The Augustan Empire 43 BC

ENDNOTE: CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS

i. the terminal date of the triumvirate

This is notoriously disputed. For thorough discussion of the evidence and bibliography, reaching opposite conclusions, cf. esp. Fadinger 1969 (в 42) 98— 153, Gabba 1970 (в 55) lxviii—lxxix.

The Lex Titia of 27 November 43 established the triumvirate for five years: its terminal date was 31 December 3 8 and the term was more precisely five years and a little over a month-. It was renewed for a further term, but not until the conference of Tarentum in 37 (above, p. 27). The disputed question is the terminal date fixed at the time of this renewal, whether 31 December 3 3 or 31 December 32.

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At RG 7.1 Augustus claims to have held the triumvir per continues annos decern / ovvexeoiv ereaiv 84ка (cf. Suet. Aug. 27.1): i.e. clearly, from 27 November 43 to 31 December 3 3: cf. Brunt - Moore ad loc. I agree with those who regard this as decisive. Thus the Fasti Capitolini, inscribed under Augustus, include the triumvirs before the consuls in their entry for 1 January 37 (rather than 36): the second five-year term had retrospectively been fixed as beginning then. App. III. 28. 80 shows that Appian regarded the triumvirate as due to end at the end of 3 2 rather than 3 3: 8vo yap eXeiirev ётт) rfj Sevrepq. TrevratTla -rfjabe rrjs apxys [of 1 January 33], but that seems to be his own misinterpretation: even though in III. Appian is in general drawing on Augustus' Autobiography, it would not be surprising if Augustus was delicately vague in that work about his status in 32, and it would be in Appian's manner to fill out the gap with his own explanation. BCiv. v.95.398, brei Se о XP°^V°S fXrjye rrjs apxrjs ■ ■ ■ [of Tarentum], perhaps implies that Appian wrongly thought that the triumvirs still held office in 37, when in fact this had already expired (cf. Dio xlviii. 5 4.6): in that case he would naturally assume that the five-year renewal would last from 36 to the end of 32. As Antony and Octavian were due to assume the consulship on 1 January 31, it J" .Charlesworth, САН x' 65.

was tempting to infer that the triumvirate was due to expire on the previous day, and that perhaps misled Appian, But such extensions usually went in five-year terms, and at Tarentum the triumvirs' first priority was to legalize their current position retroactively and therefore to backdate the new term to i January 37.

The oddity is in fact not that they renewed their term only to December 3 3 (that is explained sufficiently by the taste for five-year terms and the need for retrospective recognidon in 37); but that at Misenum, when they completed their consular lists for the following years, they had fixed on 31 rather than 3 2 as the date for their own consulship. They might then already have anticipated that a second quinquennium would expire in 33 rather than 32. But that may well have been Antony's choice: he was in a strong position at both Brundisium and Misenum, and the Antonians Ahenobarbus and Sosius were due to be consuls in 32. Antony may well have been content to rely on them to support him and embarrass Octavian in a crucial year.

2. octavian's'tribunicial sacrosanctity'