27 B. C. Augustus made a two-fold use of the term; as a permanent _praenomen_, and as a title of honor assumed upon the occasion of victories won by his officers. From this time the _praenomen_ Imperator was a prerogative of the Roman commander-in-chief. However, during his principate Augustus did not stress its use, since he did not wish to emphasize the military basis of his power. But in the Greek-speaking provinces, where his power rested exclusively upon his military authority, the title Imperator was seized upon as the expression of his unlimited _imperium_ and was translated in that sense by _autocrator_. From the _praenomen_ imperator is derived the term emperor, commonly used in modern times to designate Augustus and his successors.

*The tribunicia potestas, 23 B. C.* From 27 to 23 B. C. the authority of Augustus rested upon his annual tenure of the consulship and his provincial command. But in the summer of 23 B. C. he resigned the consulship and received from the Senate and people the tribunician authority (_tribunicia potestas_) for life. As early as 36 B. C. he had been granted the personal inviolability of the tribunes, and in 30 B. C. their right of giving aid (_auxilium_). To these privileges there must now have been added the right of intercession and of summoning the _comitia_ (_jus agendi cum populo_).(15) In this way Augustus acquired a control over comitial and senatorial legislation and openly assumed the position of protector of the interests of the city plebs. He was moreover amply compensated for the loss of civil power which his resignation of the consulship involved, and at the same time he got rid of an office which must be shared with a colleague of equal rank and the perpetual tenure of which was a violation of constitutional tradition. The tribunician authority was regarded as being held for successive annual periods, which Augustus reckoned from 23 B. C.

*Special powers and honors.* At the time of the conferment of the tribunician authority, a series of senatorial decrees added or gave greater precision to the powers of Augustus. He received the right to introduce the first topic for consideration at each meeting of the Senate, his military _imperium_ was made valid within the _pomerium_, but, in view of his resignation of the consulship, became proconsular in the provinces. It was probably in 23 B. C. also that Augustus received the unrestricted right of making war or peace, upon the occasion of the coming of an embassy from the king of the Parthians. In the next year he was granted the right to call meetings of the Senate. Three years later he was accorded the consular insignia, with twelve lictors, and the privilege of taking his seat on a curule chair between the consuls in office. These marks of honor gave him upon official occasions the precedence among the magistrates which his authority warranted. On the other hand, in 22 B. C. Augustus refused the dictatorship or the perpetual consulship, which were conferred upon him at the insistence of the city populace; and in the same spirit he declined to accept a general censorship of laws and morals (_cura legum et morum_) which was proffered to him in 19 B. C.

*The principate.* It was by the gradual acquisition of the above powers that the position which Augustus was to hold in the state was finally determined. This position may be defined as that of a magistrate, whose province was a combination of various powers conferred upon him by the Senate and the Roman people, and who differed from the other magistrates of the state in the immensely wider scope of his functions and the greater length of his official term. But these various powers were separately conferred upon him and for each he could urge constitutional precedents. It was in this spirit of deference to constitutional traditions that Augustus did not create for himself one new office which would have given him the same authority nor accept any position that would have clothed him with autocratic power. Therefore, as he held no definite office, Augustus had no definite official title. But the reception of such wide powers caused him to surpass all other Romans in dignity; hence he came to be designated as the _princeps_, i. e. the first of the Roman citizens (_princeps civium Romanorum_). From this arose the term principate to designate the tenure of office of the princeps; a term which we now apply also to the system of government that Augustus established for the Roman Empire. The crowning honor of his career was received by Augustus in 2 A. D., when the senate, upon the motion of one who had fought under Brutus at Philippi, conferred upon him the title of “Father of His Country” (_pater patriae_), thus marking the reconciliation between the bulk of the old aristocracy and the new régime.

*Renewal of the imperium.* His _imperium_, which lapsed in 18 B. C., Augustus caused to be reconferred upon himself for successive periods of five or ten years, thus preserving the continuity of his power until his death in 14 A. D.

II. THE SENATE, THE EQUESTRIANS AND THE PLEBS

*The three orders.* The social classification of the Romans into the senatorial, equestrian and plebeian orders passed, with sharper definitions, from the republic into the principate. For each class a distinct field of opportunity and public service was opened; for senators, the magistracies and the chief military posts; for the _equites_ a new career in the civil and military service of the princeps, and for the plebs service as privates and subaltern officers in the professional army. However, these orders were by no means closed castes; the way lay open to able and successful men for advancement from the lower to the higher grades, and for the consequent infusion of fresh vitality into the ranks of the latter.

*The Senate and the senatorial order.* The senatorial order was composed of the members of the Senate and their families. Its distinctive emblem was the broad purple stripe worn on the toga. Sons of senators assumed this badge of the order by right of birth; equestrians, by grant of the princeps. However, of the former those who failed to qualify for the Senate were reduced to the rank of equestrians. The possession of property valued at 1,000,000 sesterces ($50,000) was made a requirement for admission to the Senate.

