Chapter X · THE PRINCIPATE (continued 2)

(iv.) Finance.—Finance at Rome was always so intimately bound up with provincial control, that the division of the provinces into public and imperial implied of itself the existence of two separate financial departments. The Senate still asserts control over the aerarium, and gives instructions to the guardians of the chest. The qualification of these guardians varied from time to time. The dictator Caesar had in 45 B.C. given the charge to two aediles, but quaestors seem again to have been the presidents of the treasury[1878] until Augustus in 28 B.C. instituted two praefecti aerarii Saturni, chosen yearly from the ex-praetors by the Senate.[1879] Even this change was short-lived, and the praefects were soon replaced by two of the praetors of the year who received their provincia by lot.[1880] Claudius in 44 A.D. restored the Republican method of administration through quaestors; but these were no longer to be annual officials designated by lot, but to be chosen by the Emperor for a period of three years.[1881] Finally under Nero (56 A.D.) the elements of the Augustan and the Claudian arrangements were combined[1882] in the provision that two ex-praetors should be appointed as praefects of the treasury, but that these should be named, generally for three years, by the Princeps.[1883] The fact that the Princeps appointed the guardians of the public chest was by no means an assertion that he controlled its funds, and, although his indirect influence on the aerarium was unquestionably great, this treasury still remained in principle under the direction of the Senate alone. Even in the second century it voted a loan to Marcus Aurelius for carrying on a war.[1884]

The Princeps was rendered financially independent of the Senate through the possession of his own treasury (fiscus or fiscus Caesaris),[1885] into which flowed the revenues from his own provinces, certain dues owed by the public provinces, and some extraordinary revenues, such as the confiscated goods of condemned criminals or lapsed inheritances (bona damnatorum, bona vacantia), in the claim to which the fiscus finally replaced the aerarium. The Princeps was the owner of the fiscus, but was regarded as a trustee of the wealth which it contained. To sue the fiscus was to sue the Princeps; but, although he was the sole subject of rights in relation to this treasury, he did not regard the money which it contained as though it were his own private property. Even in the early Principate there is evidence of the existence of crown property (patrimonium or patrimonium privatum), the use of which for private purposes was vested in the Princeps.[1886] The patrimonium doubtless commenced by being the strictly personal property of the first family of Caesars, and much of it was acquired by bequest;[1887] but, when the Principate had ceased to be hereditary in the Julian line, it seems to have been looked on as crown property, which was heritable only by the successor to the throne. The bequeathal of this property, which was implied when the Princeps selected an heir, might thus be regarded as a mode of designation; although, if the destined heir did not succeed, the patrimonium passed to his successful rival. It was probably due to the uncertainty of the tenure of the patrimonium that with Septimius Severus we find the creation of a new aggregate of private property, the res privata,[1888] the administration of which was kept quite distinct from that of the patrimonium. All Caesar’s property, whether held in trust for the state or for the crown, or applied to the needs of his family, was equally administered by his own private servants. Of these we shall speak when we deal with the functionaries of the Princeps as a whole.

Another treasury under imperial control, which served a public purpose, was that established for supplying pensions to discharged soldiers. The want of it had been severely felt in the last years of the Republic, when the mercenary army looked for its final rewards to plunder or the political influence of its generals; and, when Augustus created a professional army by the introduction of the long-service system, he found it necessary to establish a pension fund for those who had given twenty of the best years of their life to the practice of arms. The result was the aerarium militare, which the Emperor endowed with a large capital,[1889] and to which, as fixed sources of revenue, the two taxes of the vicesima hereditatum and the centesima rerum venalium were assigned.[1890] The administration of this chest was given to three praefects (praefecti aerarii militaris), who remained three years in office, and were chosen from ex-praetors, originally by lot but later by the Princeps.[1891]

(v.) Cultus.—In matters of religion and worship the dyarchy is again apparent. So far as the state had a religious head, the Princeps, in virtue of the chief pontificate, occupied this position, and we have seen the influence which this headship gave him.[1892] But the Senate had not lost all its control over the cultus of the community or its right to pronounce on foreign worships, when their social merits or their legality were in question. It is the Senate that is consulted on the growth of Egyptian and Jewish worship at Rome,[1893] and on the right of asylum in the provinces.[1894] Claudius questions it on the subject of the restoration of the college of haruspices,[1895] and Aurelian asks it for a pontifex to dedicate the great temple of the sun-god at Palmyra.[1896] So far as the appointment to the great priestly colleges was not controlled by the Princeps, the gift of this honour was now in the hands of the Senate.

