Continuity - The Lost Principate

[caldrail]

On the face of it, Roman history seems, if you'll excuse the pun, cast in concrete. The Republic falls, Augustus claims the empire as ruler, and Imperial history begins. Is it really that obvious? I ask because I'm increasingly drawn to different conclusions that the somewhat flawed accepted story. Time then to outline where I am in this accentuated period in history.

What was the Roman Republic? You only have to watch the successful film Gladiator to see how fixated with modern concepts we are. I refer to that hilarious scene where Derek Jacobi attempts to point out to Joachim Pheonix that the Senate was chosen from among the people to represent the people. Really? Someone thought 'republic' meant more or less the same thing as modern America. And no, it most certainly did not, the Senate was a group of senior politicians who had to be wealthy enough to qualify. Representation had very little to with it and historically there many Senators who had little intention of making decisions to benefit the common people.

The word 'republic' to modern readers means a type of government. To the Romans, it did not. The word is derived from res publica, or 'for the people'. It was therefore the obligation of privilege to take of the common public, though in fairness many senators would pay lip service to that. The actual regime was neither here nor there, and given that Rome tinkered with its format in small or mighty steps over the course of their history whenever it suited them, then the fact their state remained SPQR .Senate and People of Rome' to the very end in the west rather points to a different interpretation of empire than ours.

So what was this 'Fall of the Republic'? It wasn't a change in regime. All the apparatus of government survived the accession of Augustus. Indeed, he set about reforming the Senate, removing the riff-raff, encouraging participation, and making it difficult for Senators to hide in the crowd. Tiberius would later pass on powers from the Popular Assemblies to the Senate so they could govern in his absence. Hardly the powerless gang of elites many dismiss airily. No, it was the loss of of civic duty. Under the Principate, pandering to the public was less important compared to the immediate feel-good factor of panem et circuses 'Bread and Circuses'. The public would be bribed rather than appeased. I have to say, it sort of worked.

Yes, you argue, but Augustus was made Emperor? No, he was not. There was no such title in Roman society and anyone attempting it was not going to last long. Monarchy was considered a tyranny by Roman elites in a society that favoured free will and self determination as the mark of civilisation. The public wanted a popular leader, like Julius Caesar, and demanded that the Senate make Augustus a Dictator. He always refused the title, even though the public rioted and threatened the lives of the Senate over it. He endured accusations of being a dictator already. He denied it. With good reason. The Senate had awarded him his far reaching powers and privileges and the title itself had been legally abolished by Marc Antony. Having won a civil war to keep the empire together and prevent a new powerful empire forged from Egypt and the Eastern Roman provinces, to have then sneakily claimed a kingly title would have breathtakingly hypocritical, never mind dangerous.

Augustus instead becomes patron to his Roman client. Hardly radical, but it offered a convenient step to managing the empire rather than actually ruling it. This idea that Augustus planned a sinister and clever covert takeover doesn't work for me. Perfect and saintly he was not, but reading accounts of him I get the impression he preferred to do business up front and vehemently disliked subterfuge. Taxing the Germanic tribes occupied by Roman forces was hardly covert was it? Sure, it was greedy and opportunistic, but that was normal for Rome. In any case, Augustus needed effective government and boasts in his Res Gestae that he tried to create the best government possible.

So the Republic in fact continues, but now, under single person leadership. The Senate still governs the bulk of the Empire, although Augustus now has the right to intervene if he thought it was necessary. He sends representatives to make sure he isn't needed, and unfortunately, in doing so created a mechanism for appropriating provincial oversight from the Senate, which develops over the next century mostly at the behest of those successors who saw themselves as more absolute than those who preferred to work with the Senate (and who generally did better). This would account for the naming convention and the reason why future leaders would always receive authorisation of their power from the Senate in republican style packages rather than autocratic rights, long after the Senate had dwindled to ritual significance.