The prospective senator was obliged to fill one of the minor city magistracies known as the board of twenty (_viginti-virate_), next to serve as a legionary tribune and then, at the age of twenty-five, to become a candidate for the quaestorship, which gave admission to the Senate. From the quaestorship the official career of the senator led through the regular magistracies, the aedileship or tribunate, and the praetorship, to the consulship. As an ex-praetor and ex-consul a senator might be appointed a promagistrate to govern a senatorial province; a legate to command a legion or administer an imperial province; or a curator in charge of some administrative commission in Rome or Italy.

During the republic the Senate had been the actual center of the administration and Augustus intended that it should continue to be so for the greater part of the empire. Through the ordinary magistrates it should govern Rome and Italy, and through the promagistrates the senatorial provinces. Furthermore, the state treasury, the _aerarium saturni_, supported by the revenues from Italy and the Senate’s provinces, remained under the authority of that body. However, to render it capable of fulfilling its task and to reëstablish its prestige, the Senate which now numbered over one thousand had to be purged of many undesirable members who had been admitted to its roll during the recent civil wars. Therefore, in 28 B. C., Augustus in his consular capacity supervised a revision of the senatorial list whereby two hundred unworthy persons were excluded. On that occasion his name was placed at the head of the new roll as the _princeps senatus_. A second recension ten years later reduced the total membership to six hundred. A third, in 4 A. D., commenced through a specially chosen committee of three with the object of further reducing their number was not carried out. The Senate was automatically recruited by the annual admission of the twenty quaestors, but in addition the princeps enjoyed the right of appointing new members who might be entered upon the roll of the Senate among the past holders of any magistracy. In this way many prominent equestrians were admitted to the senatorial order.

*The equestrian order.* For the conduct of his share of the public administration the princeps required a great number of assistants in his personal employ. For his legates to command the legions or his provinces with delegated military authority Augustus could draw upon the senators, but both custom and the prestige of the Senate forbade their entering his service in other capacities. On the other hand, freedmen and slaves, who might well be employed in a clerical position, obviously could not be made the sole civil servants of the princeps. Therefore, Augustus drew into his service the equestrian order whose business interests and traditional connection with the public finances seemed to mark them out as peculiarly fitted to be his agents in the financial administration of the provinces.

The equestrian order in general was open to all Roman citizens in Italy and the provinces who were eighteen years of age, of free birth and good character, and possessed a census rating of 400,000 sesterces ($20,000). Admission to the order was in the control of the princeps, and carried the right to wear a narrow purple stripe on the toga and to receive a public horse, the possession of which qualified an equestrian for the imperial civil and military service. With the bestowal of the public horse Augustus revived the long neglected annual parade and inspection of the _equites_.

Like the career of the senators, that of the equestrians included both military and civil appointments. At the outset of his _cursus honorum_ the equestrian held several military appointments, which somewhat later came regularly to include a prefecture of a corps of auxiliary infantry, a tribunate of a legionary cohort, and a prefecture of an auxiliary cavalry corps. Thereupon he was eligible for a procuratorship, that is, a post in the imperial civil service, usually in connection with the administration of the finances. After filling several of these procuratorships, of which there were a great number of varying importance, an equestrian might finally attain one of the great prefectures, as commander of the city watch, administrator of the corn supply of Rome, commander of the imperial guards, or governor of Egypt. At the end of his equestrian career he might be enrolled in the senatorial order. Thus through the imperial service the equestrian order was bound closely to the princeps and from its ranks there gradually developed a nobility thoroughly loyal to the new régime.

*The Comitia and the plebs.* The _comitia_, which had so long voiced the will of the sovereign Roman people was not abolished, although it could no longer claim to speak in the name of the Roman citizens as a whole. It still kept up the form of electing magistrates and enacting legislation, but its action was largely determined by the recommendations of the princeps and his tribunician authority.

While the city plebs, accustomed to receive its free distributions of grain, and to be entertained at costly public spectacles, was a heavy drain upon the resources of the state, the vigorous third estate in the Italian municipalities supplied the subaltern officers of the legions. These were the centurions, who were the mainstay of the discipline and efficiency of the troops, and from whose ranks many advanced to an equestrian career.

III. THE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT

*Reorganization of the army.* Upon his return to Italy in 30 B. C., Augustus found himself at the head of an army of about 500,000 men. Of these he released more than 300,000 from service and settled them in colonies or in their native municipalities upon lands which it was his boast to have purchased and not confiscated. This done, he proceeded to reorganize the military establishment. Accepting the lessons of the civil wars, he maintained a permanent, professional army, recruited as far as possible by voluntary enlistment. This army comprised two main categories of troops, the legionaries and the auxiliaries.

