Table Of ContentStudies in
ROMAN GOVERNMENT
AND LAW
By A. H. M. JONES
BARNES & N O B LE
N EW Y O RK
1968
Basil Blackwell & Mott Ltd.» i960
First printed i960
Reprinted 1968
PRINTED IN
GREAT BRITAIN
PREFACE
S
EVEN of the articles contained in this book have been
previously published elsewhere; I have made a few alterations
and additions where new evidence has confirmed or modified
my views, or for the sake of consistency or completeness. Two,
the second and seventh, are new, and another, the eighth, is
substantially new, being a radical revision of what I wrote in the
Journal of Roman Studies, XXVI (1936), pp. 223-35. They have
been assembled because they have a certain unity in that they are
all concerned with the constitutional law and practice of the
Roman Empire, and all endeavour to trace the continuity of the
institutions of the late Republic with those of the Principate.
The first two deal with the basic constitutional powers of
Augustus and their Republican precedents, the third with the
modification of the old electoral system under the new regime.
The fourth and fifth trace the evolution of jurisdiction from the
Republican to the Imperial system. The sixth and seventh deal
similarly with the development of the financial system and
provincial administration. The eighth and ninth treat the legal
status of the provincials and of provincial, land during both
periods. The last traces the evolution of the civil service from the
Republic to the age of Justinian.
I have to thank the editors of Studies presented to David Moore
Robinson and the editors otHistoria for allowing me to republish
the fourth and fifth articles in this book. I owe a particular debt
of gratitude to the Roman Society for permission to reproduce
no less than five articles (the first, third, sixth, ninth and tenth in
this book) published in the Journal of Roman Studies. Finally I
must thank Sir Basil Blackwell for once again venturing to
republish articles of mine.
Jesus College A. H. M. JONES
CAMBRIDGE
October, 1959
CONTENTS
Pages
L THE IMPERIUM OF AUGUSTUS . . . 1-17
{Journal of Roman Studies, XLI (1951)' PP- I I 2 ~
IL TUB CENSORIAL POWERS OF AUGUSTUS . 19-26
III. THE ELECTIONS UNDER AUGUSTUS . . 27-50
{Journal of Roman Studies, XLV (i955)> PP- 9-
21)
IV. 'I APPEAL UNTO CAESAR* . . . 51-65
{Studies presented to David Moore Robinson, II,
pp. 918-30)
V. IMPERIAL AND SENATORIAL JURISDICTION IN THE
EARLY PRINCIPATB . . .. 67-98
{Historia, III (i95S)> pp« 4<*4-88)
VI. THE AERARIUM AND THE RSCUS . . 99-"4
{Journal of Roman Studies, XL (1950), PP- 22-9)
VII. PROCURATORS AND PREFECTS IN THE EARLY
PRINCIPATB . 115-125
VIIL THE DEDITICH AND THE CONSTITUTIO
ANTONINIANA . . .. 127-140
IX. 'IN EO SOLO DOMINIVM POPVLI ROMANI EST VEL
CAESARIS' • . • . .141-149
(Journal of Roman Studies, XXXI (1941)»
pp. 26-31)
vii
viii CONTENTS
Pages
X. THE ROMAN CivrL SERVICE (CLERICAL AND SUB-
CLERICAL GRADES) . • . .151-175
Journal of Roman Studies, XXXIX (1949)»
PP* 38-55)
NOTES . . . . .. 177-216
INDEX OF PASSAGES CITED . . .. 217-239
GENERAL INDEX . . . .. 241-243
1
THE 1MPERIUM OF AUGUSTUS
The Imperium of Augustus
T
HERE has been a tendency among some modern scholars
to regard the constitutional position of Augustus as of
negligible importance. This is a natural reaction from the
excessive legalism of Mommsen and his school, and has had
valuable results in elucidating extra-constitutional elements in the
position of the first Princeps, such as his outstanding auctoritas
and his huge clientele I do not think however that we can lightly
brush aside the constitutional basis of his power, I do not wish to
suggest that the restored Republic was intended to be genuine, or
even that Augustus meant to share his power with the Senate and
People: never for one moment did he part with his control over
the great bulk of the legions. But I would suggest he would not
have created the elaborate facade of Republican legitimacy, and
moreover have subjected his original scheme to at least one
radical revision, unless there had been some important element in
the State to which the constitution mattered, and mattered so
profoundly that its dissatisfaction would endanger the stability
of the regime.
This element was not, I think, primarily the nobility. They
were too hard boiled to be put off by Augustus* sham Republic,
and it was not the Republic that they so much lamented as their
lost power. Moreover they had been decimated in the Civil
Wars, and Augustus never trusted what was left of them: they
did not hold high military commands as his legatL For them the
restored Republic only meant that they could without loss of
self respect hold office under the new regime and thus maintain
their ancestral dignity. Nor do I think that it was the Roman
People, if by this is meant thcplebs urbana: the events of Augustus'
reign prove that they wanted a popular dictatorship like Caesar's,
3
4 I. THE IMPERIUM
and from time to time they broke out, demanding that Augustus
accept a life4ong consulship or dictatorship. Nor was it the rank
and file of the army, who followed him because he was Caesar's
son, and were to continue for generations to give blind allegiance
to any Caesar, even a Nero. Who then were the republicans?