(vi.) Coinage.—The right of coinage, although its possession by a state may be taken as a mark of sovereign rights being enjoyed by that community, is scarcely a significant mark of the sovereignty within a state. Whether the Senate or the Princeps possessed this right would make little difference to the theory of the constitution. As a fact, the right was possessed by both powers, and was an additional illustration of the principle of the dyarchy. From the year 15 B.C. the Princeps undertakes the gold and silver coinage, the Senate that of copper. The possession of the latter was a privilege in so far as the exchange value of copper was higher than its intrinsic value, and payments of any amount could be made in what was really a token currency.[1897]

We have now exhibited the system of dual control as it existed in all the chief departments of the state. It would be easy to prove that in almost every particular it might be made a fiction. The senatorial power of legislation is directed to so large an extent by the imperial initiative that the oratio of the Princeps is sometimes cited in place of the decree of the Senate to which it gave birth;[1898] the independence of senatorial jurisdiction is often infringed by the tribunician power of the Emperor, while his authority is directly or remotely in conflict with that of the other courts at every turn; his praefects tend to usurp the administration of Rome and Italy, while his procurators are a check on the activity of the proconsuls of the public provinces; his influence over the aerarium can be asserted whenever he cares to take the trouble to initiate or support in the Senate the proposal of a grant of money to himself.[1899] But such a control of departments, if wisely asserted, by no means rendered the dyarchy nugatory. Under a judicious prince the Republican constitution was sufficient for its own sphere in perhaps ninety-nine cases out of every hundred; because in the hundredth some pressure was felt from the head of the state, we cannot pronounce the dyarchy to be a fiction. If the control by the Princeps is brutally and unwisely, however legally, asserted, he is by common consent not a Princeps but a tyrant. We must judge the Principate by its best names, by a Nerva, a Trajan, a Marcus Aurelius, an Alexander, a Decius. In the reigns of all these princes the dyarchy is a living thing. If it is objected that it becomes a living thing merely through a concession of the Princeps, the answer is that this concession was certainly not pictured by these Emperors to themselves as an act of grace, but was regarded as mere obedience to the constitution; and to maintain the theory that a constitution which demands obedience from the wise is a palpable fiction because it cannot enforce obedience on the headstrong, is to wring a strange admission from political science.

§ 6. The Senatorial and the Equestrian Nobility

Although the authority of the Princeps rested virtually on the support of the army, his position might have been unsafe, and would have been embarrassing, had he not secured for the work of administration at home and abroad an official class, that was dependent to some extent on imperial creation and, therefore, worked in harmony with himself. The old Republican nobility, so far as it had not been extinguished, might be utilised; but it could be employed only by being kept in fetters, and by power being given to the Princeps to recruit its ranks at his will. We have already considered his control of office, his right of adlectio, and his power of creating Patricians. But a wider power, cognate to the gift of the Patriciate, was needed, to make him the patenter of a nobility from which alone senators and magistrates were to be chosen. Such a power had been usurped by Augustus, and the recognition of a “senatorial order” was its result. Perhaps in the later Republic society had already recognised the right of the prospective senator to wear the broad scarlet stripe (latus clavus) on his tunic, but the right became more clearly defined with the commencement of the Principate; and the laticlavii are prospective senators and holders of Republican offices, either recognised as such by the Princeps or endowed by him with the symbol of senatorial rank. The senator’s son possesses the right to wear the latus clavus and to attend the meetings of the curia, in which he will one day take an active part;[1900] the eques to whom the symbol has been given may qualify for the Senate through the vigintivirate and the quaestorship. The first steps to office and to the Senate were, as we have seen, usually through the army; but the young soldier who was destined for the Senate differed, in service and in title, from his purely equestrian compeer. The tribuni laticlavii[1901] are a special class of officers, who may often have started their service, as mounted officers of the legions, with the brevet rank of tribune, and whose service was shorter than that of the other equites in order that they might be qualified for the quaestorship by the age of twenty-five.[1902] The possessors of the latus clavus must always have been expected to pursue a senatorial career;[1903] by the time of Claudius they might be compelled to this course, the penalty of refusal being the deprivation of the broad stripe, but sometimes of equestrian rank as well.[1904]

Great care was taken to preserve the dignity and purity of this senatorial order. The latus clavus was granted only to those who could trace free birth through four generations, and Claudius was forced to excuse his conduct in giving it to a freedman’s son.[1905] The Julian marriage laws prohibited marriage with freedwomen or actresses, not only to senators, but to their sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons.[1906] “The order” was reckoned to include the wives of senators and all descendants in the male line,[1907] together with adoptive children, until they were emancipated, and even those natural children who had been emancipated.[1908] The commercial disabilities of senators were perpetuated and sharpened. The Republican prohibition that they should not be purchasers of public contracts[1909] was renewed by an edict of Hadrian.[1910] They were permitted to invest capital at a moderate rate of interest, but at times even this was disallowed.[1911]

These disabilities were, however, to some extent compensated by privileges. As the senators ceased to be purely Roman, the question of their duties to their native states had to be considered, and the rule was fixed that, while they were allowed to retain their domicile of origin (origo), they owed no public duties (munera) to the cities of their birth.[1912] We have already mentioned the growth of the principle which reserved criminal jurisdiction on a senator to the senatorial court.[1913]