That brings us to the Dominate, following Diocletian's assertion of absolute power. At that point, senatorial government is effectively over. The Republic still continues, now ruled by men who liked to call themselves Imperator 'Victorious General'. Civic duty has gone. Hence Roman writers say the 'republic is dead'. But an imperial monarchy? I'm sorry, that stretches the point a lot. There are too many anomalies to simply rationalise as a convenient ruse to gaining power. Rome was more complex beast than that.

[guy]

18 hours ago, caldrail said:

Taxing the Germanic tribes occupied by Roman forces was hardly covert was it? Sure, it was greedy and opportunistic, but that was normal for Rome. In any case, Augustus needed effective government and boasts in his Res Gestae that he tried to create the best government possible.

 

Or, at least that was the plan. This quote about the Goths (from Ammianus Marcellinus) shows how things can go wrong … quickly. The Goths, fleeing other migrating tribes including the Huns, entered the Empire in hope of peace and protection. They were initially welcomed as allies. 
The Goths, however, were brutally treated by corrupt and inept Roman commanders. They would later turn on the Emperor Valens, killing him and destroying his Roman army at The Battle of Hadrianopolis (378 AD).

 

Quote

 Book 31.4

1. Accordingly, under the command of their leader Alavivus, they occupied the banks of the Danube; and having sent ambassadors to Valens, they humbly entreated to be received by him as his subjects, promising to live quietly, and to furnish a body of auxiliary troops if any necessity for such a force should arise.

4.  The arrival of the foreign ambassadors, who, with prayers and earnest entreaties, begged that the people thus driven from their homes and now encamped on the other side of the river, might be kindly received by us, the affair seemed a cause of joy rather than of fear, according to the skilful flatterers who were always extolling and exaggerating the good fortune of the emperor; congratulating him that an embassy had come from the furthest corners of the earth unexpectedly, offering him a large body of recruits; and that, by combining the strength of his own nation with these foreign forces, he would have an army absolutely invincible; observing further that, by the yearly payment for military reinforcements which, came in every year from the provinces, a vast treasure of gold might be accumulated in his coffers.

https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/ammianus_31_book31.htm#C4

Edited January 29, 2022 by guy

[caldrail]

They didn't actually turn on Valens or the Empire as such, they were desperate and had not only been treated disgracefully as refugees, but Maximus and Lupercinus, who ran Thrace, had made a mass assassination attempt on Gothic leaders. They felt betrayed, never mind the Romans. Accordingly the only way to survive was to turn rogue against their hostile host.

Valens was particularly upset. he had known Fritigern personally from a previous war between Rome and the Goths and it appeared to him that the Goths had reneged on both settlements. What follows is classic late Roman intrigue. 

Valens is less than impressed with Trajanus, his military chief, and sends for a new boy, Sebastianus, who is making a name for himself elsewhere. Sebastianus considers that sending the Roman legions as is will not suffice. Zosimus would later describe them as effeminate and cowardly. So he picks out the youngsters who are spoiling for a fight and creates a cadre of raiders to move ahead of the column (and don't forget, Valens had to make repeated pleas just to get his soldiers to march on the Goths at all). Valens is in the middle of a court argument. Do we rely on raiding to whittle down the Goth rebels? Or do we march on the Goths and crush them in bloody battle? Sebastianus is feeling insecure so he tries to lick Valens backside and overdoes it. Valens is on the point of telling him where to go. So Seb does something else - he reverses his argument, saying the time has come to break the Goths in one swift stroke (after all, the raiders are doing good work, heads are coming back to Constantinople on a daily basis), and therefore takes the wind out of his court rivals, including Trajanus, who wants his old job back.

