a prediction that would prove prophetic.
But what was the nature of the regime that Augustus established? My own view is that Augustus was decidedly the sole ruler of the Roman world. To sum up my findings, Augustus’s position depended on the following factors:
Duly authorized maius imperium, initially as a consul and then later as a proconsul, enabling Augustus to override any other magistrate, including a consul;
Duly authorized tribunician power, with the wide powers described above;
The support of the urban plebs as their effective patron;
The support of the equites;
Auctoritas (influence) stemming from his connections and achievements;
The support of the army, which, however, was not the mainstay of his power;
Amicitia, a wide-ranging network of people linked to Augustus as their individual patronus or simply as amici, some of whom he would consult either formally, in the form of a consilium (council), or informally, inter amicos (among friends) but who had no decision-making powers. Contrary to Ronald Syme, this group did not constitute a party or an oligarchy of any kind (see below); and
Money: Augustus inherited Julius Caesar’s fortune to which he added the treasure of Egypt and other conquests. From this great fortune, which he had amassed, he was able to make lavish gifts to the people of Rome and others as is documented in the Res Gestae Divi Augusti. (See above.)
From Tiberius to Diocletian
For three centuries after the death of Augustus, the trend was toward greater autocracy on the part of the emperor together with a decline of the old aristocracy and recruitment to the Senate from an ever-widening circle both geographical and social. The ancient sources attribute the changes in the Senate to the deliberate policy of “bad” emperors like Tiberius, Domitian, Commodus and Septimius Severus. Modern writers tend to stress demographic factors. Thus, Mason Hammond: “The chief and continuing factor which necessitated the introduction of fresh blood into the Senate must have been a failure on the part of the old senatorial families adequately to perpetuate themselves.” (Hammond 1957, p. 75.)
The low level of reproduction of the old senatorial families has probably been exaggerated because we know that it was imperial policy from the start to broaden the scope of recruitment. The Emperor Claudius (r. 41–54), for example, forced the resignation of a number of senators who no longer met the property qualification, and at the same time, he promoted the admission of senators from Gaul. In proposing the admission of Gallic senators in a famous speech to the Senate (preserved in the bronze Lyon Tablet), a different version of which was reported by Tacitus, Claudius made a point of mentioning that both Augustus and Tiberius had encouraged recruitment to the Senate of men of wealth and breeding from the provinces. Interestingly enough, Claudius’s speech was interrupted with cries to the effect that “Italy is not so weak as to be unable to provide its own capital city with a senate.” Yet the Senate nevertheless passed a decree approving the emperor’s policy. (Tacitus, Annals, 11.23; Sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/48claudius.asp.) A number of detailed prosopographical researches were neatly summarised by Mason Hammond, showing that, of those senators whose origin is known, the proportion of provincials (i.e. non-Italians) increased steadily (with a couple of minor blips) as follows:
Vespasian (r. 69–79)—16.8%
Domitian (r. 81–96)—23.4%
Trajan (r. 98–117)—34.2%
Hadrian (r. 117–138)—43.6%
Antoninus Pius (r. 138–161)—42.5%
Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180)—45.6%
Commodus (r. 180–192)—44.7%
Septimius Severus (r. 193–211) and Caracalla (r. 198–217)—57.4%
Elagabalus (r. 218–222) and Severus Alexander (r. 222–235)—52.5%
Third Century—56%
(Hammond 1957, Ibid.)
Under Vespasian, therefore, provincials made up only one-sixth of senators of known origin. There is a major jump under Trajan, and from the end of the second century provincials made up more than half the senators of known origin.
According to Pierre Lambrechts, (as modified by Syme), in the period between 117 and 192, no fewer than 48 percent of consulares (ex-consuls) and presumably an even higher proportion of senators of lower grades were of non-senatorial and indeed provincial origin. (Pierrre Lambrechts 1936, l; Review by Syme 1937, p. 271 f.) It is important to note that Trajan was himself a provincial, from Spain, and practically all subsequent emperors were also provincials.
The ever-widening circle of senators, from whom most provincial governors were drawn, was an important reason for the stability and general tranquillity of the Roman Empire over a long period. In keeping with this trend, in the year 212, the Emperor Caracalla extended Roman citizenship to all inhabitants of the Roman world by means of the so-called Constitutio Antoniniana.
Augustus himself was already clearly the sole ruler of the Roman Empire, as we have seen, although he was anxious not to make this fact too obvious for fear of offending the element which had assassinated his adoptive father, Julius Caesar. Later emperors had no such qualms. The jurist Ulpian (170–228) famously declared, Princeps legibus solutus est (The emperor is exempt from the laws or The emperor is not bound by the laws) although this is sometimes interpreted to refer only to the marriage laws. That narrow interpretation is almost certainly wrong because the historian Cassius Dio (155–235) makes it clear that the phrase legibus solutus exempts the emperor from all laws, but he dates this back to 24 BCE in the reign of Augustus, which, if true, is certainly not mentioned by either Tacitus or Suetonius.
Another similar and equally famous formulation of imperial power, which is attributable to Ulpian, is, “Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem” (What pleases the emperor has the force of law), which is said to derive from the Lex de Imperio (the law defining an emperor’s power on his accession).
Can such sweeping powers be traced back to the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani, the law defining the powers of Vespasian, on his accession in the year 69? Unfortunately, only the latter part of the inscription promulgating this law has survived. This law provides that any candidate for a magistracy or other position of importance who is “commended” by the emperor shall be given “special consideration”. There is also a blanket clause giving the emperor the “right and power” to execute anything that he considers to be “…in accordance with the public advantage and the dignity of divine and human and public and private interests” just as Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius had done. The exact scope of this power is not clear, but it is significant that it is said to have belonged to Augustus as well, and it would presumably have been granted to all subsequent emperors. (Ancient Roman Statutes, 1961, p. 149 f.)
The well-known story about how Claudius became emperor is instructive. On the assassination of Claudius’s nephew, the Emperor Gaius (Caligula) in the year 41, Claudius was cowering behind a curtain, when a common soldier, seeing Claudius’s feet protruding below the curtain, pulled him out and recognized him. Claudius, fearing the worst, fell at his feet in supplication only to find