In the early Principate there was no distinct title reserved for the order, but after the close of the first century the epithet clarissimus came to be applied to its members, and the title clarissima is even given to women of senatorial rank.[1914] A distinction in office and dignity but no distinction in rank separates the Princeps from the senators. They are his “peers” (ὁμότιμοι),[1915] and this peerage is chiefly shown in their sole participation in Republican offices. They might, indeed, be delegates of the Princeps, but not his servants in the sense in which the procurators were. Besides filling the regular offices of state, senators possessed a monopoly of provincial government, where the country governed was a true provincia and not a department assigned temporarily or permanently to a procurator or praefect; they were the sole commanders of the legions, and, as Caesar’s nominees, they filled the office of praefect of the city and the various commissionerships (curationes) for duties which he had undertaken, such as the care of the water-supply, of the roads, of public works, and of the banks and channel of the Tiber (curatores aquarum, viarum, operum publicorum, alvei et riparum Tiberis).[1916]

We have already spoken of the military training and attitude of this nobility,[1917] and also of its gradually increasing provincial character.[1918] Both these characteristics were in harmony with its sphere of duties, which were mainly provincial. A successful member of the order could have seen but little of Rome or Italy until his declining years. If his early military service was real and not nominal,[1919] he spent most of the years between eighteen and twenty-five in the camps and on the frontiers. If he had shown military ability, he might be sent back as an ex-quaestor to take command of a legion, although such a legateship was usually reserved to men of praetorian rank.[1920] The praetorship and consulship qualified him for long terms of service in successive Caesarian provinces, and for the annual governorship of those still under the control of the Senate.[1921] This identification with provincial life was an identification with the Principate, for there were few Republican associations to impress the mind when the bounds of Italy had been passed. The principles of selection, training, and habituation to which this nobility was subject were thus directed to inspire it with a belief in, if not with an enthusiasm for, the accepted order of things.

The second order which supported the throne and did the work of the Empire was that of the Equites. The word eques has now, as in the Republic, a dual signification. Tacitus employs it to describe the capitalist class, presumably the possessors of a census of 400,000 sesterces,[1922] and it is obvious that current terminology did not accept the restrictions which the Principate may have wished to impose on the use of the term. It is uncertain what these restrictions were, for literature and inscriptions mention two methods of conferring equestrian rank, and it is not known whether these methods—the gift of the rank through the gold ring and through the public horse—were sometimes alternative or always concurrent. But the grant of knighthood to freedmen is described as having been effected by the gift of the gold ring[1923]—a gift which, as early as the time of Hadrian, had come to confer free birth (ingenuitas) merely and not equestrian rank,[1924] and it cannot be shown that the public horse was always given to members of this class when they were endowed with the insignia of knighthood.[1925] It is not improbable, however, that when the gold ring had lost its earlier signification and become merely a means of conferring free birth, only one order of official equites was recognised, and that the title in its proper sense was restricted to the order whose members had, from the time of Augustus, been pre-eminently the bearers of the name. This order was the old one of the equites equo publico, which was reorganised and vastly extended in scale at the very beginning of the Principate. We are told that even under Augustus the annual parade might witness the appearance of five thousand knights,[1926] and these could have been but a portion of the order, for many members of the corps must have been detained on financial, administrative, and military duties in the provinces. This increase in numbers seems to have led to the abandonment of the old centuriate organisation, for the equites of the Principate are grouped in turmae and commanded by seviri.[1927] Selection for the order was entirely in the hands of the Princeps,[1928] and probably any one with the requisite qualifications—free birth, good character, and a property of 400,000 sesterces—could get this patent of nobility from the Emperor’s hands. At the times when the censorship was revived in the person of the Princeps,[1929] the selection and elimination of equites may have followed the rules prevailing under the Republican system of revision;[1930] but, as the censorship was no part of the constitution of the Principate, some department must have existed from the first for the purpose of registering the names of applicants. We find a permanent bureau eventually established for this purpose. It bore the title a censibus equitum Romanorum, and seems to have been a branch of the general department of petitions (a libellis).[1931] Although this office was concerned primarily with the duty of admission to the order, yet its holders must have pointed out to the Princeps cases where the qualifications requisite for knighthood had ceased to exist, and they must thus have acted as the board that really controlled the tenure of the rank. The formal control in this particular was, however, effected, now as in the Republic, by a solemn and public act. The act, although a Republican survival, was not employed with its Republican meaning. The parade of the knights (transvectio equitum) on the Ides of July had, during the Republic, been a mere procession; it was now given the significance of the censorian review in the Forum,[1932] and became the means of testing the qualifications of members of the order (probatio equitum).[1933] The knights now passed on horseback, not on foot; they could not ask for their discharge (missio), for the tenure of their rank was no longer conditioned by military service, although Augustus finally permitted all members of the age of thirty-five, who were unwilling to continue in the corps, to return their public horses;[1934] but the knights were still questioned and made to give an account of their conduct,[1935] and those whose answers were unsatisfactory were dismissed from the ranks.[1936] That Augustus took this duty seriously is shown by the fact that he more than once asked the Senate for committees, whether of three or ten members, to assist him in the work.[1937] But, although this parade is found in the reigns of subsequent Emperors,[1938] and can be traced as late as the fourth century A.D.,[1939] the serious duty of rejection was probably exercised more and more by the permanent bureau which admitted to the order.