So the column marches to Adrianople, arriving in a disorganised manner. Valens does not attack, but begins negotiations. He wants to resolve this peacefully, man to man with the Gothic leaders. The Goths play for time - more on that later. But one Roman cavalry unit arrives so late that the Goths think the battle has started. So the situation rapidly escalates and the battle gets under way. Then the Goths spring their suprise. Returning foragers have arrived quietly and mount an ambush on the Roman line. The Roman army crumbles into a disordered mass. The fight goes on for the rest of the day, and only at nightfall are the Romans able to mount an escape which Valens, already wounded, does not survive. In the darkness the Goths apparently set fire to a barn they know Romans are hiding in - they didn't know Valens was in there. Thus the Goths were free to range across the region. They do not attack Constantinople. Besides being too powerful a city for them, the Gothic leader famously says "I do not wage war on walls".

Edited January 29, 2022 by caldrail

[Novosedoff]

On 1/28/2022 at 12:11 PM, caldrail said:

So what was this 'Fall of the Republic'? It wasn't a change in regime. All the apparatus of government survived the accession of Augustus. Indeed, he set about reforming the Senate, removing the riff-raff, encouraging participation, and making it difficult for Senators to hide in the crowd. Tiberius would later pass on powers from the Popular Assemblies to the Senate so they could govern in his absence. Hardly the powerless gang of elites many dismiss airily. No, it was the loss of of civic duty. Under the Principate, pandering to the public was less important compared to the immediate feel-good factor of panem et circuses 'Bread and Circuses'. The public would be bribed rather than appeased. I have to say, it sort of worked.

Unlike Sulla and Caesar, who increased the number of senators to buy their loyalty, Augustus actually did the opposite and reduced their number to 600. He wanted to decrease the number even further down to 400, but senators were very displeased, so Augustus had to settle at 600. Nonetheless, the whole Roman policy would be decided at Augustus home by a small group of the chosen senators invited by Augustus rather than the Senate as whole. More importantly, Augustus took complete control over the financial and military matters. All the Roman provinces were divided into senatorial and imperial, the Senate would now have only 1 legion in Africa under its command, the rest of the army was under Augustus's. The Roman treasury used to be kept at Saturn temple and controlled by the Senate, now Augustus additionally established the aerarium military which would be replenished from the 2 new taxes introduced by Augustus (5% inheritance tax and 1% sales indirect tax) to pay the retirement benefits to soldiers (which allowed to buy their loyalty and support), the senatorial treasury would be then funded from Augustus donations and transfers. Augustus bribed the plebs by increasing the number of recipients of social benefits (like free grain) from 150,000 to 200,000, so from the political perspective there was a very little chance for the opposition to influence the streets. He also slashed the greedy interests of publicans by making the taxation  more orderly and transparent. That's the very basic political mechanics beneath the Augustus's popularity and the transition to the principate 🙂       

[caldrail]

No-one, not even me, is going to suggest that Augustus was sitting back and letting the world do it's thing, that's why he accepted a revived Princeps Senatus, he was operating as leader of the Senate. That doesn't mean he was clicking his fingers at it - the Senate was not going to like that. Many talk about the Senate being powerless at that point but it isn't true, the mechanism of republican government was still functioning under Augustus' guidance and would continue, albeit dwindling, until Diocletian tells the world that HE is in charge.

But that said, there's very little point supporting and encouraging senatorial debate and resolution if you mean to control their decisions - someone is going to notice. it is true Augustus banned them making decisions for seven years toward the end of his tenure, but that wasn't Augustus the tyrant, that the Augustus fed up with murderous squabbles behind the scenes and trying to punish a Senate that wasn't behaving itself. He did after all restore their powers when he was satisfied they had learned their lesson. And importantly, please note that the Senate complained and heckled him. They didn't see him as a tyrant depriving them of power in favour of his own.

