Octavian had held the imperium since 43 ; in 33, it is true, the powers of the triumvirate had legally expired, but he had con tinued to wield his authority, as he himself puts it, "by universal consent." In 27 he received a formal grant of the imperium from the senate and people for the term of ten years, and his provincia was defined as including all the provinces in which military authority was required and legions were stationed. He was de clared commander-in-chief of the Roman army, and granted the exclusive right of levying troops, of making war and peace, and of concluding treaties. As consul, moreover, he not only con tinued to be the chief magistrate of the State at home, but took precedence in virtue of his maius imperium, over the governors of the "unarmed provinces," which were still nominally under the control of the senate. Thus the so-called "restoration of the republic" was in essence the recognition by law of the personal supremacy of Octavian, or Augustus, as he must henceforth be called.
In 23 an important change was made in the formal basis of Augustus's authority. In that year he laid down the consulship which he had held each year since 31, and could therefore only exert his imperium pro consule, like the ordinary governor of a province. He lost his authority as chief magistrate in Rome and his precedence over the governors of senatorial provinces. To remedy these defects a series of extraordinary offices were pressed upon his acceptance ; but he refused them all, and caused a number of enactments to be passed which determined the character of the principate for the next three centuries. First, he was exempted from the disability attaching to the tenure of the imperium by one who was not an actual magistrate, and permitted to retain and exercise it in Rome. Secondly, his imperium was declared to be equal with that of the consuls, and therefore superior to that of all other holders of that power. Thirdly, he was granted equal rights with the consuls of convening the senate and introducing business, of nominating candidates at elections, and of issuing edicts. Lastly, he was placed on a level with the consuls in out ward rank. Twelve lictors were assigned to him and an official seat between those of the consuls themselves.
The imperium and the tribunicia potestas were the two pillars upon which the authority of Augustus rested, and the other offices and privileges conferred upon him were of secondary im portance. After 23 he never held the consulship save in 5 and 2 B.C., when he became the colleague of his grandsons on their in troduction to public life. He permitted the triumvir Lepidus to retain the chief pontificate until his death, when Augustus naturally became pontifex maximus B.c.). He proceeded with the like caution in reorganizing the chief departments of the public service in Rome and Italy. The cura annonae, i.e., the supervision of the corn supply of Rome, was entrusted to him in 22 B.C., and this important branch of administration thus came under his personal control; but the other boards (curae), created during his reign to take charge of the roads, the water-supply, the regulation of the Tiber and the public buildings, were com posed of senators of high rank, and regarded in theory as deriv ing their authority from the senate.
Such was the ingenious compromise by which room was found for the master of the legions within the narrow limits of the old Roman constitution. Augustus could say with truth that he had accepted no office which was "contrary to the usage of our an cestors," and that it was only in that he took prece dence of his colleagues. Nevertheless, as every thinking man must have realized, the compromise was unreal, and its signif Ramsay and Primerstein, Mon. Antioch, iv. 3 (1927).
icance was ambiguous. It was an arrangement avowedly of an exceptional and temporary character, yet no one could suppose that it would in effect be otherwise than permanent. The powers voted to Augustus were (like those conferred upon Pompey in 67 B.c.) voted only to him, and (save the tribunicia potestas) voted only for a limited time ; in 27 he received the imperium for ten years, and it was afterwards renewed for successive periods of five, five, ten and ten years. In this way the powers of the principate were made coextensive in time with the life of Augustus, but there was absolutely no provision for hereditary or any other form of succession, and various expedients were devised in order to indicate the destined successor of the princeps and to bridge the gap created by his death. Ultimately Augustus associated his stepson Tiberius with himself as co-regent. The imperium and the tribunicia potestas were conferred upon him, and he was thus marked out as the person upon whom the remain ing powers of the principate would naturally be bestowed after the death of his stepfather. But succeeding emperors did not always indicate their successors so clearly, and, in direct contrast to the maxim that "the king never dies," it has been well said that the Roman principate died with the death of the princeps.