The Augustan Empire 43 BC

Recently, in line with the general theme of 'opting out' whose repercussions on the 'divine family' were seen in chapter 2 above, historians have discerned a 'crisis of recruitment' in the governing class, especially in the Senate. In 13 b.c. the Senate itself, in Augustus' absence, alarmed at the situation, appointed men from the equestrian order to the lowest set of senatorial posts, the 'vigintivirate' (allowing them to remain equites), and obliged ex-quaestors over forty to draw lots for the tribunate; and on his return Augustus compelled some people with the requisite census to enter the Senate. In the following year there was again a shortage for the tribunate, and equites were forced into it, with a choice, at the end, which order to stay in. In a.d. 5 (and often, says Dio) people were unwilling to be aediles, and compulsion was used. Suetonius alleges that the additional decuria was necessitated by avoidance of jury- service, and Dio records the difficulty of getting people to offer their daughters as Vestal Virgins.⁴⁸ We can, then, agree as to the phenome­non, provided that a careful distinction be made. For the people at the lower end of the elite group, the sort who in the Republic would not have got beyond quaestorian rank and would have remained senatores pedarii, in the new dispensation the rank was not worth the trouble and expenditure. But the top was unaffected; praetorships and consulships were sdll sought after and fought over, hence Augustus' need to pass a lex de ambitu and make a rule, in 8 B.C., requiring deposits from candidates for office.⁴⁹ In 23 B.C. he had declared that only ten praetors were needed annually, and the figure was kept at that for a few years; but there was pressure, and they were restored to twelve. And in a.d. ii, there being sixteen candidates, all were let in.⁵⁰ As for the consulship, both its relinquishment by Augustus from 23 B.C. and the introduction of a second pair each year, which was regular from 5 B.C., must be seen as a response to the number of men eagerly surging up through the system and wanting the social reward: the age at which nobiles might reach the consulship was actually lowered.⁵¹ So it is no wonder that in the Augustan marriage-laws one of the privileges achieved by the possession of children was priority in the candidature for office.

⁴⁵ Talbert 1984 (d 77) 122-4, following Rotondi, posits a lex lulia de senatu babendo of 9 b.c.

⁴⁴ Suet. Aug. 36.1. ⁴⁷ Dio Liv.18.5 and 35.1; lv.3. ⁴⁸ Suet. Aug. 32; Dio lv.22.j.

⁴' DioLV.5.3. ^M Dio lvi.23.4. ⁵¹ Syme 1986 (a 95) j 1-3

The election to magistracies was plainly not intended by Augustus to go simply by his fiat. There was insistence on giving people the vote, as in the arrangements for the decurions of the twenty-eight Italian coloniae to have a kind of 'postal vote';[260] and Agrippa's new Saepta and Diribitorium must have been intended and used for actual voting and vote-counting, even if also for exhibitions. That might not be very significant: by Pliny's time, elections by the people in the Campus, though they still happened, were just a piece of pageantry. But to the extent to which, in Augustus' day, the ruler still needed to influence them, that state had not yet arrived. We are told how he gave presents to his own tribes and canvassed personally for his preferred candidates.[261]One of his privileges was that of 'commendation' of candidates for the higher offices, who were then 'candidates of Caesar' and automatically elected: Augustus seems to have used it sparingly, and not at all (as far as we know) for the consulship. He did not 'give' consulships to people, though we have seen in chapter 2 how he caused special arrangements to be made for the young hopefuls of the 'divine family'. Dio asserts that Augustus often chose the urban praetor himself[262] (not, it appears, the peregrine praetor, who shared the civil jurisdiction, which shows that this is nothing to do with a 'grip on the law'); doubtless what that means is that he decided which of the annually elected praetors should have the hierarchically senior position.⁵⁵ As for governors of provinces, those of Augustus' own provincia were, properly, his to choose: it was an immense hold on promotion to the really significant jobs. The proconsulships of the 'provinces of the Roman people', were, in principle, still determined by the lot. Some scholars are minded to show that they were somehow picked with an eye to particular talent or suitability or experience.⁵⁶ The attempt results in very little, but some manipulation of the lot is plausible, for ensuring, for example, that Africa got a soldier when needed, and we know that the lot was abandoned in at least one period of emergency.