The eighteen centuries of Roman knights had, even at the end of the Republic, never lost touch with the army. They had ceased to be the citizen cavalry, but they were composed of the young nobility who furnished the mounted officers of the legions. This secondary military character was retained by the corps in the Principate; but it had an additional significance as well. There can be no doubt that it was from the equites equo publico that the Emperors chose those members of the official hierarchy—procurators and praefects—who were of equestrian rank. It is less certain whether this corps furnished all the judices during the early Principate. Jurisdiction, whether civil or criminal, was a burden (munus), and this may have been imposed on all who possessed the requisite census, whether they had made profession for the order or not.[1940]

It was natural that an order thus definitely constituted, and which became more rigid as time went on, should end by enjoying titles of honour peculiar to itself. This stage had been attained by the second century; but the titular designations are not strictly those of the equestrian order, but of the grades of office to which it led. After the reign of Marcus Aurelius the equestrian hierarchy was divided into three classes; the first contained only the praefect of the praetorian guard who was called vir eminentissimus; the second the other equestrian praefects and higher procurators, who bore the title perfectissimi; the third—the possessors of all other equestrian posts—were egregii.[1941] The equestrian officers of the army were not graduated on a similar scale of rank, and the municipal knights of Italy are designated only by the old Republican and non-official epithet of splendidi.[1942] The more definite, but equally non-official, epithet of illustris may have been applied to individuals who possessed the senatorial census and the latus clavus, but who were passing through the equestrian service in the army (equestris militia), which was preparatory to entrance into the Senate.[1943] But the name more particularly designated men who, possessed of a senatorial fortune, preferred to retain their equestrian rank, and even perhaps any equites of fortune and dignity such as the holders of the great praefectures.[1944]

§ 7. The Functionaries of the Princeps

The Princeps, since he is not a king, has neither magistrates nor ministers subject to his will; but he possesses a number of delegates and servants who assist in the performance of his vast duties of administration. Some of these, such as the legates, praefects, and curators, find analogies in the Republican constitution; others, such as the procurators and secretaries of departments, are borrowed from the organisation of a Roman household and are transferred from the life of the palace to that of the state. We may neglect for the moment the legates and provincial praefects, who will be considered in the section dealing with the organisation of the provinces, and fix our attention on the offices of the central government, which are either peculiar to Rome and Italy or common to them and the provincial world.

(i.) The Praefects.—The four great praefectures, which were concerned originally with the administration of Italy and Rome, were those of the city (urbi), the praetorian guard (praetorio), the corn-supply (annonae), and the watch (vigilum). Of these the first stands entirely out of relation to the others so far as the career and qualification of its holders were concerned; for, while the praefecture of the city was a senatorial post, all the others were, during the greater part of the Principate, equestrian. Of the three latter offices the praefecture of the praetorian guard was the highest in rank, next came that of the corn-supply, and thirdly that of the watch.[1945]

The praefecture of the city was the continuation in name, and to some extent in functions, of one of the oldest offices in Rome;[1946] but the historical continuity is rendered somewhat imperfect by the fact that the ancient praefecture, which had originated with the kings and had ceased to be a reality only with the appointment of the first praetor,[1947] still continued in a shadowy form during the Principate as the praefecture created when the days of the Latin festival drew the magistrates away from Rome.[1948] But the new office of the Principate was, in a sense, a continuation of the old one of the monarchy. Both were products of personal rule and were based on the theory of delegation; the later office was suggested by the earlier, and both had much the same sphere of administration. The link between the Republican office and that of the Principate is found in the arrangements of the dictator Caesar and in the earlier procedure of Augustus. The link was broken when, under Tiberius, the praefecture became a permanent and not an occasional office. In 46 B.C. Caesar had left six praefecti in Rome to administer the affairs of the city during his absence;[1949] Maecenas had had a similar, though less definite, position given him by Augustus;[1950] and when the latter became Princeps, the praefecture between the years 27 and 24 B.C. became a more regular, although still an occasional office, and was renewed from time to time by Augustus during his absences from the capital.[1951] Tiberius’ long periods of retirement made it practically perpetual,[1952] and under subsequent reigns the praefect remains in office even when the Princeps is present in Rome.[1953] It was, perhaps, due to its associations with the Republican magistracy that this office was filled by a senator and a consular.[1954] The same associations may account for the facts that the praefect of the city, although a delegate of the Princeps and nominated by him for an indefinite period,[1955] is yet accounted a magistrate, and is even credited with imperium.[1956]

