Note 31 — Below is a copy of the deeds of the divine Augustus, by which he subjected the whole world to the dominion of the Roman people, and of the amounts which he expended upon the commonwealth and the Roman people, as engraved upon two brazen columns which are set up at Rome.1

The emperors assumed the consulship only irregularly and for short periods. Their taking of the “tribunitial power” was not through a regular election to the tribuneship, as was the case with the consulship, for Augustus as a patrician was ineligible; but it was the assumption of a power equal to that of the tribunes. This made the emperors sacrosanct, gave them the initiative and the veto, and well subserved the fiction of their being the representatives and champions of the people. For discussions of this power cf. Merivale, Hist. of Rom. C. XXXI; Mommsen, Röm. St. II, p. 759, 771-777, 833-845.

Succeeding emperors, down to 268 A. D., dated their accession from the day of assuming the tribunitial power. The wording is peculiar in this sentence. May it not have been that Augustus expected his heir or executors to fill in the exact dates at the time of his death, as suggested in the introduction?