Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/793

THE AUGUSTAN SYSTEM.] K M E 769 and took command of the eastern half of the empire; Octavian appropriated Italy and the West ; while Lepidus was forced to content himself with Africa. 1 For the next twelve years, while Antony was indulging in dreams of founding for himself and Cleopatra an empire in the East, and shocking Roman feeling by his wild excesses and (his affectation of oriental magnificence, 2 Octavian was patiently consolidating his power. Of his only two rivals, 3 Lepidus his fellow triumvir was in 36 ejected from Africa and banished to Circeii, while Sextus Pompeius, who had since his defeat at Munda maintained a semi-piratical ascendency in the western Mediterranean, was decisively '19 defeated in the same year, and his death in 35 left Octavian sole master of the West. The inevitable trial of strength between himself and Antony was not long '"22 delayed. In 32 Antony inflicted one more outrage upon Roman feeling, and openly challenged the hostility of Octavian by divorcing Octavia in favour of the beautiful and daring Egyptian princess, with whom, as the heiress of the Ptolemies, he aspired to share the empire of the Eastern world. By a decree of the senate Antony was declared deposed from his command, and war was declared against Queen Cleopatra. 3 On September 2, 31, was fought the battle of Actium. 4 Octavian's victory was '24 complete. Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide (30), and the Eastern provinces submitted in 29. Octavian returned to Rome to celebrate his triumph and mark the end of the long-continued anarchy by closing the temple of Janus ; 5 at the end of the next year he formally laid i: down the extraordinary powers he had held since 43, and a regular government was established. III. The Empire. PERIOD I. : THE PRINCIPATE, 27 B.C.-284 A.D. (a) The Constitution of the Principate. The conqueror of Antony at Actium, the great-nephew and heir of the dictator Caesar, was now summoned, by the general consent of a world wearied out with twenty years of war and anarchy, 6 to the task of establishing a government which should as far as possible respect the forms and traditions of the republic, without sacrificing that centralization of author- ity which experience had shown to be necessary for the integrity and stability of the empire. It was a task for which Octavian was admirably fitted. To great admin- istrative capacity and a quiet tenacity of purpose he united deliberate caution and unfailing tact ; while his bourgeois birth" and genuinely Italian sympathies enabled him to win the confidence of the Roman community to an extent impossible for Caesar, with his dazzling pre-eminence of patrician descent, his daring disregard of forms, and his cosmopolitan tastes. The new system which was formally inaugurated by Lustan Octavian in 28-27 B.C. 8 assumed the shape of a restora- tion of the republic under the leadership of a " princeps." 9 1 Veil., ii. 76 ; Dio, xlviii. 28 ; A pp., v. 65. 2 For Antony's policy and schemes in the East, see Ranke, Weltyeschichte, ii. 381-385 ; Merivale, Romans under the Empire, vol. iii. chap. 27 ; Lange, Rom. Alterth., iii. 573 sq. 3 Suet., Octav., 17 ; Dio, 1. 1-8 ; Plutarch, Anton., 53. 4 Dio, Ii. 1 ; Zonaras, 10, 30. 5 He celebrated his triumph on August 6, 7, 8 ; Dio, Ii. 20 ; Livy, Epit., cxxxiii. For the closing of the temple of Janus, see Livy, i. 19 ; Veil., ii. 38 ; Suet., Oct., 22. 6 Tac., Ann., i. 2, " cuuctos dulcedine otii pellexit." 7 Suet., Aug., i. His grandfather was a citizen of Velitrse ; " municipalibus magisteriis contentus. " 8 Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 707 ; Mon. Ancyranum (ed. Momm- sen, Berlin, 1883), vi. 13-23, pp. 144-153 ; Merivale, Romans under the Empire, chap. xxxi. ; Cape's Early Empire, chaps, i.-xii. 9 Tac., Ann. , iii. 28, "sexto demum consulatu . . . quae mviratu jusserat abolevit, deditque jura quis pace et principe uteremur ; " ibid., i. 9, " non regno neque dictatura sed principis nomine constitutam rempublicam." Octavian voluntarily resigned the extraordinary powers which he had held since 43, and, to quote his own words, "handed over the republic to the control of the senate and people of Rome. 10 The old constitutional machinery was once more set in motion ; the senate, assembly, and magistrates resumed their functions 11 ; and Octavian him- self was hailed as the " restorer of the commonwealth and the champion of freedom." 12 It was not so easy to determine what relation he himself, the actual master of the Roman world, should occupy towards this revived republic. His abdication, in any real sense of the word, would have simply thrown everything back into confusion. The interests of peace and order required that he should retain at least the substantial part of his authority; 13 and this object was in fact accomplished, and the rule of the emperors founded, in a manner which has no parallel in history. Any revival of the kingly title was out of the question, and Octavian himself expressly refused the dictatorship. 14 . Nor was any new office created or any new official title invented for his benefit. But by senate and people he was invested according to the old constitutional forms with certain powers, as many citizens had been before him, and so took his place among the lawfully appointed magistrates of the republic; only, to mark his pre-eminent dignity, as the first of them all, the senate decreed that he should take as an additional cognomen that of "Augustus," 15 while in common parlance he was henceforth styled "princeps," a simple title of courtesy, familiar to republican usage, and conveying no other idea than that of a recognized primacy and precedence over his fellow citizens. 16 The ideal sketched by Cicero in his De Republica, of a constitutional president of a free republic, was apparently realised ; but it was only in appearance. For in fact the special prerogatives conferred upon Octavian gave him back in substance the autocratic authority he had resigned, and as between the restored republic and its new princeps the balance of power was overwhelmingly on the side of the latter. Under one form or another Octavian had held the " imperium " since 43, and in 33 he had been formally 711, 721 acknowledged as "imperator," by the consent of all. 17 For this somewhat irregular authority was substituted in 27 the regular " proconsulare imperium," 18 the authority Imperiui under which for nearly two centuries the provinces had P rocon - been governed and the legions led to war. He received ^ _ ^ it in the orthodox way, by decree of the senate ; and the decree, as was customary, defined the area of his command. The essential difference between the " proconsulare im- perium " granted to Octavian and that which had been voted year after year to the ordinary proconsuls, lay in its unprecedentedly wide extent and in its long duration. All the provinces, with the exception of those where no military authority or force was required, were placed under his command, to be governed directly by " legati " appointed by him and responsible only to him. 19 The " unarmed 10 Mon. Ancyr., vi. 13. 11 Veil. Pat., ii. 89, "prisca et antiqua reipublicae forma revocata." 12 Ovid, Fasti, i. 589. On a coin of Asia Minor Augustus is styled " libertatis" P. R. vindex." Compare, for other evidence. Mommsen, Staatsr., ii. 708, note 1. 13 Dio Cassius describes Augustus as seriously contemplating abdi- cation (Iii. 1; liii. 1-11); cf. Suet, Aug., 28. 14 Suet., 52; Mon. Ancyr., i. 31. 15 Mon. Ancyr., vi. 16, 21, 23. 16 The explanation of ' ' princeps " as an abbreviated form of "princeps senatus" is quite untenable. For its real significance, see Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 733 ; Pelham, Journ. of Phil., vol. viii. It is not an official title. 17 Mon. Ancyr., v. 3-6, vi. 13, 14. Augustus adopted "imper- ator" as a prsenomen in 40. Mommsen, Staatsr., ii. 727, note 2. 18 Dio, liii. 17, 32 ; Mommsen, Staatsr., 791. 19 Dio, liii. 12; Suet., 47, "provincias validiores ipse suscepit, ceteras proconsulibus sortito permisit. " XX. - 97