One of the early occupants of the office[1957] sent in his resignation six days after his appointment on the ground that he had held an incivilis potestas; and indeed the scope of the praefect’s duties and the extent of summary jurisdiction and coercive power which they involved, might easily lead a sensitive mind to shrink from such un-Republican authority. The praefect was briefly the guardian of the city (custos urbis), and nothing that could be construed as a part of that tutela[1958] was exempt from his control. It was his duty to keep order everywhere, at the games as in the market, and for this purpose he had at his disposal the city cohorts (cohortes urbanae) established by Augustus,[1959] three divisions of which were quartered in Rome during the reign of Tiberius.[1960] But the preservation of order implied interference with a great many departments of civic life. The praefect controlled the theatre, the money-changers, the sale of meat, the trading and religious guilds; he listened to the grievances of slaves, or to the complaints of patroni about their freedmen, and finally even had cognisance of serious offences committed by guardians.[1961] The criminal jurisdiction, which was the complement of his authority, was so indefinite that at a very early period it crossed that of the quaestiones perpetuae,[1962] and, as the tendency of the Principate was to make the latter give way before the former, we are not surprised at the unlimited criminal jurisdiction described by Dio Cassius and recorded in the Digest as vested in the praefect in the third century A.D.[1963] He might at this time inflict the severest punishments, even deportation or condemnation to the mines.[1964] His police control and criminal jurisdiction extended to the limit of a hundred miles from Rome.[1965] Within the city he might judge in person; jurisdiction in Italy he exercised through delegates.[1966] He also possessed a certain civil jurisdiction connected with his functions of preserving order,[1967] and finally became the court of appeal, in civil cases, from officials in Rome.[1968] But he was not a final court, for a further appeal lay from the praefect to the Emperor.

The praefectus praetorio was in origin the commander of the Emperor’s bodyguard. This corps d’élite, which even in the Republic had grouped itself round a commander in the field, was given a definite existence and organisation in the year 28 B.C.,[1969] and became the police of Italy, the selected home force composed, unlike the legions, mainly of Italian citizens,[1970] and the protector, often the transmitter, of the throne. Its praefects at this early stage represent the military character of the despotism perhaps more purely than any other officials, and even the reign of the second Caesar could show in Sejanus one of the most formidable of those praefects who were almost partners of the throne. The danger threatened by the office illustrates its power, and this was recognised when Vespasian sought security by giving the praefecture to his own son Titus,[1971] or Severus married his elder son to the daughter of his praefect Plautianus.[1972] A more favourite method was to increase the number of its holders. Two were frequently appointed, and three are found on two occasions since the time of Commodus.[1973] Gradually the military functions of the office ceased to be the most important, although its military history had determined its character. The praefect of the guard had always been the man who stood next the throne; he was a truer alter ego of the Princeps than the praefect of the city, for his activity was not confined to Rome and Italy. It was he who issued rapid injunctions for the organisation of the army or for the guidance of the civil service throughout the Empire, and at times we find two praefects, such as Adventus and Macrinus in the reign of Caracalla, representing respectively the military and civil spheres. But jurisdiction, the most constant of the Emperor’s cares, and the framing of legal decrees, also demanded the attention of the praefect, and hence it was necessary to entrust the office to the first jurists of the Empire. Papinian, Ulpian, and Paulus were all praefects of the guard. The change in the character of the office perhaps began with Hadrian; it was carried on during the reigns of the Antonine Emperors, and finally achieved in that of Septimius Severus. The judicial aspect of the office was now paramount. The praefect has become the highest criminal judge in Italy outside the hundredth milestone;[1974] he is the court of appeal in criminal cases from all provincial governors,[1975] and judges in those cases which the provincial governor was not competent to decide.[1976] He is also the court of appeal from provincial governors in civil cases.[1977] This extensive jurisdiction was a result of the centralisation of judicial power in the Emperor, which we have already traced.[1978] It had to be delegated, and no fitter delegate could be found than the praefect. Convenience also dictated that the delegation should be final, and the principle was finally arrived at that there should be no appeal from the praefect to the Emperor.[1979] This did not mean that the Emperor ceased to judge; for at any moment he might displace his praefect and hear the case himself. As the praefect judged vice principis, it is natural to suppose that he presided over the imperial consilium,[1980] which attained a definite organisation in the reign of Hadrian;[1981] and this probability is scarcely shaken by the fact that we find special consiliarii nominated for the praefect,[1982] for he exercised a varied jurisdiction and might be holding a court at the same time as the Emperor. Apart from jurisdiction, his general mandates and ordinances had legal force, provided that they did not conflict with laws or imperial constitutions.[1983]

During the greater part of the Principate equestrian rank was a necessary qualification for this praefecture. Senators first began to hold this office from the time of Severus Alexander, who gave his praefects senatoria dignitas and the title clarissimus,[1984] for it was held that one who pronounced judgment on a senator should himself be of senatorial rank.[1985] At the time when the praefect was a knight, dismissal from office often took the form of making him a senator or a member of the senatorial order.[1986]

