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The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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At the altars of the emperor even slaves found protection against harshness or inhumanity on the part of their masters. Augustus so highly prized the bestowal of this protective office of Tribune of the people, that he even had the day (27th of June, 23 B.C.) recorded on coins and monuments as the beginning of his reign. Three years later the imperial power received its consummation in the grant of the consular authority to Augustus for the term of his life, with the right to nominate his colleagues or representatives and to propose them for election, and with an extension of the right of issuing legal ordinances (edicts). From that time forward he took his seat in the senate upon a curule chair placed at a higher level between the two consuls.
By these means all political power was concentrated in his person, and when, soon after, the office of pontifex maximus fell vacant by the death of Lepidus, Augustus had this dignity also conferred upon himself, and thus combined the authority of high priest with supreme political power. In virtue of this office the care of the state religion and public worship, the interrogation of the oracular books and the interpretation of their utterances, the appointments to priestly offices and even the choice of vestals, devolved upon the emperor. And as through the fulness of his consular and imperatorial power he exercised the highest judicial authority over the army and in all cases affecting the safety of the state, so as supreme pontifex he had the right of deciding upon all violations of religion and transgressions of the priesthood.
TIGHTENING THE REINS OF POWER
This union of the hierarchic with the temporal power completed the skilfully constructed edifice of the principate. By this means the whole executive and judicial authority in matters spiritual and temporal, human and divine, was placed in the hands of the emperor, and if for a while the people retained the show of legislative power it was a mere shadow of the ancient sovereignty of the people, since the legal tradition which gave magisterial edicts the force of law during the magistrate’s tenure of office reduced every other kind of legislative authority to an empty form when all official power was centred in a person who held office for life.
The imperial decrees were legally valid throughout the empire. They formed the nucleus and basis of the “constitution” which in process of time ranked on an equality with the comitial laws. The wise moderation of Augustus—which induced him to ask the opinion or approval of the senate in all decrees concerning peace and war and withheld him from exercising the power of life and death which he possessed over senators and citizens in an offensive manner, and led him to treat traditional forms with reverential observance—conduced greatly to the establishment and preservation of the legislative authority of the emperor.
“Thus,” says Hoeck,d “the constitution of the young empire was a monarchy in which the rights of sovereignty were shared between the nation and its head.
“No law or election could be carried through in opposition to the express will of the emperor, because he could invalidate by his tribunician veto every assertion of magisterial or popular authority; on the other hand, according to law, his will was not sufficient to ensure the acceptance of a candidate or of a statute, since the emperor had no right to command either the senate or the people. Nevertheless this reciprocal limitation and supplementation of the supreme political authority existed in theory only, not in fact. For where the legal competence of the emperor came to an end its place was taken by a power of which the constitution took no cognisance, but which held all political affairs in the embrace of its mighty arm. This was the effective sovereignty of Augustus, outflanking and controlling all other authority, which broke down the bulwarks erected against absolute government and opened the way for the despotism of his successors. The senate was composed of his creatures, the populace was won over by bread and games, the army attached to him by booty and presents; and thus he had in the curia an obedient instrument of his schemes; the comitia were the echo of his will, and the legions gladly fulfilled the commands he gave. The senate and people might enjoy meanwhile the ancient forms of a free state; they were but vain shadows when the supreme head was minded to accomplish his win.”e
PANEM ET CIRCENSES—FOOD AND GAMES
The sustenance of Rome with which the emperors charged themselves may be regarded in the light of compensation for the political rights of which the imperial government robbed the Romans. The emperor was not the war-lord of the Roman Empire who, as such, felt this duty incumbent upon him; he was rather the most powerful person in the capital, who exerted himself to win the favour of its populace, as the prominent personages of republican times had done.
The custom of occasional distributions by Romans and aliens was a very old one, and had existed ever since the lower classes gained an influence in politics through the elections; but these distributions of corn did not become the rule until the first century B.C., and they became a political danger when they attracted the poverty-stricken rabble of the whole of Italy to Rome, to be maintained there by the state. At the time of Julius Cæsar, in the year 46, there were more than three hundred thousand recipients of corn at Rome, though they were presently reduced to half that number by improved organisation and by the founding of colonies beyond sea by the dictator. This number was not to be exceeded; only the gaps which occurred in the course of nature were to be filled up.
But in the civil wars after Cæsar’s death the old abuses had crept in again, and about the time of the birth of Christ the number had already risen to two hundred thousand. Augustus was by no means blind to the evil; he really wished to abolish the regular distributions of corn altogether, for, besides costing enormous sums every year, they demoralised the people and undermined the prospects of agriculture in Italy. On this subject the emperor writes that he had made an attempt to abolish the public distributions of grains in perpetuity, but had not dared to carry it through, as he knew for certain that after his time it would be re-established by the ambition of others. Moreover, he soon realised that he could not let this most effective means of ensuring popularity in the capital pass out of his hands, nor suffer private individuals to gain a formidable following in this fashion. Later he tried to strike the just mean, and to meet both the complaints of the farmers and corn dealers and the wishes of the populace. The question involved was the regular distribution of corn to the mob and the adoption of exceptional measures, when the price of grain in the capital had risen to an unnatural or intolerable figure. No man who wished to be the first in Rome could afford to shirk this costly obligation. If so strict an economist as Augustus was prepared to bear the enormous cost of these metropolitan distributions we need ask for no surer proof that he regarded them as necessary.