Part 872

With this exception he assumed no new symbol of monarchic power, but was satisfied with the old official titles, which, though charged with memories of the Republic, yet singly corresponded to some side or fragment of absolute authority. The first of these was Imperator, which served to connect him with the army. … The title of the tribunician power connected the monarch with the interests of the lower orders. … The Emperor did not, indeed, assume the tribunate, but was vested with the tribunician power which overshadowed the annual holders of the office. It made his person sacred. … The 'princeps senatus' in old days had been the foremost senator of his time. … No one but the Emperor could fill this position safely, and he assumed the name henceforth to connect him with the Senate, as other titles seemed to bind him to the army and the people. For the post of Supreme Pontiff, Augustus was content to wait awhile, until it passed by death from the feeble hands of Lepidus. He then claimed the exclusive tenure of the office, and after this time Pontifex Maximus was always added to the long list of imperial titles. … Besides these titles to which he assumed an exclusive right he also filled occasionally and for short periods most of the republican offices of higher rank, both in the capital and in the country towns. He took from time to time the consular power, with its august traditions and imposing ceremonial. The authority of censor lay ready to his hands when a moral reform was to be set on foot, … or when the Senate was to be purged of unworthy members and the order of equites or knights to be reviewed and its dignity consulted. Beyond the capital the pro-consular power was vested in him without local limitations. … The offices of state at Rome, meantime, lasted on from the Republic to the Empire, unchanged in name, and with little seeming change of functions. Consuls, Prætors, Quæstors, Tribunes, and Ædiles rose from the same classes as before, and moved for the most part in the same round of work, though they had lost for ever their power of initiative and real control. … They were now mainly the nominees of Cæsar, though the forms of popular election were still for a time observed. … The consulship was entirely reserved for his nominees, but passed rapidly from hand to hand, since in order to gratify a larger number it was granted at varying intervals for a few months only. … It was part of the policy of Augustus to disturb as little as possible the old names and forms of the Republic. … But besides these he set up a number of new offices, often of more real power, though of lower rank. … The name præfectus, the 'préfêt' of modern France, stood in earlier days for the deputy of any officer of state charged specially to execute some definite work. The præfects of Cæsar were his servants, named by him and responsible to him, set to discharge duties which the old constitution had commonly ignored. The præfect of the city had appeared in shadowy form under the Republic to represent the consul in his absence. Augustus felt the need, when called away from Rome, to have some one there whom he could trust to watch the jealous nobles and control the fickle mob. His trustiest confidants, Mæcenas and Agrippa, filled the post, and it became a standing office, with a growing sphere of competence, overtopping the magistracies of earlier date. The præfects of the prætorian cohorts first appeared when the Senate formally assigned a body-guard to Augustus later in his reign. …

See PRÆTORIAN PRÆFECTS.

Next to these in power and importance came the præfects of the watch—the new police force organised by Augustus as a protection against the dangers of the night, and of the corn supplies of Rome, which were always an object of especial care on the part of the imperial government. … The title 'procurator,' which has come down to us in the form of 'proctor,' was at first mainly a term of civil law, and was used for a financial agent or attorney. The officers so called were regarded at the first as stewards of the Emperor's property or managers of his private business. … The agents of the Emperor's privy purse throughout the provinces were called by the same title, but were commonly of higher rank and more repute. Such in its bare outline was the executive of the imperial government. We have next to see what was the position of the Senate. … It was one of the first cares of Augustus to restore its credit. At the risk of odium and personal danger he more than once revised the list, and purged it of unworthy members, summoning eminent provincials in their place. … The functions also of the Senate were in theory enlarged. … But the substance of power and independence had passed away from it forever. Matters of great moment were debated first, not in the Senate House, but in a sort of Privy Council formed by the trusted advisers of the Emperor. … {2701} If we now turn our thoughts from the centre to the provinces we shall find that the imperial system brought with it more sweeping changes and more real improvement. … Augustus left to the Senate the nominal control of the more peaceful provinces, which needed little military force. … The remaining countries, called imperial provinces, were ruled by generals, called 'legati,' or in some few cases by proctors only. They held office during the good pleasure of their master. … There are signs that the imperial provinces were better ruled, and that the transference of a country to this class from the other was looked upon as a real boon, and not as an empty honour. Such in its chief features was the system of Augustus. … This was his constructive policy, and on the value of this creative work his claims to greatness must be based."

