had learned a lesson from the clement policy of Maecenas. It was a great triumph for Augustus when, in the year of Murena’s conspiracy—the same year in which he was himself dangerously ill, and in which he gave the Principate its final shape—he won over two of the most distinguished men of republican sentiments, Cn. Calpurnius Piso and L. Sestius Quirinus, andinduced them, after his own abdication of the consulate in June, to fill that magistracy for the rest of the year. But there were still a certain number of irreconcilables, ready, if a favourable opportunity offered, to attempt to restore the Republic.
The solid foundations of the general contentment which marked the Augustan period were the effects of a long peace; the restoration of credit, the revival of industry and commerce, the expenditure of the public money for the public use, the promotion of public comfort and the security of public safety. In describing the details of the home administration, it is fitting to begin with thecares which Augustus bestowed on the revival of religion and the maintenance of the worship of the gods.
The priestly duties of maintaining religious worship in the temples of the gods devolved properly upon the patrician families of Rome. These families had been reduced in number and impoverished in the course of the civil wars; an irreligious spirit had crept in; and the shrines of the gods had fallen into decay. Horace, who saw the religious revival of Augustus, ascribes the disasters of the civil wars to the prevailing impiety :
Delicta maiorum immeritus lues,
Romane, donec templa refeceris.
We have already seen that after the conquest of Egypt, Augustus caused a law to be passed (the lex Saenia) for raising some plebeian families to the patrician rank. His care for the dignity and maintenance of the patriciate was closely connected with his concern for the restoration of the national worship. He set the example of renewing the old houses of the gods, and building new ones.
Apollo, whose shrine stood near Actium, was loved by Augustus above all other deities, and the Emperor was pleased if his courtiers hinted that he was directly inspired by the god of light or if they lowered their eyes in his presence, as if dazzled by some divine effulgence from his face. To this god he erected a splendid temple on the Palatine. The worship of the Lares engaged his particular attention, and he built numerous shrines for them in the various districts of Rome. Many religious games and popular feasts were also revived.
The state religion, as reformed by Augustus, was connected in the closest way with the Principate, and intended to be one of its bulwarks. Divus Julius had been added to the number of the gods. The Arval brothers sacrificed for the welfare of the Emperor and his family; the college of the quindecimviri and septemviri offered prayers for him; and there were added to the calendar new feasts whose motives depended on the new constitution. Moreover the Princeps was Pontifex Maximus, and belonged to the other religious colleges, in which members of his house were also usually enrolled. It has been remarked that the vitality of the old religion is clearly illustrated by the creation of new deities likeAnnorta,—the goddess who presided over the corn-supply on which imperial Rome depended.
The restoration of the worship of Juno was assigned to the care of Livia, as the representative of the matrons of Rome. Not only had the shrines of that goddess been neglected, but the social institution over which she specially presided had gone out of fashion. Along with the growth of luxury and immorality there had grown up a disinclination to marriage. Celibacy was the order of the day, and the number of Roman citizens declined. Measures enforcing or encouraging wedlock had often been taken by censors, but they did not avail to check the evil. Augustus made the attempt to break the stubbornness of his fellow-citizens at first by penalties (18 B.C..) and afterwards by rewards. Alex de maritandis ordinibus was passed, regulating marriages and divorces, and laying various penalties both on those who did not marry and on those who, married, had no children. An unmarried man was disqualified from receiving legacies, and the married man who was childless was fined half of every legacy. These unlucky ones were also placed at a disadvantage in competition for publicoffices. Nearly thirty years later (9 A.D.), another law, the lex Papia Poppaaa, established a system of rewards. The father of three children at Rome, was relieved of a certain portion of the public burdens, was not required to perform the duties of a judex or a guardian, and was given preference in standing for magistracies. These privileges were called the ius trium liberorum. The same privileges were granted to fathers of four children in Italy, or of five in the provinces. Augustus also (18 B.C.) tried to enforce marriage indirectly by laying new penalties on licentiousness. The lex Julia de adulteriis et de pudicitia made adultery a public offence; whereas before it could only be dealt with as a private wrong. No part of the policy of Augustus was so unpopular as these laws concerning marriage. They were strenuously resisted by all classes, and evaded in every possible way. Yet perhaps they produced some effect. Certainly the population of Roman citizens increased considerably between 28 and 8 B.C., and still more strikingly between the latter date and 14 A.D.; but this increase might be accounted for by the general wellbeing of the age, quite apart from artificial incentives.
In the year 17 B.C.—ten years after the foundation of the Principate—Augustus celebrated Ludi Saeculares, which were supposed to be celebrated every hundred (or hundred and ten) years. It was thus a ceremony which no citizen had ever beheld before and which none—according to rule—should ever behold again. As a matter of fact, however, many of those who saw the secular games of Augustus were destined to see the same ceremony repeated by one of his successors. Augustus probably intended the feast to have a certain political significance, both as lending a sort of consecration to the religious and social legislation of the preceding year, and as celebrating in an impressive manner the introduction of a new epoch, whose continuance now seemed assured by the adoption of the Emperor's grandsons, which took place at the same time. The conduct of the ceremony devolved upon the Quindecimviri, who elected two of their members, Augustus and Agrippa, to preside over the celebration. It lasted three days. The ceremonies consisted of the distribution of lustral torches, brimstone and pitch, and of wheat, barley, and beans, at certain stations in the city. The usual invocations of Dis Pater and Proserpine were replaced by those of Apollo and Diana. On the third day, a carmen saeculare—an ode of thanksgiving—was performed in the atrium of Apollo's Palatine temple by a choir ol youths and maidens of noble birth, both of whose parents were alive. The carmen saeculare was written by Horace, and is still preserved.
Augustus also endeavored to restrain luxury by sumptuary laws, and to suppress the immorality which prevailed at the public games. He excluded women altogether from the exhibitions of athletic contests, and assigned them a special place, apart from the men, at the gladiatorial shows. At these public spectacles he separated the classes as well as the sexes. Senators, knights,soldiers, freedmen were all assigned their special places. Precedence was given to married men over bachelors.
In connection with the social reforms of Augustus may be mentioned his policy in dealing with the libertini, who formed a very large portion of the population of Rome. He endeavored to reduce their number in three ways. (1) He facilitated the marriage of freed folk with free folk (except senators), with a view to drawing them into the number of the free population. (2) The institution of theAugustales was an inducement to freedmen to remain in the Italian towns, instead of flocking to the capital. (3) Laws were passed limiting the manumission of slaves. The lex Aelia Sentia (4 A.D.) decreed that a slave under thirty years of age or of bad character must not be manumitted except by the process ofvindicta. Four years later, the lex Fufia Caninia ordained that only a certain percentage of the slaves then existing could be set free by testament.
SECT. II. — ADMINISTRATION OF ROME AND ITALY
No part, perhaps, of the government of Augustus is more characteristic of his political method and of the general spirit of the Principate than the administration of Rome and Italy. At first he left this department entirely in the hands of the senate, and he never overtly robbed the senate of its rights. But he brought it about that a large number of important branches were by degrees transferred from the control of the senate to that of the Princeps. The senate and consuls repeatedly declared themselves helpless, and called upon the Princeps to intervene; and so it came about that some offices were definitely taken in hand by him, and in other matters, which were still left to the care of the senate. and the republican magistrates, it became the