useful instrument of dominion. It was on the dignity of the senate that Augustus and his successors founded their new empire; and they affected, on every occasion, to adopt the language and principles of Patricians. In the administration of their own powers they frequently consulted the great national council, and seemed to refer to its decision the most important concerns of peace and war. Rome, Italy, and the internal provinces were subject to the immediate jurisdiction of the senate. With regard to civil objects, it was the supreme court of appeal; with regard to criminal matters, a tribunal, constituted for the trial of all offences that were committed by men in any public station, or that affected the peace and majesty of the Roman people. The exercise of the judicial power became the most frequent and serious occupation of the senate; and the important causes that were pleaded before them afforded a last refuge to the spirit of ancient eloquence. As a council of State, and as a court of justice, the senate possessed very considerable prerogatives; but in its legislative capacity, in which it was supposed virtually to represent the people, the rights of sovereignty were acknowledged to reside in that assembly. Every power was derived from their authority, every law was ratified by their sanction. Their regular meetings were held on three stated days in every month-the Calends, the Nones, and the Ides. The debates were conducted with decent freedom; and the emperors themselves, who gloried in the name of senators, sat, voted, and divided with their equals." To resume, in a few words, the system of the imperial government; as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that a Gibbon has omitted to notice an important institution of Augustus, which eventually superseded the senate in many of its functions. This was the Consi lium, a kind of privy council, which consisted of twenty members selected by the emperor from the senate, and in which all important matters of state were discussed before they were submitted to the senate. (Dion Cass. liii. 21, lvi. 28; comp. Sueton. Tiber. c. 35.) In course of time the power of the Consilium was augmented: instead of only discussing matters that were to be submitted to the senate, it acquired separate legislative and judicial authority. This important change appears to have been made in the time of Hadrian, probably to a great extent in consequence of his frequent absence from Rome. (Spartian. Hadrian. c. 22.)-S. General idea of the imperial system. of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed." Court of the The face of the court corresponded with the forms of the administration. The emperors, if we except those tyrants whose capricious folly violated every law of nature emperors. and decency, disdained that pomp and ceremony which might offend their countrymen, but could add nothing to their real power. In all the offices of life they affected to confound themselves with their subjects, and maintained with them an equal intercourse of visits and entertainments. Their habit, their palace, their table, were suited only to the rank of an opulent senator. Their family, however numerous or splendid, was composed entirely of their domestic slaves and freedmen." Augustus or Trajan would have blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial offices which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain. The deification of the emperors" is the only instance in 19 Dion Cassius (1. liii. [c. 12-18] p. 703-714) has given a very loose and partial sketch of the imperial system. To illustrate and often to correct him, I have meditated Tacitus, examined Suetonius, and consulted the following moderns: the Abbé de la Bleterie, in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xix. xxi. xxiv. xxv. xxvii. Beaufort, République Romaine, tom. i. p. 255-275. The Dissertations of Noodt and Gronovius, de lege Regia, printed at Leyden in the year 1731. Gravina de Imperio Romano, p. 479-544 of his Opuscula. Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p. i. p. 245, etc.a 20 A weak prince will always be governed by his domestics. The power of slaves aggravated the shame of the Romans; and the senate paid court to a Pallas or a Narcissus. There is a chance that a modern favorite may be a gentle man. 21 See a treatise of Van Dale de Consecratione Principum. It would be easier for me to copy, than it has been to verify, the quotations of that learned Dutchman. See also the masterly dissertations of Eckhel, vol. viii. p. 325 seq.; Walter, Geschichte der Römischen Rechts, § 254 seq.; Höck, Römische Geschichte, vol. i. pt. i. p. 318 seq.; Marquardt, ut supra, vol. ii. pt. iii. p. 292 seq.-S. Deification. which they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty. The Asiatic Greeks were the first inventors, the successors of Alexander the first objects, of this servile and impious mode of adulation. It was easily transferred from the kings to the governors of Asia; and the Roman magistrates very frequently were adored as provincial deities, with the pomp of altars and temples, of festivals and sacrifices." It was natural that the emperors should not refuse what the proconsuls had accepted; and the divine honors which both the one and the other received from the provinces attested rather the despotism than the servitude of Rome. But the conquerors soon imitated the vanquished nations in the arts of flattery; and the imperious spirit of the first Cæsar too easily consented to assume, during his lifetime, a place among the tutelar deities of Rome. The milder temper of his successor declined so dangerous an ambition, which was never afterwards revived, except by the madness of Caligula and Domitian. Augustus permitted, indeed, some of the provincial cities to erect temples to his honor, on condition that they should associate the worship of Rome with that of the sovereign; he tolerated private superstition, of which he might be the object; but he contented himself with being revered by the senate and the people in his human character, and wisely left to his successor the care of his public deification. A regular custom was introduced, that, on the decease of every emperor who had neither lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate, by a solemn decree, should place him in the number of the gods: and the ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his funeral. This le 22 See a dissertation of the Abbé Mongault in the first volume of the Academy of Inscriptions. 