_W. W. Capes, Roman History: The Early Empire, chapter 1._

"The arrangement undoubtedly satisfied the requirements of the moment. It saved, at least in appearance, the integrity of the republic, while at the same time it recognised and legalised the authority of the man, who was already by common consent 'master of all things'; and this it effected without any formal alteration of the constitution, without, the creation of any new office, and by means of the old constitutional machinery of senate and assembly. But it was an arrangement avowedly of an exceptional and temporary character. The powers voted to Augustus were, like those voted to Pompey in 67 B. C., voted only to him, and, with the exception of the tribunician power, voted only for a limited time. No provision was made for the continuance of the arrangement, after his death, in favour of any other person. And though in fact the powers first granted to Augustus were granted in turn to each of the long line of Roman Cæsars, the temporary and provisional character impressed upon the 'principate' at its birth clung to it throughout. When the princeps for the time being died or was deposed, it was always in theory an open question whether any other citizen should be invested with the powers he had held. Who the man should be, or how he should be chosen, were questions which it was left to circumstances to answer, and even the powers to be assigned to him were, strictly speaking, determined solely by the discretion of the senate and people in each case. It is true that necessity required that some one must always be selected to fill the position first given to Augustus; that accidents, such as kinship by blood or adoption to the last emperor, military ability, popularity with the soldiers or the senate, determined the selection; and that usage decided that the powers conferred upon the selected person should be in the main those conferred upon Augustus. But to the last the Roman emperor was legally merely a citizen whom the senate and people had freely invested with an exceptional authority for special reasons. Unlike the ordinary sovereign, he did not inherit a great office by an established law of succession; and in direct contrast to the modern maxim that 'the king never dies,' it has been well said that the Roman 'principate,' died with the princeps. Of the many attempts made to get rid of this irregular, intermittent character, none were completely successful, and the inconveniences and dangers resulting from it are apparent throughout the history of the empire."

_H. F. Pelham, Outlines of Roman History, book 5, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _W. T. Arnold, The Roman System of Provincial Administration, chapter 3._

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapters 30-34 (volume 3-4)._

ROME: B. C. 16-15 Conquest of Rhætia.

See RHÆTIA.

ROME: B. C. 12-9. Campaigns of Drusus in Germany.

See GERMANY: B. C. 12-9.

ROME: B. C. 8-A. D. 11. Campaigns of Tiberius in Germany.

See GERMANY: B. C. 8-A. D. 11.

ROME: A. D. 14-16. Campaigns of Germanicus in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 14-16.

ROME: A. D. 14-37. Reign of Tiberius. Increasing vices and cruelties of his rule. Campaigns of Germanicus in Germany. His death. The Delatores and their victims. Malignant ascendancy of Sejanus. The Prætorians quartered at Rome.