[Novosedoff]

I mean, we've got to remember that under the republic the Romans effectively had 3 different institutions of the legislative power: curiate, century and tribal assemblies. So from the political organisation perspective it was way more more chaotic and complex than the  bicameral British parliament or Russian Duma. There was something blasphemous in the idea that someone could intervene to re-shape the political landscape, to change the order of things that seemed very natural to the Romans because they were accustomed to it by many years of their history.  Nonetheless Augustus led by his political instincts succeeded in where his predecessor had failed in the consolidation and re-distribubution of the political powers, Tiberius was the one to finish it off. The thing is that the Romans were very tired of the constant civil wars and political squabbles. Even soldiers and the centuriate assembly were ready to give up any little political powers that they had when Augustus promised them the very basic things that they wanted, such as retirement benefits etc. So it was the game of political trade-offs that Augustus was smart enough to win by surviving through the turmoil of events. After all, as we now know, only 25% of the Roman emperors would die by natural death. 

[caldrail]

You seem hung up on this idea of consolidation and redistribution. It does sound to me that you're trying to impose practises more akin to the last century than the ancient world. If Augustus was consolidating, why did he not claim ever more power and privilege? Why did he relinquish a high office? Why did he reform the Senate and encourage active debate and participation of its members? Why did he give Marcus Agrippa what appears to be equal power so he could manage the empire in the absence of Augustus, for a total of nine years?  Why did he award the very same tribunician power to chosen colleagues more than once for a five year term each? These are not the actions of a tyrant.

Caesar may have threatened, somewhat carelessly, to change the political map, but Augustus was given imperium at propraetor rank originally with the promise that he would preserve the Republic, which is fundamentally what he did. 

The Senate still ran the empire, Augustus only had precedence in the regions that had garrisons to command, and Egypt alone was his personal fief, newly annexed by Rome after the demise of the Ptolemaic dynasty so no redistribution there. His power to intervene were not absolute, it was limited to fields of responsibility like imperium always had been. 

And what's all this about soldiers giving up political rights? They had the same rights as citizens that existed in the Republic, they didn't give anything up. Far from it, they were soon to realise that they could impose decisions on the state without recourse to the various voting assemblies, who I might add, were eventually left without purpose by the Senate - not Augustus. They did not legislate. They were supposed to vote upon the issues the Senate asked of them.

[Novosedoff]

I may have misunderstood the initial point of your first post in the thread. To me it seemed you have claimed that there was very little republican left during the late republic, so the transition to the principate and  the fall of the republic are much exaggerated. I tried to point at few different things that in my view constituted a significant shift in the political landscape. The elective powers though highly dispersed used to be represented by the assemblies before Augustus. Augustus changed all that by transferring the electoral powers, such as the right to elect the magistrates, to the Senate. The Roman soldiers used to have the right of vote in their Comita Centuriate to elect new consuls,  Augustus effectively took away from them the right to do that. The Senate had become the only supreme place for such decisions to be taken. So can we say the transition benefited the Senate in any way? Sure, it did. But when one takes away something from someone, something else must be given in return. So Augustus offered his soldiers the generous social retirement package, which soldiers were happy to accept. It appeared that they were happy to sacrifice their electoral powers for pension plans. Before Augustus the Senate was the only place to take decisions on starting new wars and making international deals. The army used to be controlled by the decions of the Senate, which would appoint its commanders to execute their technical and tactical military duties (not political).  The rise of Augustus changed that, the Senate lost any control over the army (again) to be able to replace Augustus as chief commmander and overcome his political decisions. From then on the only legion that obeyed the direct decisions by the Senate would be the legion based in Africa (not for long though, btw if I ain't mistaken there were about 43 legions at the time of Augustus)

Here is a good infographic map from the English wiki article Constitution_of_the_Roman_Republic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Roman_Republic#/media/File:Roman_constitution.png

But anyway to me it all looks like quite a big political change. So I'd argue with the view that there was no fall of the republic.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Novosedoff

[caldrail]

The Comita Centuriate wasn't military, at least not directly. It was a voting assembly that was based on the old Servian classification of wealth for eligibility of citizens to serve in armies, not exclusively for soldiers. The internet is a little misleading on this. The 'centuries' of the assembly were not divided into exactly hundreds because wealth varied considerably among the public. Since Roman legions could not vote on issues in Rome (given they were garrisoned in provincial areas, one can understand the frustration they felt, but that long predated Augustus).

