however, were reserved for senators; as also the governorships of those provinces which had been annexed under the republic. But new annexations, such as Egypt, Noricum, and Raetia, were entrusted to knights, and likewise the commands of new institutions, such as the fleet and the auxiliary troops. Financial offices, the collection of taxes, and those posts in Rome and Italy which the Emperor took charge of, were also reserved for knights. The selection of the procurators Augusti, or tax-officers, in the provinces from the knights alone was some compensation to them for the loss of the remunerative field which they had occupied under the Republic as publicani. As the taxes in the imperial provinces were no longer fanned, but directly levied from the provincials, the occupation of the knights as middlemen, by which they had been able to accumulate capital and so acquire political influence, was gone. Under the Principate they are an official class. Those knights who held high imperial offices were called equites illustres.
(10) Elevation of knights to the senate. Knights of senatorial rank—that is, sons of senators—who had not yet entered the senate, formed a special class within the equestrian order, to which they, as a rule, only temporarily belonged, and wore the badges of their senatorial birth. They could ordinarily become senators on reaching the age of twenty-five. For knights who were not ofsenatorial rank there was no regular system of advancement to the senate. But the Emperor, by assuming censorial functions, could exercise the right of adlectio, and admit knights into the senate. It seems to have been a regular usage to admit into the senate the commander of the praetorian guards when he vacated that post.
Chapter IV.
The Family of Augustus and His Plans to Found a Dynasty
While Augustus was constructing the new constitution he had many tasks of other kinds—administrative, military, and diplomatic—to perform. He had to regulate the relations of the Roman state with neighboring powers in the East; he had to secure the northern frontier of the empire on the Rhine and the Danube against the German barbarians, and carry out there the work begun by Caesar his father. He had to improve the administration in Italy and Rome, and step in if the senate of the Empire failed to perform its duties; he had to reform the provincial administration which had been so disgracefully managed by the senate of the Republic. Besides this he had to make his own position safe by keeping his fellow-citizens content; he had to see that the nobles and the people were provided with employment and amusement. Finally he had to look forward into the future, and take measures to ensure the permanence of the system which he had called into being.
This last task of Augustus, his plans and his disappointments in the choice of a successor to his power, will form the subject of the present chapter. It is needful, first of all, to obtain a clear view of his family relationships.
Augustus was married three times. He had been betrothed to a daughter of P. Servilius Isauricus, but political motives induced him to abandon this alliance and marry Clodia, daughter of Fulvia, in order to seal a reconciliation with her stepfather M. Antonius. In consequence, however, of a quarrel with her mother, he put her away before the marriage was consummated. His second wife was Scribonia, twice a widow, whom he also married for political reasons, namely, in order to conciliate Sextus Pompeius, whose father-in-law, Scribonius Libo, was Scribonia's brother. By her one child was born to him in 39 B.C., unluckily a daughter; for, had it been a son, much anxiety and sorrow might have been spared him. Her name was Julia. He divorced Scribonia in order to marry Livia, the widow of Tiberius Claudius Nero (38 B.C.). Livia was herself a daughter of the Claudian house, for her father, M. Livius Drusus Claudianus, was, as his name shows, a Claudius adopted into the Livian gens. She was a beautiful and talented woman whom he truly loved; and it was a sore disappointment to him that they had no children.
Livia, however, brought her husband two stepsons: Tiberius Claudius Nero (born in 42 B.C.) and Nero Claudius Drusus, born in 38 B.C., after her marriage with Augustus, and suspected to be really his son.
Besides his daughter Julia and his wife Livia, another woman possessed great influence with the Emperor and played an important part in the affairs of the time. This was his sister Octavia. She was married twice, first to C. Claudius Marcellus, aud secondly, for political reasons, to M. Antonius. By her first marriage she had a son, M. Claudius Marcellus (born 43 B.C.), and a daughter Marcella.
It is necessary to say a word here about the political position of the Emperor's kindred. The imperial house embraced the male and female descendants in male (agnatic) line from the founder of the dynasty; the wife of the Emperor; and the wives of the male descendants. Thus Livia and Julia belonged to the house of Augustus, but Octavia did not belong to it, nor Julia's children, until Augustus adopted them. The distinctive privilege possessed by members of the imperial house was that they were inviolable and sacrosanct like the tribunes. This right dated from the triumviral period, and thus is explained how it was that Octavia, though not one of the imperial house, possessed tribunician sacrosanctity. She had acquired it not as the sister of Caesar, but as the wife of Antonius. Soon it became the custom for the soldiers to take an oath of fidelity to the whole house of the Caesars; but this custom hardly existed under Augustus himself. Under the first Princeps the members of his house enjoyed few honours and privileges, compared with those which were acquired by them in later reigns.
It has been already seen that constitutionally the Emperor has no voice in appointing a successor to the Principate; for neither designation nor heredity was recognized. Augustus had to find a practical way for escaping this constitutional principle, and securing that the system which he founded should not come to an end on his own death and that he should have a capable successor. The plan which he adopted was an institution which had no official name, but which was equivalent to a co-regency. He appointed a "consort" in the imperial power. There was no constitutional difficulty in this. The institution of collegial power was familiar to Roman law and Roman practice; and the two elements of the imperial authority—the imperium and the tribunician power—could be held by more than one. But, at the same time, the consort was not the peer of the Emperor; he could only be subsidiary. There could be only one Princeps, only one Augustus. In fact, the consort held, in relation to the Augustus, somewhat the same position as the praetor held to the consul.
Thus from the necessity for making practical provision for the succession arose certain extraordinary magistracies,—proconsular and tribunician offices, which held a middle place between the Princeps on the one hand, and the ordinary magistrates on the other. On the death of the Princeps, the consort would have a practical, though not a legal claim, to be elected Princeps, and nothing short of revolution would, as a rule, hinder him from obtaining the highest position in the state.
The proconsular command was first conferred on the consort, the tribunician power subsequently. Under Augustus both powers were conferred for a limited number of years, but always for more than one year, which was the defined period for the ordinary magistracies. The consort had not command over the troops, like the Emperor, but it was common to assign him some special command. He did not bear the title of Imperator, and he did not wear the laurel wreath. Nor was he included in the yearly vows which were offered up for the Emperor. But he had the right to set up his statues, and his image appeared on coins.
Anyone might be selected as consort. But it was only natural that the Emperor should select his son for that position, and thus it became ultimately the recognized custom that the Emperor's son should become his consort. By this means the danger of elevating a subject so near the imperial throne was avoided, and the natural leaning of a sovran towards the foundation of a dynasty was satisfied. When the Emperor had no children, he used to adopt into his family whomsoever he chose as his successor, and the danger of such a course was mitigated by the paternal power which he possessed over his adopted son.
It was some time, however, before this usage became a stereotyped part of the imperial system. The first consort of Augustus was Agrippa, who married his niece Marcella. The proconsular imperium was conferred on Agrippa, sometime before 22 B.C., but Augustus had certainly no intention that Agrippa should be his successor. He was compelled to assign a distinguished position to his invaluable and ambitious coadjutor,—to take him into a sort