The Historians' History of the World 06

There can be no doubt that Julius Cæsar would have ascended the throne of Rome as absolute imperator after his return from the Parthian expedition, and Octavian as well had it in his power to claim sovereignty without limitation of any kind, for the whole army and fleet were under his command; but he rested content with a more modest title and took the reins of government, not as imperator but as princeps. He did not found a monarchy but a diarchy, as it has been aptly styled, in which the power was to be permanently divided between the emperor and the senate. It was a compromise with the old republic, a voluntary constitutional limitation of the sovereign prerogative by which all the rights pertaining to the people and the senate—legislation no less than legal jurisdiction, the right of coinage no less than the levy of taxation, the disposal of the revenue and expenditure of the state, and finally (after the accession of Tiberius and ostensibly in compliance with a clause in the testamentary dispositions of Augustus), the appointment of magistrates—were to appertain, under well-defined rules, in part to the princeps and in part to the senate. The empire was to be elective, as the old Roman monarchy had been; the nomination to the throne was to proceed from the senate, but on the other hand the supreme command of the army and fleet was vested in the emperor in virtue of his proconsular authority, which extended over all parts of the empire outside the limits of the city of Rome. The legions were quartered in the provinces under his jurisdiction, while in those governed by the senate, with a few exceptions which soon ceased to be, all that the governors had at their disposal was a very moderate force of auxiliary troops.

Roman Trophies

We have no reason to doubt the honesty of Augustus’ intentions, but it is obvious that all the prerogatives of the senate insured it a fair share in the government only so long as the sovereign chose to respect them. The reign of terror under his successors sufficed to set in the most glaring light the absolute impotence of the senate when opposed to a despot, and overturned the neatly balanced system of Augustus. It is easier, we cannot but confess, to blame the author of this system and to demonstrate its impracticability than to put a better in its place. For can it be supposed that if Augustus had set up an absolute monarchy such as Cæsar contemplated, the Romans would have been spared the tyranny of a Caligula or a Nero? Again, if Augustus had handed over to the senate even a share in the command of the army, would the empire have been so much as possible, or would he not immediately have conjured up the demon of civil war? Nor was the co-operation of the senate in the government altogether a failure; it proved salutary under emperors such as Nerva and his successors. The history of all ages goes to prove that chartered rights are of no avail against despots, and what guarantee is there in modern monarchies for the maintenance of a constitution confirmed by oath, except the conscience of the sovereign, and, even more, the steadfast will of the nation, which will endure no curtailment of its rights?

UNFULFILLED POSSIBILITIES

But the Roman nation existed no more, and in the senate under the empire a Cineas would now have seen, not a council of kings, but, like the emperor Tiberius, an assemblage of men prepared to brook any form of servitude. If it had been possible to give legal representation to the Roman citizens in Italy and the romanised provinces, the system devised by Augustus might have been destined to enjoy a longer lease of life. The emperor Claudius, who had some sensible ideas intermingled with his follies, would have admitted Gauls of noble birth to the senate, as Julius Cæsar had done. We can read in Tacitus of the vehement opposition with which this proposal was received by the senators, who would not hear of any diminution of their exclusive class privileges; and even the Spaniard Seneca has nothing but angry scorn for the defunct emperor who wanted to make the whole world a present of the rights of Roman citizenship and “to see all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, and Britons, in the toga.”

And yet this would have been the only way to infuse fresh sap into the decaying organism, to maintain the vital forces of the senate, to establish the government of the empire on a broader basis, and to bind the nations which had been subdued by the sword to the empire with indissoluble ties. It is true that by the so-called jus Latii which Vespasian bestowed upon the whole of Spain as a testimony to the Romanisation of the country, the magistrates, and after the second century the town-councillors, of such cities as did not enjoy full rights of citizenship, were admitted to the ranks of Roman citizens, a very sensible measure, though of benefit to a limited circle only, by which the best elements of provincial society became Roman citizens.