The praefectus annonae was the final product of a question that had never ceased to agitate Rome from the close of the Punic wars. Anxiety about the supply of corn to the capital had raised Pompeius to an extraordinary position in 57 B.C.,[1987] and in 43 the Senate, alarmed at the possible designs of Antonius and Octavian, had agreed that no individual curator for corn should again be appointed.[1988] In the early Principate the duty belonged technically to the aediles cereales instituted by Caesar;[1989] but epochs of scarcity led to its being taken over by the Princeps. Augustus accepted the task in 22 B.C.,[1990] but whether as a permanent cura is uncertain,[1991] and in 18 B.C. and 6 A.D. experiments were made to carry it through by the appointment of curatores of praetorian or consular rank.[1992] Finally, as a definite cura of the Princeps, it was given to a praefect. The cura annonae as undertaken by the Princeps involved two charges; firstly, the gratuitous distribution of corn to the poorer classes at Rome, and secondly, the placing of corn on the Roman market for purchasers as well as recipients. It was with the latter of these duties that the praefect was chiefly, perhaps exclusively, concerned.[1993] He had to see that the requisite mass of grain was brought to the market, and that it was sold at a moderate and stable price.[1994] Assistance was furnished him by subordinate officials in Rome itself, in the harbours of Italy, and in the provinces, senatorial as well as imperial; but the number of these procurators was not large, since the lower departments of the corn-supply were managed by guilds, such as those of the mensores and navicularii,[1995] “associations that originally leased their services to the state and finally became its instruments.”[1996] The praefect possessed a jurisdiction arising from his administrative duties. He listened to criminal informations touching the public supply of corn,[1997] and seems even to have heard certain civil actions arising out of the corn trade.[1998] The appeal from his judgment went immediately to the Emperor.[1999]

The institution of the praefectus vigilum was equally the result of the Emperor’s undertaking a special department of administration that had formerly belonged to Republican magistrates. The guardianship of the town against fires and nocturnal disturbances had belonged chiefly to the triumviri capitales,[2000] and in a more general way to the aediles. But the Republican appliances were found insufficient, and Augustus formed an early scheme for giving the curule aediles a fire-brigade of six hundred slaves.[2001] Even this did not prove satisfactory, and in A.D. 6 he undertook the new cura—an undertaking which was followed by the establishment of seven cohorts of vigiles, one for every two of the fourteen regions of the city, and the creation of a praefect set over the tribunes who were commanders of these divisions.[2002] This praefecture was, like that of the corn-supply, equestrian, and the two differ little in rank; for, although the praefectura annonae was reckoned superior, direct promotion from the command of the vigiles to that of the praetorian guard is found.[2003] The praefect protected the town and patrolled the streets by night, and he exercised a jurisdiction closely connected with his police functions, and resembling, in a lower degree, that of the praefect of the city. He tried cases of arson, robbery, burglary, and thefts in baths;[2004] but the higher jurisdiction in such cases belonged to the praefectus urbi, and the praefect of the watch could not try Roman citizens on capital charges.[2005] In the third century he possessed some civil jurisdiction in matters connected with leases and house-rent.[2006]

(ii.) The Curators.—There were certain curae undertaken by Augustus which he did not give to equestrian praefects, but to senatorial curatores. These curae of the roads of Italy, of the public works, of the public water-supply, and of the channel and banks of the Tiber (viarum, operum publicorum, aquarum publicarum, alvei et riparum Tiberis), were filled by nomination of the Princeps, but their holders were perhaps, like the praefects of the aerarium, regarded as officials of the people or of the Senate rather than of the Emperor; the reason for this view probably being that the care of the roads, opera publica, and the like was concerned with solum publicum, and “the public soil in Rome and Italy was, even after the foundation of the Principate, not the property of the Emperor but of the people or the Senate.”[2007] Hence in the early Principate the pecuniary means for this administration was guaranteed from the aerarium, the fiscus merely contributing.[2008] Hence too the occupation of these posts by senators and their method of appointment. In 11 B.C. Augustus nominated curatores aquarum with the consent of the Senate (ex consensu senatus, ex senatus auctoritate);[2009] the curatores operum publicorum and viarum were perhaps nominated in the same way, and the curatores of the Tiber were in Tiberius’ reign appointed by lot.[2010]

(iii.) The Procurators.—The quasi-magisterial position of the occupants of the higher imperial posts could not be reflected in the lower grades of office. So far as the detailed ministeria principatus[2011] were concerned, the Princeps adopted the analogy of the Roman house, not of the Roman state, and employed either general agents (procuratores) or assistants designated by the secretarial or other duty which they performed (ab epistulis, a rationibus, etc.). There was always a distinction between the two classes, which was still preserved now that they had become official. The agent of domestic life might indeed approximate to the condition of a mere bailiff, and might be a slave; but the necessity for representing the absent dominus in courts of law had made it convenient that the procurator should be a free man; and the idea of agency, usually of general agency (procuratio omnium rerum),[2012] was closely associated with the word. On the other hand, the slaves and freedmen of the household who copied and kept accounts, were not agents; and, in accordance with this distinction, the officials of the Principate who bear such titles as ab epistulis, a libellis, a rationibus, are not spoken of as procurators, although one of these posts might rise to the dignity of a procuratorship, as that a rationibus did.