The late Empire, or the Dominate, was fully autocratic. Voting assemblies had more or less gone, the Comitia Centuriate lasted the longest as more of a social forum than political. The Senate had been reduced to ritual status because legislation was by then a decree of the Roman leader. It was all still framed in republican terms and categories.

The Senate did not control their armies.. They delegated that to selected men with the power of imperium, the right to command an army. To illustrate that, in the late republic perhaps a dozen men would have possessed that legal power. Augustus was awarded the unusual privilege of imperium maius, the highest military privilege, which established the precedent of the 'generalissimo's' of the imperial period.

 

[Novosedoff]

I may have been mistaken about the complete transfer of the legislative and electoral powers to the Senate under Augustus, it appears the assemblies were still functioning under Augustus, however in his last will  Augustus advised Tiberius to change that by shifting all electoral powers to the Senate (how many last wills, of which we would know, have, in fact, been fabricated?), which Tiberius did. Later emperors tried to change it back again a few times, however by the end of the first century all the legislative power became finally concentrated in the Senate.

Nonetheless all the historians report that under Augustus  the most important seats would be given to his nominees, he even openly bribed the voters, which leaves very little space for doubts as to in whose hands all the real powers were 🙂

Edited January 31, 2022 by Novosedoff

[caldrail]

It actually didn't matter whether powers were transferred from the Popular Assemblies, the Senate stopped providing them with issues to vote upon. That was political greed by the Senate though I do agree that Augustus clearly did nothing to obstruct that, but then again, that process of sidelining was not immediate - it would take decades and decades and some of Augustus' successors were just as guilty.

But the matter of nominees. Augustus was in a position to manage the empire, but we know he did respect the rights of free will of those he did not select. Remember that during his reform of the Senate, Augustus nominated three hundred candidates, half the required number. Only half? Why not all? We can't escape the need for Augustus to hold a strong influence over government. That's not necessarily consolidation as you would see it, but just as much a manifestation of creating a workable relationship with Roman government, a recruitment process for an efficient government, or even self preservation, because Augustus knew full well how dangerous Roman politics could be. 

Remember what happened. Each of his nominees was given the right to select another candidate, anyone with suitable qualification, in order to bring the Senate to six hundred members, a size in accordance with tradition rather than the very inflated and chaotic previous host. But one man suggested someone Augustus had already exiled. So he asked "Really? That man? Isn't there someone else you could choose?". The Senator replied "I have the right to choose". So Augustus honoured his request and brought the new member back from exile. Think about that. Augustus made the rule perhaps, but he certainly observed them himself when it didn't suit him.

Bribery? I've talked about civic bribery for a long time and Augustus was hardly the first to use that!

the judgement and will of the Roman people in matters of the public interest can be indicated in three settings: at a public meeting, at a voting assembly, and in the audience assembled for shows or gladiatorial contests - Cicero.

So what changed? The voting assemblies would give way to military power. The Senate helped create the very force that outweighed them.

[Novosedoff]

You seem to stick to the point that Augustus was the most democratic ruler ever, almost like Mr. Kim Jong-un delivering master-classes to the world leaders via youtube on how to govern democratically 🙂 Augustus was a dictator who turned down the official proposal by the Senate to become "a dictator" only because he wanted to look decent, so instead they made him a tribune for life time or tribunicia potestas (it's worth reminding that a tribune had the power to overrule any new law of the Senate by his only vote). Even though Augustus restored the rights of the assemblies that were lost during the civil wars, any new nominees for the high magistrate offices had to be approved by the Senate via mechanism called "auctoritas senatus", which effectively gave the Senate the power over assemblies.   Augustus ruled as the chairman of the Senate and introduced money penalties for any senator who didn't attend the obligatory meetings, but once he became fed up with his own incentives for new reforms, he established the consilium principes so that he could rule without even leaving his own palace (so he arranged for himself a remote workplace as we'd say these days). To me this all looks as pure hypocrisy  🙂