*The legions and auxilia.* The legionaries were recruited from Roman citizens or from provincials who received Roman citizenship upon their enlistment. Their units of organization, the legions, comprised nearly 6000 men, of whom 120 were cavalry and the rest infantry. The number of legions was at first eighteen, but was later raised to twenty-five, giving a total of about 150,000 men. The auxiliaries, who took the place of the contingents of Italian allies of earlier days, were recruited from among the most warlike subject peoples of the empire and their numbers were approximately equal to the legionaries. They were organized in small infantry and cavalry corps (cohorts and _alae_), each 480 or 960 strong. At the expiration of their term of service the auxiliaries were granted the reward of Roman citizenship.

*The praetorians.* A third category of troops, which, although greatly inferior in number to the legions and auxiliaries, played an exceptionally influential rôle in the history of the principate, was the praetorian guard. This was the imperial bodyguard which attended Augustus in his capacity of commander-in-chief of the Roman armies. It owed its influence to the fact that it was stationed in the vicinity of Rome while the other troops were stationed in the provinces. Under Augustus the praetorian guard comprised nine cohorts, each 1000 strong, under the command of two praetorian prefects of equestrian rank. The praetorians were recruited exclusively from the Italian peninsula, and enjoyed a shorter term of service and higher pay than the other corps.

*Conditions of service.* It was not until 6 A. D. that the term of enlistment and the conditions of discharge were definitely fixed. From that date service in the praetorian guard was for sixteen years, in the legions for twenty and in the _auxilia_ for twenty-five. At their discharge the praetorians received a bonus of 5000 denarii ($1000), while the legionaries were given 3000 denarii ($600) in addition to an assignment of land. The discharged legionaries were regularly settled in colonies throughout the provinces. To meet this increased expense Augustus was obliged to establish a military treasury (the _aerarium militare_), endowed out of his private patrimony, and supported by the revenue derived from two newly imposed taxes, a five per cent inheritance tax (_vincesima hereditatium_) which affected all Roman citizens, and a one per cent tax on all goods publicly sold (_centesima rerum venalium_).

*The fleets.* For the policing of the coast of Italy and the adjacent seas Augustus created a permanent fleet with stations at Ravenna and Misenum. Conforming to the comparative unimportance of the Roman naval, in contrast to their military establishment, the personnel of this fleet was recruited in large measure from imperial freedmen and slaves. Only after Augustus were these squadrons and other similar ones in the provinces placed under equestrian prefects.

The military system of Augustus strongly emphasized and guaranteed the supremacy of Italy and the Italians over the provincials. Both the officers and the elite troops were drawn almost exclusively from Italy or the latinized parts of the western provinces. In like manner the reservation of the higher grades of the civil administration, the second prop of Roman rule, for Roman senators and equestrians, as well as the exclusion of the provincial imperial cult from Italian soil, marked clearly the distinction between the conquering and the subject races of the empire. Yet it was Augustus himself who pointed the way to the ultimate romanization of the provincials by the bestowal of citizenship as one of the rewards for military service and by the settlement of colonies of veterans in the provinces.

IV. THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION AND MORALITY

*The ideals of Augustus.* A counterpart to the governmental reorganization effected by Augustus was his attempt to revive the old time Roman virtues which had fallen into contempt during the last centuries of the republic. This moral regeneration of the Roman people he regarded as the absolutely essential basis for a new era of peace and prosperity. And the reawakening of morality was necessarily preceded by a revival of the religious rites and ceremonies that in recent times had passed into oblivion through the attraction of new cults, the growth of skepticism, or the general disorder into which the public administration had fallen as a result of civil strife.

*The revival of public religion.* One step in this direction was the reëstablishment of the ancient priestly colleges devoted to the performance of particular rites or the cult of particular deities. To provide these colleges with the required number of patrician members Augustus created new patrician families. He himself was enrolled in each of these colleges and, at the death of Lepidus in 12 B. C., was elected chief pontiff, the head of the state religion. A second measure was the repair of temples and shrines which had lapsed into decay. The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, those of Quirinus and the Magna Mater, besides eighty-two other shrines of lesser fame, were repaired or restored by him. One of his generals, Munatius Plancus, renewed the temple of Saturn in the forum. A new temple was erected by Augustus to Mars the Avenger on the forum begun by Julius Caesar, another to the deified Julius himself on the old forum, and a third on the Palatine hill to Apollo, to whom he rendered thanks for the victory at Actium.

*The Lares and the Genius Augusti.* Among the divinities whose cult was thus quickened into life were the Lares, the guardian deities of the crossways, whose worship was especially practiced by the common folk. Between the years 12 and 7 B. C. each of the two hundred and sixty-five _vici_ into which the city of Rome was then divided was provided with a shrine dedicated to the Lares and the Genius of Augustus, that is, the divine spirit which watched over his fortunes. This worship was conducted by a committee of masters, annually elected by the inhabitants of these quarters. In this way the city plebs while not worshipping the princeps himself, were yet encouraged to look upon him as their protector and guardian.

