The Augustan Empire 43 BC

Historians have, since the 1930s, very readily applied to this period the notion of a dominant 'Party'.⁹ Augustus began his career, certainly, as a dux partiunr, when he became sole ruler, we are told, it was through the 'Party' that he continued to dominate the political world, his biggest problems, consequently, being those involved in holding the 'Party' together. That analysis is too closely based on the modern experience; and as soon as one attempts to locate the alleged 'Party' one is confronted with either too many people or too few. The obvious place to look is at the 'Friends of the Ruler', amiciprincipis (and renuntiatio amicitiae, such as happened to Cornelius Gallus, is then described as 'expulsion from the Party'). But the amici principis are too broad a group, for although Augustus' few close collaborators were, of course, amici principis, that category could also include jurists, philosophers, doctors and poets; in fact, it is hard to say where amicitia ended and clientela began. And if we include Augustus' well-wishers in the cities of the empire, we are soon in danger of ascribing to the 'Party' more or less everyone who is not known to have been an opponent of the regime - at which point the concept ceases to be helpful. Neither is any structural organization to be seen such as is nowadays associated with the idea of a 'Party', or would have held Augustus' adherents in the Roman world together politically. Of his handful of close associates, and how he bound them to him, there

' The most cogent account in terms of 'Party' is Be ranger 1959 (c 27).

will be more to say later; it is not at a 'Party' that we shall be looking, but at a dynastic network.

The fact that one finds it impossible not to speak of Augustus 'doing' this or 'deciding' that or 'establishing' the other is a reflection of blunt reality. It was he who decided what campaigns should be waged and when, and by armies of what size. As overall commanders of the main enterprises he appointed whom he chose. He decided policy towards Parthia, and the disposal of Judaea (though in that case we have in Josephus a window through which to watch him taking public advice).¹⁰ It was he who settled, not who should be consuls, but, much more importantly, how many consuls and praetors there should be each year, and from what minimum ages men might hold office. The Campaign to legislate for morality was his campaign. And as he took over functions, such as responsibility for food supply, security and fire-fighting in the capital, so his executive hold grew on more and more aspects of public life. Of power, that is to say of initiative and its important counterpart, the power to prevent things being done, Augustus held the essential reins from the beginning, and the rest he took over.

II. AUTHORITY

So the whole Roman world had a single ruler. The Greek-speaking part of that world , used to rulers and their ideology, saw no complications. By the time of, let us say, Hadrian or Marcus Aurelius, the ruler's total power was equally taken for granted in Rome, Italy and the West, and descriptions and justifications of it in Roman terms were available without embarrassment or hesitation. It was due to Augustus that that came to be so, because he combined a conservative cast of mind, and a vision of himself as restorer of Rome's erstwhile greatness and stability, with the ruthless determination to turn his power into a transmissible system. The descriptions and justifications of the power of the Roman ruler run, for that reason, on two parallel tracks: conformity to mos maiorum and creation of 'charisma'.

It was suggested in chapter 2 above that accounts of the traditional elements in Augustus' position in terms of a 'hoax', a 'cloak', or a 'veneer', masking 'brute power', though common, are seriously inade­quate. The better concept is 'legitimization': 'political power and legitimacy rest not only in taxes and armies, but also in the perceptions and beliefs of men'.¹¹

The narrative in chapter 2 showed how the main constitutional elements of the imperial system, imperium proconsulate maius and tribunicia

Joseph. BJ 11. 25 and 81: A] xvn.229 and 501; Crook 1955 (d 10) 32.

Hopkins 1978 (a 45) 198.