It's better to illustrate what Augustus did with the following example. Every new year the Senate would have to choose 2 new consuls, so Augustus would present the Senate the list of 4 candidates pre-approved by him personally. Did the senators have a choice? Yes, they did, but the choice was limited by Augustus. Sometimes the Senate would have to choose 16 new praetors, and Augustus would give the list of his 12 candidates, so the Senate would only have to find 4 other candidates to fill the remaining positions. But the majority of magistrates would still be chosen by Augustus.

As for corruption and bribery, in my view this was inherent in  the very foundations of the Roman political institutes because Romans didn't pay salaries to their magistrates (consuls, tribunes etc). The official studies of the Roman history somehow support the very naive view that one had to be rich in order to engage in the Roman politics. I'd say, this is complete nonsense! One had to be skilled and corrupt in order to skim for the sake of his own pockets from any new political motion by delivering justice in the most beneficial way to secure a kickback (while the Senate finally became the high court during the emperial period with the functions stretching as far as overwatch of the construction works in provinces and expenditure, overwatch of the religious matters etc)        

Edited February 2, 2022 by Novosedoff

[Novosedoff]

Btw the very fact of the existence of the lex repetundarium that was passed in 123 BС kinda indicates that the corruption in the ancient world was widespread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Acilia_repetundarum  

The usury business of publicans was run on the idea of corruption too.  

[caldrail]

You seem to stick to the point that Augustus was the most democratic ruler ever

Nope. Never said that. I said he was republican at heart. Res publica, not modern republican. I also said I didn't doubt his political ambition. But as for being a tyrannical type, no, he wasn't, though it somewhat ironic that a few voices accused him of being a Dictator when he was only using the privileges the Senate had given him. As I pointed out, there are other interpretations of Augustus that conform to the Roman sources, but these are not considered because people generally start with a preconception.

Your viewpoint is not entirely unexpected - it's the bog standard view that many academics prefer, but I think it's fundamentally wrong. Authoritarian is not necessarily dictatorial - ask the personnel of any workplace. There are simply too many anomalies that show a different character and circumstance to that which people prefer. The standard view is too simplistic for a start. It relies on stereotypes from the previous century. The real issue here is that the Roman sources are being interpreted in a modern light. This is not a new phenomenon. Throughout history people have looked at Roman history and interpreted it by the standards of their day. I'm not interested in that. I want contextual understanding and that means dumping convention.

[Novosedoff]

Well, I think I've given a few facts to prop up my point of view. You seem to have given none to support yours. I think you'd better illustrate your view with some solid examples. Because to me the claim that Augustus was republican in his heart sounds like the claim that a serial killer can be kind in his heart, considering  everything Augustus had done. 

Frankly, it all started before Augustus when dictator Sulla forced the 2 new consuls stay in Rome, thereby depriving them of any control over army legions (at other times one of the consuls, sometimes even both of them had to stay with the army outside Rome, while the other half of the army would obey the orders of the remaining consul - this allowed to counter-balance their powers), and when Sulla intervened in the work of assemblies. Later Caesar was officially recognised by the Senate as dictator and consul at the same time, but the other new thing was when the senators made Caesar a consul for life time.

As for Augustus, the major change of the electoral process concerned how the split of functions was reorganized between the Senate and  assemblies. Before Augustus any new laws that assemblies passed had to be pre-approved by the Senate, but new magistrates to lead the assemblies would still be elected by assemblies without consulting with the Senate. Under Augustus that was changed, so effectively any new magistrates would have to become pre-approved by the Senate too.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Novosedoff