*The imperial cult.* A new religion which was to be symbolic of the unity of the empire and the loyalty of the provincials was the cult of Rome and Augustus, commonly known as the imperial cult. The worship of the goddess Roma, the personification of the Roman state, had sprung up voluntarily in the cities of Greece and Asia after 197 B. C. when the power of Rome began to supplant the authority of the Hellenistic monarchs for whom deification by their subjects was the theoretical basis of their autocratic power. This voluntary worship had also been accorded to individual Romans, as Flamininus, Sulla, Caesar and Mark Antony. As early as 29 B. C. the cities of Pergamon in Asia and Nicomedia in Bithynia erected temples dedicated to Roma and Augustus, and established quinquennial religious festivals called _Romaia Sebasta_. Other cities followed their example and before the death of Augustus each province in the Orient had at least one altar dedicated to Roma and the princeps. From the East the imperial cult was officially transplanted to the West.

In the year 12 B. C. an altar of Rome and Augustus was established at the junction of the rivers Rhone and Sâone, opposite the town of Lugdunum (modern Lyons), the administrative center of Transalpine Gaul apart from the Narbonese province. Here the peoples of Gaul were to unite in the outward manifestation of their loyalty to Roman rule. A similar altar was erected at what is now Cologne in the land of the Ubii between 9 B. C. and 9 A. D. Both in the East and in the West the maintenance of the imperial cult was imposed upon provincial councils, composed of representatives of the municipal or tribal units in which each province was divided.

The imperial cult in the provinces was thus the expression of the absolute authority of Rome and Augustus over the subjects of Rome, but for that very reason Augustus could not admit its development on Italian soil; for to do so would be to deny his claim to be a Roman magistrate, deriving his authority from the Roman people, among whom he was the chief citizen, and would stamp his government as monarchical and autocratic. Therefore, although the poet Horace, voicing the public sentiment, in 27 B. C. acclaimed him as the new Mercury, and both municipalities and individuals in southern Italy spontaneously established his worship, this movement received no official encouragement and never became important. However, from the year 12 B. C. onwards, there were established religious colleges of _Augustales_, or priestly officers called _Sevìri Augustales_, in many Italian municipalities for the celebration of the cult of Augustus either alone or in conjunction with some other divinity such as Mercury or Hercules. As these Augustales were almost exclusively drawn from the class of freedmen who were no longer admitted to full Roman citizenship, Augustus avoided receiving worship from the latter, while assuring himself of the loyalty of the _liberti_ and gratifying their pride by encouraging a municipal office to which they were eligible.

*The leges Juliae and the lex Papia Poppaea.* However, Augustus was not content to trust solely to the moral effects of religious exercises and resorted to legislative action to check the degenerate tendencies of his age. The Julian laws of 19 and 18 B. C. aimed at the restoration of the soundness of family life, the encouragement of marriage, and the discouragement of childlessness, by placing disabilities upon unmarried and childless persons. These measures provoked great opposition, but Augustus was in earnest and supplemented his earlier laws by the _lex Papia Poppaea_ of 9 A. D. which gave precedence to fathers over less fortunate persons among the candidates for public office. A commentary on the effectiveness of his earlier laws was the fact that both the consuls who sponsored this later one were themselves unmarried. To prevent the Italian element among the citizens from being swamped by a continuous influx of liberated slaves, Augustus placed restrictions upon the right of manumission and refused freedmen the public rights of Roman citizens, although granting these to their sons. By example as well as by precept he sought to hold in check the luxurious tendencies of the age, and in his own household to furnish a model of ancient Roman simplicity.

*The Secular Games, 17 B. C.* To publicly inaugurate the new era in the life of the state begun under his auspices, Augustus celebrated the festival of the Secular Games in the year 17 B. C., for which Horace wrote the inaugural ode, his _Carmen Saeculare_.

V. THE PROVINCES AND THE FRONTIERS

*The Dyarchy.* The division of the provinces between Augustus and the Senate in 27 B. C. had the effect of creating an administrative dyarchy, or joint rule of two independent authorities, for the empire. However, the original allotment of the provinces underwent some modification subsequent to 27 B. C. In 23 B. C., Augustus transferred to the Senate Narbonese Gaul where the rapid progress of colonization had made it “more a part of Italy than a province.” In exchange he took over Illyricum, where the progress of the Roman arms had been interrupted by the outbreak of the war with Antony and where the Romans were confronted by warlike and restless peoples of the hinterland. Somewhat later Cilicia also became an imperial province and in 6 A. D. Sardinia was placed under an imperial procurator because of disturbances on the island. Southern Greece, previously dependent upon the province of Macedon, was placed under the government of the Senate as the province of Achaea. New administrative districts organized by Augustus out of territories conquered by his generals remained under his control.

