The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]

He let himself be guided by the senate in the year 29 B.C. as imperator, but not in the sense in which so many victorious generals for centuries past had been greeted for the period between the day of victory and the triumph, after which the army was disbanded. What these generals had enjoyed for a short period young Cæsar had wished to possess for a lifetime: that is, the military supremacy of the Roman Empire. That is why this title in the new monarchical sense comes, not at the end, but at the commencement of the full name in the place of the citizen forename which was set aside.

Rightly was the conferring of this name, even by the ancients, regarded as the beginning of monarchy; rightly have the Middle Ages, rightly have the thinkers of to-day, described the successors of the Roman ruler as emperors. With this title Augustus wished to mark the transition from the ancient to the modern spirit; for his achieved work lies essentially in this, that he dovetailed into the constitution the notion of a permanent commander-in-chief and a permanent army, such as had hitherto been unknown to the republic.

The practical position of the princeps must always be clearly distinguished from the theoretical. The new office of commander-in-chief for the whole Roman Empire was analogous to the office of a republican proconsul in a single province, who administered his country, commanded his troops, with a possible right to supervise the neighbouring districts. In the year 23 B.C., by way of addition, Augustus, who in the course of his long reign was always more and more occupied in obscuring the unconstitutional elements of his new position, had caused to be conferred upon him a regular proconsular imperium, so as to be sure that the exercise of his authority should also meet with recognition in the senatorial provinces.

Although Cæsar was then pre-eminently an imperator, we should do him an injustice were we to describe his achievement as a military despotism. He was personally far too little a soldier and too much a statesman for this form of government, even to suit his own taste. The army was there only to make it possible for him in all important questions to carry out his will; as a rule he kept within those constitutional limits which he himself had reconstructed.

Whereas formerly the Absolutist development of the empire was assumed without any further inquiry into its origin, we owe it to Mommsen to have fixed his gaze on the difference between the times and to have hit the note of the constitutional scheme in his systematic presentation, which is certainly more important for the conception of Augustus than for his practical illustration of it. Mommsen talks of the “juristic construction of the principatus,” very rightly dwelling on the point that “Augustus’ principate is not a boundless authority, but a measured magistracy within republican forms.” The right of legislating remained, in theory at least, the same as in republican times. Co-operation was secured to the ruler through his official power as a consul or later as a tribune.

Besides this, like every magistrate of former times, he could announce his will to the people by edicts and acts; and that these expressions received great consideration in view of his position and personal authority need scarcely be said, especially from the time when senators and officials were sworn on every New Year’s Day, not only to the laws themselves, but also to the Acta Cæsaris. It does not follow from this in any way that the princeps was superior to the laws; we must be careful not to import the views of the Greek of a later period into the judicial views of a regent like Augustus. Practically, of course, he found for the most part a means of carrying out his will in a given case: but the emperor never expressed such a doctrine as a fundamental principle of jurisprudence. On the contrary the emperor was not empowered even to suspend the prevailing law; under Augustus at any rate this remained the privilege of the senate. He recognised it, too, without opposition; for instance, in not publishing a gift to the people before he had requested and received permission from the senate.

It was then a constitution full of contradictions, capable of interpretation only by means of compromise, this constitution substituted by the new ruler for the old republic, in order, beneath the garb of republican form, to make the exercise of monarchical power possible. Whether the student of systems called it a republic or a monarchy troubled him little, although until his death he himself clung to the fiction (and with a certain degree of truth) that he had restored the ancient and legitimate constitution of the state.[7]e

A most extraordinary man, then, was this foremost citizen of the new Roman state. But nothing about him is more extraordinary than the view regarding him that has been entertained by posterity. He has been almost uniformly regarded as not a man of the very first capacity,—as an opportunist rather than a creative leader. He held the world under the sway of his will for almost half a century, and was never so autocratic in his power, so securely fixed in his position, as at the hour of his death. He found Rome brick and left it marble; he found the Roman state an inchoate, wavering commonwealth, and left it a peerless empire. Yet the world has denied him the title of “great”; is disposed to deny him even the possession of genius.