The greatest republican constitutionalist of the last days of the
Republic was Cicero, a new man from an Italian town*. Velleius
Paterculus, the enthusiastic panegyrist of the restored Republic,
came from an Italian family enfranchised in the Social War.
Livy, the Pompeian historian, who glorified the stern fathers of
the Republic, came from Padua. If we look a little later, Thrasea
Paetus and his fellow admirers of Brutus and Cassius were worthy
bourgeois from the municipia et coloniae, and Tacitus himself came
from the same milieu. It was, I think, the great Italian middle class,
most of whom were Roman citizens of the third generation only,
who venerated the republican traditions of Rome. And they were
important politically; for from them were drawn the centurions
and equestrian officers of the army, and picked men from among
them were promoted to the Senate and held the higher army
commands, in so far as these were not monopolised by the
imperial family. Finally they were quite content with the form of
the Republic, for their republicanism was sentimental and anti
quarian: they had never tasted power under the old regime and
had rarely even aspired to do so.
To turn to the events. In 27 B.C., having purged the Senate,
Imperator Caesar restored the Republic with a great flourish of
trumpets and was rewarded with the cognomen of Augustus by
the grateful Senate. The legal powers enjoyed by the Princeps at
this moment were somewhat limited. He possessed the sacro-
sanctity of a tribune, granted in 36 B.C., and the tribunician power
of auxilium, conferred in 30 B.C. He was moreover one of the
consuls of the year. Of what happened next we have only Dio's
account, and according to him Augustus was voted a number of
provinces for ten years. These provinces Dio enumerates
according to their later boundaries: in 27 B.C. they could have
OF AUGUSTUS 5
been summed up as Hither Spain, Transalpine Gaul, Syria, and
Egypt1
It has been argued ad nauseam whether Augustus imperium at
this stage was consular or proconsular. I do not believe that the
question arose. Augustus was consul, and the Senate assigned him
a provincial no grant of imperium was required, for, to quote Appius
Claudius Pulcher, speaking as consul, about to depart for his
province at the end of 54 B.C„ *se quoniam ex senatus consulto
provinciam haberet lege Cornelia imperium habiturum quoad in
urbem introissct/2 Ir is true that the Lex Pompeia de provinciis
had since then modified the position by inserting a five years*
interval between magistracy and promagistracy, but this law had
evidently either been abrogated or fallen in abeyance before
27 B.c, since Augustus either re-enacted or revived it in that
year.3 The revival of the Lex Pompeia would naturally have come
after the assignment of Augustus' province, which, as an extra
ordinary command, would in any case have been (and of course
was) exempted from its provisions. The grant of the provinces
must have included the right to appoint numerous legati, which
Pompey and Caesar had received before. It was probably at this
date also that Augustus was given the right to declare war and
make treaties which is mentioned by Strabo and by the Lex de
imperio Vespasiani.4 There were Republican precedents for this
in the Lex Manilia and the LexTrebonia5 and it was a not unnatural
privilege for the magistrate who was to control most of the
frontiers for the next ten years; it also incidentally gave Augustus
control over the numerous and powerful kings of the Empire.
Though this right proved to be lifelong as Strabo describes it,
I think that it was probably originally linked with the provincia,
as in the cases of Pompey and of Crassus.
We tend, I think, knowing what did happen next, to assume
too readily that it was an open secret at the time that Augustus was
going to be consul year after year. Dio, for what he is worth,
represents the majority of the Senate as being in the dark,6 and if
this is true many of them may have hoped and expected that
6 I. THE IMPERIUM
Augustus would, like Caesar in 59, go and govern his provinces,
or at the worst, like Pompey in 55, hang about in Italy as pro
consul, governing his provinces through his legates. But if so
they were disappointed; for Augustus stood for, and was naturally
elected to, the consulship in 26, and again in 25, and in 24, and
in 23.
He thus placed himself in a position which could hardly be
called republican. The only recent precedent for a continuous
series of consulships was Marius, hardly a reputable figure.
Moreover, in addition to ruling the great provinda which the
Senate had assigned to him, he possessed the vast and undefined
powers of a consul, which he could stretch to include an ultimate
control over all proconsuls; for according to that excellent
republican jurist, Cicero, 'omnes in consulis iure et imperio debent
esse provinciae' and to the consuls 'more maiorum concessum
est vel omnes adire provinciasV That Augustus (conjointly with
his fellow consul) used this prerogative is proved by a recently
published inscription: it records a decree of Augustus and Agrippa,
consuls (that is in 27 B.C.), ordering the restitution of sacred
property in the provinces, and a consequential judgment of the
proconsul of Asia, who refers to it as iussu Augusti Caesaris* The
incident of Primus, proconsul of Macedonia, charged with
making war on the Odrysae without authorisation, proves that
Augustus was suspected of ordering proconsuls about in more
important matters; for Primus claimed in defence that he had
acted on Augustus' orders, and when Augustus, questioned by the
praetor, denied this, Primus' counsel Murena asked him what he
was doing in court in that case, implying that he doubted his
word.9 And Augustus, besides interfering with other proconsuls,
was from time to time in Rome, where as consul he could domi
nate the Senate. Matters were made worse by the too obvious
parade of Marcellus as heir apparent, which suggested a hereditary
tyranny: Primus at his trial exploited this suspicion by claiming
that Marcellus had given him instructions, and Augustus after
Marcellus' death thought it prudent to offer to publish his will to