*Survey and census of the empire.* The main expense of the military and civil establishment of the empire was defrayed by the revenues from the provinces. As a basis for an accurate estimate of their resources for purposes of taxation and recruitment Augustus caused a comprehensive census of the population and an evaluation of property to be taken in each newly organized district, and provided for a systematic revision of the census in all the imperial provinces. In addition a general chart of the empire was compiled on the basis of an extended survey conducted under the direction of Agrippa.

*The foreign policy of Augustus.* As we have seen, Augustus since he was commander-in-chief of the Roman armies and in charge of the administration of the most important border provinces, was entrusted by the senate with the direction of the foreign relations of the state. Here his aims conformed to the general conservatism of his policies and were directed towards securing a defensible frontier for the empire which should protect the peace that he had established within its borders. His military operations were conducted with due regard to the man power and the financial resources of the state. To secure the defensible frontier at which he aimed it was necessary for Augustus to incorporate in the empire a number of border peoples whose independence was a menace to the peace of the provinces and to establish some client kingdoms as buffer states between Roman territory and otherwise dangerous neighbors.

*The settlement in Spain.* The northwestern corner of the Spanish peninsula was still occupied by independent peoples, the Cantabri, Astures and the Callaeci, who harassed with their forays the pacified inhabitants of the Roman provinces. To secure peace in this quarter Augustus determined upon the complete subjugation of these peoples. From 27 to 24 B. C. he was present in Spain and between these years his lieutenants Antistius, Carisius and Agrippa conducted campaigns against them in their mountain fastness, and, overcoming their desperate resistance, settled them in the valleys and secured their territory by founding colonies of veterans. A subsequent revolt in 20–19 was crushed by Marcus Agrippa.

*The pacification of the Alps, 25–8 B. C.* A similar problem was presented by the Alpine peoples, who not only made devastating raids into northern Italy but also in the west occupied the passes which offered the most direct routes between Italy and Transalpine Gaul. In 26 B. C. occurred a revolt of the Salassi, in the neighborhood of the Little St. Bernard, who had been subdued eight years before. In the following year they were completely subjugated, and those who escaped slaughter were sold into slavery. In 16 B. C. the district of Noricum, i. e., modern Tyrol and Salzburg, was occupied by Publius Silius Nerva, in consequence of a raid of the Noricans into the Istrian peninsula. In 15 B. C., the step-son of Augustus, Nero Claudius Drusus, crossed the Brenner Pass and forced his way over the Vorarlberg range to Lake Constance, subduing the Raeti on his way. On the shores of Lake Constance he met his elder brother, Tiberius Claudius Nero, who had marched eastwards from Gaul. Together they defeated and subjugated the Vindelici. On the north the Danube was now the Roman frontier. A number of isolated campaigns completed the subjugation of the remaining Alpine peoples by 8 B. C. Raetia and Noricum were organized as procuratorial provinces, while the smaller Alpine districts were placed under imperial prefects.

*Gaul and Germany.* Caesar had left the land of Gallia Comata crushed but still unsettled and not fully incorporated in the empire. It fell to the lot of Augustus to complete its organization, which was accomplished between 27 and 13 B. C. Subsequent to the transfer of the Narbonese province to the Senate _Gallia comata_ was divided into three districts; Aquitania, Lugdunensis and Belgica, which, however, during the lifetime of Augustus, formed an administrative unity, under one governor with subordinate _legati_ in each district. The colony of Lugdunum was the seat of the administration, as well as of the imperial cult. No attempt was made to latinize the three Gauls by the founding of Roman colonies; but they remained divided into sixty-four separate peoples, called _civitates_, with a tribal organization under the control of a native nobility. As early as 27 B. C. Augustus took a census in Gaul, and on this basis fixed its tax obligations. The rich lands of Gaul were as important a source of imperial revenue as its vigorous population was of recruits for the Roman auxiliary forces.

But the Gauls were restive under their new burdens and were in addition liable to be stirred up by the Germanic tribes who came from across the Rhine. An invading horde of Sugambri in 16 B. C. defeated a Roman army and, upon a renewed inroad by the same people in 12 B. C., Augustus determined to cross the Rhine and secure the frontier of Gaul by the subjugation of the Germans to the north. The Germans, like the Gauls at the time of the Roman conquest, were divided into a number of independent tribes usually at enmity with one another and hence incapable of forming a lasting combination against a common foe. Individually they were powerful and courageous, but their military efficiency was impaired by their lack of unity and discipline.