23 Jurandasque tuum per nomen ponimus aras, says Horace to the emperor himself, and Horace was well acquainted with the court of Augustus. The good princes were not those who alone obtained the honors of an apotheosis: it was conferred on many tyrants. See an excellent treatise of Schoepflin, de Consecratione Imperatorum Romanorum, in his Commentationes historicæ et critica. Bâle, 1741, p. 1-84.-W. The curious satire the άπokoλoKúvτwσic, in the works of Seneca, is the strongest remonstrance of profaned religion.-M. gal, and, as it should seem, injudicious profanation, so abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very faint murmur" by the easy nature of polytheism; but it was received as an institution, not of religion, but of policy. We should disgrace the virtues of the Antonines by comparing them with the vices of Hercules or Jupiter. Even the characters of Cæsar or Augustus were far superior to those of the popular deities. But it was the misfortune of the former to live in an enlightened age, and their actions were too faithfully recorded to admit of such a mixture of fable and mystery as the devotion of the vulgar requires. As soon as their divinity was established by law, it sunk into oblivion, without contributing either to their own fame or to the dignity of succeeding princes. In the consideration of the imperial government, we have frequently mentioned the artful founder under his wellknown title of Augustus, which was not, however, Titles of Augustus and Cæsar. conferred upon him till the edifice was almost completed. The obscure name of Octavianus he derived from a mean family in the little town of Aricia. It was stained with the blood of the proscription; and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all memory of his former life. The illustrious surname of Cæsar he had assumed as the adopted son of the dictator; but he had too much goodsense either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared, with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify their minister with a new appellation; and after a very serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among several others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity which he uniformly affected."a 24 See Cicero in Philippic. i. 6. Julian in Cæsaribus. Inque Deûm templis jurabit Roma per umbras, is the indignant expression of Lucan; but it is a patriotic rather than a devout indignation. 25 Dion Cassius, 1. liii. [c. 16] p. 710, with the curious Annotations of Reimar. This title expressed something more. It recognized him as a being of a divine nature, and, on this account, entitled to the passive obedience of his subjects. Hence Dion says (liii. 16), Αὔγουστος, ὡς καὶ πλεῖόν τι ἢ κατὰ ἀνθρώTOVÇ EV, ETTEKλÝon; and Vegetius (ii. 5) expresses still more clearly the full im Augustus was therefore a personal, Cæsar a family distinction. The former should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was bestowed; and however the latter was diffused by adoption and female alliance, Nero was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to the honors of the Julian line. But, at the time of his death, the practice of a century had inseparably connected those appellations with the imperial dignity, and they have been preserved by a long succession of emperors-Romans, Greeks, Franks, and Germans-from the fall of the republic to the present time. A distinction was, however, soon introduced. The sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the monarch, whilst the name of Cæsar was more freely communicated to his relations; and, from the reign of Hadrian, at least, was appropriated to the second person in the State, who was considered as the presumptive heir of the empire. 'Character The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had destroyed can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the character of that subtle tyand policy of rant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowAugustus. ardly disposition prompted him, at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero and the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were artificial; and according to the various dictates of his interest, he port of the words "Nam imperatori, cum Augusti nomen accepit, tanquam præsenti et corporali deo fidelis est præstanda devotio et impendendus pervigil famulatus."-S. The princes who by their birth or their adoption belonged to the family of the Cæsars, took the name of Cæsar. After the death of Nero this name designated the imperial dignity itself, and, afterwards, the appointed successor. The time at which it was employed in the latter sense cannot be fixed with certainty. Bach (Hist. Jurisprud. Rom. 304) affirms from Tacitus, H. i. 15, and Suetonius, Galba 17, that Galba conferred on Piso Licinianus the title of Cæsar, and from that time the term had this meaning: but these two historians simply say that he appointed Piso his successor, and do not mention the word Cæsar. Aurelius Victor (in Traj. [§ 11] p. 348, ed. Artzen) says that Hadrian first received this title on his adoption; but as the adoption of Hadrian is still doubtful, and, besides this, as Trajan on his death-bed was not likely to have created a new title for his successor, it is more probable that Elius Verus was the first who was called Cæsar, when adopted by Hadrian. Spart. in Elio Vero. [c. 1].-W. |