Although from the point of view of functions the two classes must be kept distinct, from that of qualification they may be discussed together. In both we observe the tendency for the household to become a bureau, for the freedman and slave to give place to the Roman knight. Tiberius’ household consisted mainly of freedmen,[2013] and their influence reached its zenith in the reign of Claudius. An Emperor who sought popularity might, like Vitellius, transfer the ministeria of the Principate to Roman knights;[2014] but no comprehensive attempt seems to have been made to reorganise the bureaucracy on this footing until the time of Hadrian.[2015] Henceforth the higher grades were held as a rule by knights, only the lower being possessed indifferently by equites or freedmen.[2016] The procuratorship was the patent of equestrian nobility (equestris nobilitas),[2017] and we have seen that titles were finally devised to express the differences in procuratorial rank.[2018] The civil service now became closely connected with the army, and the occupants of civil posts were mainly retired officers, men who had held at least one of the three positions in the equestrian service,[2019] and who, after the second century, had generally filled every grade before they took the procuratorship.[2020] This militarising of the administrative service is one of the most curious features of the Principate. It gave that service its precision, its rigidity, its tendency to work as a smooth machine almost independently of personal control. This tendency was a blessing in so far as it was calculated to diminish the influence due to the idiosyncrasies of the Princeps, or of any individual holder of office; but one cannot help suspecting that a great deal of the administrative tyranny, which darkened the closing years of the Principate and weakened the Empire, was due to the ineradicable habits of routine inspired by a military life, and that the Greek or Graeco-Asiatic freedman, although a more corrupt, was, on the whole, a more capable administrator. The military supply was not, however, altogether sufficient, and from the time of Hadrian a civil career was also open, which gave a chance to the aspiring lawyer.

Theoretically the procurator’s duties were those of mere agency, and he had little discretionary authority and no general official power. Tiberius’ emphatic statement that his procurator’s business was merely to manage the Emperor’s slaves and personal property[2021] is echoed in the language of the Digest, which tells us that the duties of these servants of the Emperor were strictly defined, that they were accountable to their master for the use made of the finances or property under their care, that they could not give, sell, or transfer it, and that “careful management” was the limit of their power.[2022] It was only when they kept within these bounds that their acts had all the authority of those of the Princeps himself.[2023] But the extending spheres of their operations rendered it impossible for these limits to be rigorously preserved. Claudius asked and obtained that his procurators should be permitted jurisdiction within their own financial departments[2024]—an almost necessary result of the fact that in the provinces (and especially in those under senatorial management) there was no convenient court of arbitration to decide when money was or was not owing to the Princeps.[2025] The consent of the Princeps, also, to the procurator’s acts must eventually have meant the consent of the chief bureau at Rome; for, in spite of the extraordinary capacity for personal government possessed by the Roman Emperors, the fiscal system was too complicated for every detail to reach their ears.

The chief duties of the procurators were financial, and most of these agents can be summed up under the title procuratores fisci. A number of titles are met with which clearly have reference to the central department at Rome. Such are procurator summarum found in an inscription of Nero’s time and borne by a freedman,[2026] procuratores rationum summarum,[2027] rationalis summae rei,[2028] dispensator or dispensator summarum,[2029] and vilicus summarum.[2030] The titles belong to different epochs, and it is difficult to establish their precise import. It is generally agreed that from the time of Claudius the title a rationibus was reserved for the chief controller of the fiscus. After the reign of Hadrian this post was reserved for equites,[2031] and the members of the central bureau had a higher standing than the financial agents in the provinces. The title procurator rationum summarum, which belongs to the second century, denotes some highly placed official connected with this central chest; but, as it does not seem to be identical with the title a rationibus, it has been thought to represent a subordinate controller perhaps instituted by Marcus Aurelius.[2032] The title rationalis, which was often identical with procurator,[2033] seems at some period within the third century to have replaced a rationibus as the designation of the chief officer of the fiscus.[2034]

Amongst provincial procurators we may enumerate first those who were confined to the imperial provinces. The procurator here occupied the position which the quaestor held in the public provinces; he was the chief officer of the provincial fiscus, collected the taxes due to it, and managed the disbursement of its funds. There was also a treasury connected with the military station in the province (fiscus castrensis), and at the head of it a procurator castrensis, who superintended the payments made to the soldiers,[2035] and military expenses in general. Other procurators were common to all the provinces; for even those that were “public” paid certain dues to the Emperor.[2036] Such were lapsed legacies and the goods of the condemned (bona caduca and damnatorum), after the fiscus had asserted its claim to these revenues,[2037] and the taxes owed by Roman citizens everywhere, such as the vicesima hereditatum and the centesima rerum venalium. But the public provinces owed more direct dues to the Princeps as well. Thus Africa, a corn-supplying but not an imperial province, was brought into the closest relation with his cura annonae, and even the most peaceful districts must have defrayed the expense of the necessary military protection, and surrendered certain revenues to be collected by imperial officials.

Common, too, to all the provinces were the agents who managed the imperial estates (procuratores patrimonii or patrimonii privati).[2038] We have already noticed that after the time of Severus a distinction was drawn between the res privata and the patrimonium of the Emperor.[2039] From this time onward the procurator rerum privatarum is distinct from the procurator patrimonii.[2040]

The non-financial procurators, who were actually governors of districts, will be discussed when we are dealing with the organisation of the provinces.