Drusus, conqueror of the Raeti, was appointed to command the Roman army of invasion. He first secured the Rhine frontier by the construction of a line of fortresses stretching from Vindonissa (near Basle) to Castra Vetera (near Xanten), the latter of which, with Mogontiacum (Mainz) were his chief bases. Then, crossing the river, in four campaigns (12–9 B. C.) he overran and subjugated the territory between the Rhine and the Elbe. His operations were greatly aided by his fleet, for which he constructed a canal from the Rhine to the Zuider Zee, and which facilitated the conquest of the coast peoples, among them the Batavi, who became firm Roman allies. On the return march from the Elbe in 9 B. C., Drusus was fatally injured by a fall from his horse. His brother Tiberius succeeded him in command and strengthened the Roman hold on the transrhenene conquests. Drusus was buried in Rome, whither Tiberius escorted his corpse on foot, and was honored with the name Germanicus.

*Illyricum and Thrace.* To the east of the Adriatic the Roman provinces of Illyricum and Macedonia were subject to constant incursions of the Pannonians, Getae (or Dacians) and Bastarnae, peoples settled in the middle and lower Danube valley. Marcus Licinius Crassus, Governor of Macedonia, in 30 and 29 B. C. defeated the Getae and Bastarnae, crossed the Balkans, carried the Roman arms to the Danube and subdued the Moesi to the south of that river. However, it required a considerable time before the various Thracian tribes were finally subdued and a client kingdom under the Thracian prince Cotys was interposed between Macedonia and the lower Danube. Meantime, the Pannonians had been conquered in a number of hard fought campaigns which were brought to a successful conclusion by Tiberius (12–9 B. C.) who made the Drave the Roman boundary. The contemporaneous conquest of Pannonia and of Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe was one of the greatest feats of Roman arms and reveals the army of the empire at the height of its discipline and organization. In 13 B. C., during a lull in these frontier struggles, the Senate voted the erection of an altar to the peace of Augustus (the _ara pacis Augustae_), in grateful recognition of his maintenance of peace within the empire.

*The revolt of Illyricum and Germany.* For several years following the death of Drusus no further conquests were attempted until 4 A. D., when Tiberius was again appointed to command the army of the Rhine. After assuring himself of the allegiance of the Germans by a demonstration as far as the Elbe and by the establishment of fortified posts, he prepared to complete the northern boundary by the conquest of the kingdom of the Marcomanni, in modern Bohemia, between the Elbe and the Danube. In 6 A. D. Tiberius was on the point of advancing northward from the Danube, in coöperation with Gaius Saturninus, who was to move eastwards from the Rhine, when a revolt broke out in Illyricum which forced the abandonment of the undertaking and the conclusion of peace with Marbod, the king of the Marcomanni. The revolt, in which both Pannonians and Dalmatians joined, was caused by the severity of the Roman exactions, especially the levies for the army. For a moment Italy trembled in fear of an invasion; in the raising of new legions even freedmen were called into service. But the arrival of reinforcements from other provinces enabled Tiberius after three years of ruthless warfare to utterly crush the desperate resistance of the rebels (9 A. D.). The organization of Pannonia as a separate province followed the reëstablishment of peace.

Until the last year of the war in Illyricum the Germanic tribes had remained quiet under Roman overlordship. But in 9 A. D., provoked by the attempt of the new Roman commander, Publius Quinctilius Varus, to subject them to stricter control, they united to free themselves from foreign rule. In the coalition the Cherusci and Chatti were the chief peoples, and Arminius, a young chieftain of the Cherusci, was its leading spirit. Varus and his army of three legions were surprised on the march in the Teutoberg Forest and completely annihilated. Rome was in panic over the news, but the Germans did not follow up their initial success. Tiberius was again sent to the post of danger and vindicated the honor of Rome by two successful expeditions across the Rhine. But no attempt was made to recover permanently the lost ground. The frontier of the Elbe was given up for that of the Rhine with momentous consequences for the future of the empire and of Europe. The coast peoples, however, remained Roman allies and a narrow strip of territory was held on the right bank of the Rhine. The reason lay in the weakness of the Roman military organization, caused by the strain of the Illyrian revolt and the difficulty of finding recruits for the Roman legions among the Italians. The cry of Augustus, “Quinctilius Varus, give back my legions,” gives the clue to his abandonment of Germany.