Augustus had one child only, a daughter, Julia, who was brought to him by his second wife Scribonia; but on his last marriage, with Livia, divorced wife of Tiberius Claudius Nero (divorced by his command), he had adopted her two sons, Tiberius and Drusus. He gave his daughter Julia in marriage, first, to his nephew, Marcellus, the son of his sister Octavia, by her first husband, C. Marcellus. But Marcellus soon died, without offspring, and Julia became the spouse of the emperor's friend and counsellor, Agrippa, to whom she bore three sons, Caius, Lucius, and Agrippa Posthumus (all of whom died before the end of the life of Augustus), and two daughters. Thus the emperor was left with no male heir in his own family, and the imperial succession fell to his adopted son Tiberius—the eldest son of his wife Livia and of her first husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero. There were suspicions that Livia had some agency in bringing about the several deaths which cleared her son's way to the throne. When Augustus died, Tiberius was "in his 56th year, or at least at the close of the 55th. … He had by this time acquired a perfect mastery in dissembling his lusts, and his mistrust. … He was anxious to appear as a moral man, while in secret he abandoned himself to lusts and debaucheries of every kind. … In accordance with this character, Tiberius now played the farce which is so admirably but painfully described by Tacitus; he declined accepting the imperium, and made the senate beg and intreat him to accept it for the sake of the public good. In the end Tiberius yielded, inasmuch as he compelled the senate to oblige him to undertake the government. This painful scene forms the beginning of Tacitus' Annals. The early part of his reign is marked by insurrections among the troops in Pannonia and on the Rhine. … Drusus [the son of Tiberius] quelled the insurrection in Illyricum, and Germanicus [the emperor's nephew, son of his brother Drusus, who had died in Germany, B. C. 9], that on the Rhine; but, notwithstanding this, it was in reality the government that was obliged to yield. … The reign of Tiberius, which lasted for 23 years, that is till A. D. 37, is by no means rich in events; the early period of it only is celebrated for the wars of Germanicus in Germany. … The war of Germanicus was carried into Germany as far as the river Weser [see GERMANY. A. D. 14-16], and it is surprising to see that the Romans thought it necessary to employ such numerous armies against tribes which had no fortified towns. … {2702} The history of his reign after the German wars becomes more and more confined to the interior and to his family. He had an only son, Drusus, by his first wife Agrippina; and Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus, was adopted by him. Drusus must have been a young man deserving of praise; but Germanicus was the adored darling of the Roman people, and with justice: he was the worthy son of a worthy father, the hero of the German wars. … Germanicus had declined the sovereignty, which his legions had offered to him after the death of Augustus, and he remained faithful to his adopted father, although he certainly could not love him. Tiberius, however, had no faith in virtue, because he himself was destitute of it; he therefore mistrusted Germanicus, and removed him from his victorious legions." He sent him "to superintend the eastern frontiers and provinces. On his arrival there he was received with the same enthusiasm as at Rome; but he died very soon afterwards, whether by a natural death or by poison is a question upon which the ancients themselves are not agreed. … In the reign of Augustus, any offence against the person of the imperator had, by some law with which we are not further acquainted, been made a 'crimen majestatis,' as though it had been committed against the republic itself. This 'crimen' in its undefined character was a fearful thing; for hundreds of offences might be made to come within the reach of the law concerning it. All these deplorable cases were tried by the senate, which formed a sort of condemning machine set in motion by the tyrant, just like the national convention under Robespierre. … In the early part of Tiberius' reign, these prosecutions occurred very rarely; but there gradually arose a numerous class of denouncers ('delatores'), who made it their business to bring to trial anyone whom the emperor disliked."

See DELATION.—DELATORS).

This was after the death of the emperor's mother, Livia, whom he feared, and who restrained his worst propensities. After her influence was removed, "his dark and tyrannical nature got the upper hand: the hateful side of his character became daily more developed, and his only enjoyment was the indulgence of his detestable lust. … His only friend was Aelius Sejanus, a man of equestrian rank. … His character bore the greatest resemblance to that of his sovereign, who raised him to the office of præfectus praetorio. … Sejanus increased the number of the praetorian cohorts, and persuaded Tiberius to concentrate them in the neighbourhood of Rome, in the 'castrum praetorianum,' which formed us it were the citadel outside the wall of Servius Tullius, but in the midst of the present city. The consequences of this measure render it one of the most important events in Roman history; for the praetorians now became the real sovereigns, and occupied a position similar to that which the Janissaries obtained in Algeria: they determined the fate of the empire until the reign of Diocletian. …

See PRÆTORIAN GUARDS.

The influence of Sejanus over Tiberius increased every day, and he contrived to inspire his imperial friend with sufficient confidence to go to the island of Capreae. While Tiberius was there indulging in his lusts, Sejanus remained at Rome and governed as his vicegerent. … Prosecutions were now instituted against all persons of any consequence at Rome; the time when Tiberius left the capital is the beginning of the fearful annals of his reign." The tyrannical proceedings of Sejanus "continued for a number of years, until at length he himself incurred the suspicion of Tiberius," and was put out of the way. "But a man worse even than he succeeded; this was Macro, who had none of the great qualities of Sejanus, but only analogous vices. … The butchery at Rome even increased. … Caius Caesar, the son of Germanicus, commonly known by the name of Caligula, formed with Macro a connexion of the basest kind, and promised him the high post of 'praefectus praetorio' if he would assist him in getting rid of the aged monarch. Tiberius was at the time severely ill at a villa near cape Misenum. He fell into a state of lethargy, and everybody believed him to be dead. He came to life again however; on which he was suffocated, or at least his death was accelerated in some way, for our accounts differ on this point. Thus Tiberius died in the 23d year of his reign, A. D. 37, at the age of 78."

_B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lectures 111-112 (volume 3)._

ALSO IN: _Tacitus, Annals, books 1-6._

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapters 42-46 (volume 5)._

ROME: A. D. 37-41. Reign of Caligula, the first of the imperial madmen.