The Augustan Empire 43 BC

The ruler in the imperial period had the role, also, of supreme and ultimate judge. In the Republic there had been no supreme judge or court of the Roman state, and decisions both of the criminal and of the civil courts were inappellable. So it has again to be asked what part Augustus played in that important development, and by what consti­tutional authority. Under him the civil courts continued to function in the standard way, and so did the criminal quaestiones, with, even, an addition, the adultery court; and for the organization of them all the important pair of statutes de iudiciis was passed.[255] But besides that, there existed already judicial appeal to the ruler as a supreme court and jurisdiction by the ruler at first instance, in the form of pure cognitio: there is not much evidence, and it is anecdotal at that, but historians mostly, and rightly, accept that at least tentative beginnings can be perceived under Augustus.[256] Attempts to derive that extra ordinem jurisdiction of

Augustus from republican precedents and his traditional constitutional powers[257] all fail, at least in part, however hard scholars press into service the early grants of'judging when called upon' and the 'vote of Athena',[258]or seek to extract a judicial power from his proconsular imperium or — for those who believe in its existence — his consular potestas. It seems necessary to posit some formal legislative basis for Augustus' jurisdic­tion; and as that is unlikely to have been a statute of which no hint survives in the sources, a reasonable guess, in a situation of admitted uncertainty, is that something may have been contained in the leges de iudiciis. Be that as it may, the emergence of the ruler as supreme judge and head of the legal order is the principal formal difference between the Republic and the Empire.

III. ACHIEVEMENT /. Governing class

However one may qualify or re-phrase, the late Republic was running into an imbalance between the growing scale of its responsibilities as a world power and the organization needed to meet them,[259] and, with further growth of empire, some initiatives would have had to be taken, though they did not need to be massive or revolutionary. The organs of government of the Roman empire are treated in various chapters below, but we must here consider what part Augustus played in their development.

To call the Senate an 'organ of government' brings out vividly the change it had to undergo, for it had been, not an 'organ', but the government itself. To an extent, that continued to be so.³⁷ There was no 'dyarchy': just as Augustus' imperium maius entitled him to determine things all over the empire, so senatus consulta could be of universal application. And the Senate gained (like Augustus) one completely new role, as a court of law.³⁸ Nor need it be doubted that Augustus' repeated efforts to reduce the size and purify the social composition of the Senate were motivated by his desire for that body to retain a responsible role in public affairs. The sub-committee he set up to prepare senatorial business with him will have improved, not diminished, the chance of the Senate to maintain a hold on serious matters of state, as well as for the ruler to propose initiatives and gauge reactions.³⁹ As individuals, the senators remained the holders of virtually all the top offices of state - in principle, all home magistracies, all legionary legateships and all governorships of provinces, save for the one major exception, Egypt, and a few minor ones. (Nor was Egypt any harbinger of change: no further major province, nor any other legionary command, became equestrian till Severan times.) Senators also retained charge of the state treasury, and supplied, exclusively, the personnel of a number of new administrative committees:praefectifrumenti dandi from 22 B.C.; curatores viarum from 20 b.C., curatores aquarum from 11 b.C.; praefecti aerarii militaris from a.d. 6; curatores operum publicorum (not datable); curatores frumenti⁴⁰ for acquiring grain in a.d. 6 and 7; the consular commission on expenditure, a.d. 6; the consular committee to take over embassies, from a.d. 8. The consuls were also charged with a new jurisdiction over fideicommissa, testamen­tary trusts. Finally, experimental but with a future of high prestige, there was the prefecture of the city.