*The eastern frontier.* In the East alone was Rome confronted by a power which was in any way a match for her military strength and which had disastrously defeated two Roman invasions. The conquest of this, the Parthian kingdom, appeared to Augustus to offer no compensation comparable to the exertions it would entail and therefore he determined to rest content with such a reassertion of Roman supremacy in the Near East as would wipe out the shame of the defeats of Crassus and Antony and guarantee Roman territory from Parthian attack. He was prepared to accept the natural frontier of the Euphrates as the eastern boundary of Roman territory. Between the Roman provinces in Asia Minor and the upper Euphrates lay a number of client kingdoms, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, and Commagene. At the death of Amyntas, king of Galatia, in 25 B. C., his kingdom was made into a province, but the others were left under their native dynasts. Across the Euphrates lay Armenia, a buffer state between the Roman possessions and Parthia, which was of strategic importance because it commanded the military routes between Asia Minor and the heart of the Parthian country. To establish a protectorate over Armenia was therefore the ambition of both Rome and Parthia. During the presence of Augustus in the East (22–19 B. C.), Tiberius placed a Roman nominee on the Armenian throne, and received from the Parthian king, Phraates IV, the Roman standards and captives in Parthian hands, a success which earned Augustus the salutation of _imperator_ from his troops. Later Phraates sent four of his sons as hostages to Rome. But the Roman protectorate over Armenia was by no means permanent; its supporters had soon to give way to the Parthian party. Gaius Caesar between 1 B. C. and 2 A. D. restored Roman influence, but again the Parthians got the upper hand and held it until 9 A. D., when Phraates was overthrown and was succeeded by one of his sons whom Augustus sent from Rome at the request of the Parthians.

*Judaea and Arabia.* To the south of the Roman province of Syria lay the kingdom of Judaea, ruled by Herod until his death in 4 B. C., when it was divided among his sons. Subsequently Judaea proper was made a province administered by a Roman procurator. To the east of the Dead Sea was the kingdom of the Nabataean Arabs, who controlled the caravan routes of the Arabian peninsula and who were firm Roman allies. With their aid a Roman army under Aelius Gallus in 25 B. C. sought to penetrate into the rich spice land of Arabia Felix, but suffered such losses in its march across the desert that it was forced to return without effecting a conquest. At the same time Gaius Petronius defeated the Ethiopians under Queen Candace and secured the southern frontier of Egypt. Through the ports of Egypt on the Red Sea a brisk trade developed with India, from which distant land embassies on various occasions came to Augustus. Further west in Africa, Augustus added the kingdom of Numidia to the province of Africa, and transferred its ruler, Juba II, whose wife was Cleopatra, daughter of Antony the triumvir, to the kingdom of Mauretania (25 B. C.).

The conquests of Augustus established in their essential features the future boundaries of the Roman Empire. At his death he left it as a maxim of state for his successor to abstain from further expansion.

VI. THE ADMINISTRATION OF ROME

*The problem of police.* One of the great problems which had confronted the Roman government from the time of the Gracchi was the policing of Rome and the suppression of mob violence. To a certain extent the establishment of the praetorian guard served to overawe the city mob, although only three of its cohorts were at first stationed in the city. As a supplement to the praetorians Augustus organized three urban cohorts, each originally 1500 strong, who ranked between the legionaries and praetorians. Between 12 and 7 B. C. the city was divided for administrative purposes into fourteen regions, subdivided into 265 _vici_ or wards. Each region was put in charge of a tribune or aedile. A force of six hundred slaves under the two curule aediles was formed as a fire brigade. But as these proved ineffective in 6 A. D. Augustus created a corps of _vigiles_ to serve as a fire brigade and night watch. This corps consisted of seven cohorts, one for every two regions, and was under the command of an equestrian prefect of the watch (_praefectus vigilum_).

*The Annona.* Another vital problem was the provision of an adequate supply of grain for the city. A famine in 22 B. C. produced so serious a situation that the Senate was forced to call upon Augustus to assume the responsibility for this branch of the administration. At first he tried to meet the situation through the appointment of curators of senatorial rank, but after 6 A. D. he created the office of prefect of the grain supply, filled by an equestrian appointee of the princeps. His duty was to see that there was an adequate supply of grain on hand for the market at a reasonable price and in addition to make the monthly distribution of free grain to the city plebs. The number of recipients of this benefit was fixed at 200,000.

In this way Augustus was forced to take over one of the spheres of the government which he had intended should remain under the direction of the Senate and to witness himself the first step towards the breakdown of the administrative dyarchy which he had created.

VII. THE PROBLEM OF THE SUCCESSION

*The policy of Augustus.* In theory the position of the princeps was that of a magistrate who derived his powers from the Senate and the Roman people, and hence the choice of his successor legally lay in their hands. However, Augustus realized that to leave the field open to rival candidates would inevitably lead to a recrudescence of civil war. Therefore he determined to designate his own successor and to make the latter’s appointment a matter beyond dispute. Furthermore, his own career as the son and heir of Julius Caesar warned him that this heir to the principate must be found within his own household, and his precarious health was a constant reminder that he could not await the approach of old age before settling this problem. And so, from the early years of his office, he arranged the matrimonial alliances of his kinsfolk in the interests of the state without regard to their personal preferences, to the end that in the event of his decease there would be a member of the Julian house prepared to assume his laborious task. Yet the unexpected length of his life caused Augustus to outlive many of those whom he from time to time looked upon as the heirs to his position in the state.