The tenure of office by a procurator was indefinite, and depended on the imperial pleasure. Technically their posts expired when the Princeps who had appointed them died,[2041] and the renewal of their office by his successor, although it must have been the rule, was treated as a new appointment. The posts were well paid and procurators bore the titles trecenarius, ducenarius, centenarius, and sexagenarius, according as their salaries varied from 300,000 to 60,000 sesterces. The salaries of the procurators at Rome were probably higher than those belonging to the same departments in Italy and in the provinces. Thus the procuratio rationis privatae was probably in Rome a trecenaria, in the provinces a ducenaria, in Italy, where it would be merely a branch of the central office, a centenaria procuratio.[2042] Promotion seems to have been determined chiefly by merit, and one of the strong points of the system was that there was no mechanical system of advancement. It was possible for a secretary, who had never been a procurator proper, to be appointed to a praefecture,[2043] but, as a rule, several procuratorships were passed through before this summit of equestrian ambition was attained.[2044]

(iv.) Personal Assistants.—The secretariate of the Principate was, as we have seen, but the business side of the organisation of a Roman household, but so rapidly did the importance and official aspect of these posts develop that already by Nero’s reign a Roman noble, who kept assistants with such titles as ab epistulis and a libellis, might be suspected of treasonable designs.[2045] These secretaryships became, in fact though not in law, great offices of state. They required more highly trained ability than most of the procuratorships, and, as they brought their holders into close relations with the Princeps, the influence and the power of patronage which they conferred must have been enormous.

The official ab epistulis put into shape all the decisions of the Princeps which took the form of letters, so far as these were not written personally by the Princeps himself. The answers to the consultationes of officials, to the despatches of generals and provincial governors, or to deputations from foreign communities, together with the nomination of officials and officers and the conferment of privileges, passed through his hands.[2046]

The official a libellis drew up the answers to petitions (preces, libelli)[2047] made by private individuals to the Emperor. The answer was generally given in a short subscriptio appended to the document.[2048] The framing of such replies required considerable legal knowledge; hence it is not surprising to find that jurists like Papinian and Ulpian held this post.

The official a cognitionibus was the adviser of the Emperor on legal points, which were settled by imperial decree. The points on which advice was given were perhaps wholly those of civil jurisdiction, and were probably such as did not need to come before the imperial consilium.[2049] The office was in existence at the beginning of the third century,[2050] but is thought to have been subsequently merged in that a libellis.[2051]

The official a memoria is first mentioned about the time of the Emperor Caracalla. His function was probably to put into form and reduce to writing (often by dictation to a secretary)[2052] such speeches and verbal decisions of the Emperor as did not fall under the competence of the other officials.

(v.) The Consilium.—The consilium of the Princeps[2053] was merely a renewed manifestation of that eternal principle of Roman public life which directed that a magistrate should seek advisers. A council was necessary for public confidence, but an imperial consilium was originally no part of the constitution of the Principate. Tiberius imitated Augustus in seeking advice before coming to a decision on important matters;[2054] yet when he sat as a high court of criminal jurisdiction, his board of assessors could be described as consisting of a “few friends.”[2055] The board may have become more determinate in succeeding reigns, but the first Princeps whom we hear of as giving it a definite organisation was Hadrian. That Emperor, we are told, when he held a court of justice, summoned as his advisers jurisconsults approved by the Senate.[2056] It is only a judicial council that is here described, and there is nothing to show that these legal experts were necessarily consulted on administrative matters. The basis, however, was laid for a permanent council of state, and the consiliarii Augusti of this period became a definite and salaried class.[2057] They included both senators and equites,[2058] and some bore the title jurisperiti.[2059] Others may not have been gifted with special knowledge of the law, and may have been employed in cases where general ability or experience may have been of more value than juristic training. Actual jurisdiction was not, however, the only occasion on which legal knowledge was indispensable in an adviser. The help of the jurist had to be sought in the framing of the imperial constitutiones,[2060] and we are told that for this purpose Severus Alexander was assisted by twenty jurisperiti out of a consilium numbering seventy in all.[2061] A difference of personnel for different branches of administration is easily comprehensible, for it is improbable that the Emperor needed to summon all his councillors on every occasion on which he took advice.[2062] The mode of consultation was wholly informal and depended on the discretion of the Princeps. Augustus in the exercise of his jurisdiction distributed voting tablets (tabellae) to his councillors, on which they could inscribe acquittal or condemnation or a modified verdict.[2063] We cannot imagine that the votes were reckoned as in the jury system. The tabellae were for the enlightenment of the Princeps, and he may have decided according to the weight of the names of those who handed them in. Nero, we are told, took opinions on paper, and, after reading them, gave his own judgment as though it were that of the majority of his advisers.[2064] Under Severus Alexander opinions were given verbally and taken down in short-hand.[2065]

We have already shown that it is probable that the imperial consilium in its developed form was employed by the praefect of the praetorian guard when he gave judgment vice the Princeps.[2066]