*Marcus Marcellus and Agrippa.* Augustus had one daughter Julia, by his second wife Scribonia. He had no sons, but Livia Drusilla, whom he took as his third wife in 36 B. C., brought him two stepsons, Tiberius and Drusus. Yet not one of these but his nephew, Marcus Marcellus, was his first choice for a successor. Marcellus received Julia as his wife in 25 B. C., the next year at the age of nineteen he was admitted to the Senate, and in 23 B. C., as aedile, he won the favor of the populace by his magnificent public shows. When Marcellus died in 23 B. C., Augustus turned to his loyal adherent Agrippa, to whom Julia was now wedded. In 18 B. C. Agrippa received proconsular _imperium_ and the _tribunicia potestas_ for five years, powers that were reconferred with those of Augustus in 13 B. C.

*Tiberius.* But in the next year Agrippa died, and Augustus, regarding his eldest stepson Tiberius, the conqueror of Noricum, as the one best qualified to succeed himself, forced him to divorce the wife to whom he was devoted and to marry Julia. At that time he was given the important Illyrian command and in 6 B. C. the tribunician authority was granted him for a five year term. But Tiberius, recognizing that he was soon to be set aside for the two elder sons of Agrippa and Julia, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, whom Augustus had adopted and taken into his own house, and being disgusted with the flagrant unfaithfulness of Julia, retired into private life at Rhodes, thereby incurring the deep enmity of his stepfather.

*Gaius and Lucius Caesar.* Gaius and Lucius Caesar assumed the garb of manhood (the _toga virilis_) at the age of fifteen in 5 and 2 B. C., respectively. To celebrate each occasion Augustus held the consulship, and placed them at the head of the equestrian order with the title _principes iuventutis_. They were exempted from the limitations of the _cursus honorum_ so that each might hold the consulate in his twentieth year. In 1 A. D. Gaius was sent to the East with proconsular imperium to settle fresh trouble in Armenia. There in the siege of a petty fortress he received a wound from which he died in 4 A. D. Two years previously Lucius had fallen a victim to fever while on his way to Spain. In the meantime Augustus had experienced another blow in his discovery of the scandalous conduct of Julia. Her guilt was the more unpardonable in view of the efforts of her father to restore the moral tone of society. She was banished to the island rock of Pandataria, her companions in crime were punished, the most with banishment, one with death on a charge of treason (1 B. C.). Her elder daughter, also called Julia, later met the same fate for a like offence.

*Tiberius.* At the death of Gaius Caesar, Augustus turned once more to Tiberius, who had been permitted to leave Rhodes at the intercession of Livia. In 4 A. D. he was adopted by Augustus and received the _tribunicia potestas_ for ten years. In 13 A. D. his tribunician power was renewed and he was made the colleague of Augustus in the _imperium_. Tiberius himself had been obliged to adopt his nephew Germanicus, the son of Drusus, who married Agrippina, the younger daughter of Agrippa and Julia. Association in authority and adoption where necessary had become the means of designating the successor in the principate.

VIII. AUGUSTUS AS A STATESMAN

*The death of Augustus.* In 14 A. D. Augustus held a census of the Roman citizens in the empire. They numbered 4,937,000, an increase of 826,000 since 28 B. C. In the same year he set up in Rome an inscription recording his exploits and the sums which he had expended in the interests of the state. A copy of this has been found inscribed on the walls of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, and hence is known as the Monument of Ancyra. On 19 August, 14 A. D., Augustus died at Nola in Campania, at the age of seventy-six.

*An estimate of his statesmanship.* Opinions have differed and probably always will differ upon the question whether or not Augustus sought to establish a disguised form of monarchical government. Still, in his favor stands the fact that, although when a young man confronted or allied with rivals who sought his destruction he seized power by illegal means, after the fate of the state was in his hands and he had reëstablished an orderly form of government, he conscientiously restricted himself to the use of the powers which were legally conferred upon him. So ably did he conciliate public opinion that the few conspiracies formed against his life and power had no serious backing and constituted no real danger to himself or his system. To have effected so important a change in the constitution with so little friction is proof of a statesmanship of a high order.

His principate marks the beginning of a new epoch in Roman history and determined the course of the subsequent political development of the empire. And the system he inaugurated finds its greatest justification in the era of the _pax Romana_ which it ushered in.

*The weakness of his system.* Yet it must be admitted that this system contained two innate weaknesses. Firstly, it was built up around the personality of Augustus, who could trust himself not to abuse his great power, and secondly, the princeps, as commander-in-chief of the Roman army, was immeasurably more powerful than the second partner in the administration, the Senate, and able to assert his will against all opposition. Now, as has well been observed, the working of the principate depended upon the coöperation of the Senate and the self-restraint of the emperors, consequently, when the former proved incapable and the latter abused their power, the inevitable consequence was an autocracy. That Augustus realized this himself towards the end of his life is highly probable, yet as the one who brought order out of chaos and gave peace to an exhausted world his name will always be one of the greatest in the history of Rome or indeed of the human race.