The tribunician power, on the other hand, was conferred by the people meeting in comitia. It properly required two separate legal acts—a special law defining the powers to be conferred, and an election of the person on whom they should be conferred. But these acts were combined in one; and a magistrate, probably one of the consuls, brought a rogation before the comitia, both defining the powers and nominating the person. The bill of course had to come before the senate first, and an interval known as the trinum nundinum elapsed between the decree of the senate and the comitia. Hence under the earlier Principate, when such forms were still observed, the assumption of the tribunician power takes place sometime after the dies imperii. The tribunician power was conferred for perpetuity, but was formally assumed anew every year, so that the Princeps used to count the years of his reign as the years of his tribunician power.
But though the Empire was thus elective, in reality the choice of the new Princeps depended on the senate or the army only in the case of revolutions. In settled times the Emperors chose their successors, and in their own lifetime caused the objects of their choice to be invested with some of the marks or functions of imperial dignity. It was but natural that each Emperor should try to secure the continuance of the Empire in his own family. If he had a son, he was sure to choose him as successor; if only a daughter, her husband or one of her children. If he had neither son nor daughter of his own, he usually adopted a near kinsman. Thus the Empire, though always theoretically elective, practically tended to become hereditary; and it came to be recognized that near kinship to an Emperor founded a reasonable claim to the succession. This feature was present from the very outset; for the founder of the Empire himself had first assumed his place on the political stage as the son and heir of Julius, and no one was more determined or strove harder to found a dynasty than Augustus.
Augustus assumed other functions and titles (as well as the proconsular imperium and the tribunician potestas), but they had no place in the theory of the imperial constitution. He was named by the senate, the knights and the people, "pater patriae" (2 B.C.), and subsequent Emperors regularly received this title. He was elected Pontifex Maximus by the people in 12 B.C. (March 6) after the death of Lepidus, who had been allowed to retain that office when he was deprived of his triumviral power. Henceforward the Chief Pontificate was always held by the Emperors, and formed one of their standing titles. Augustus also belonged to other religious colleges. He was not only Pontifex; he was also a septemvir, a quindecimvir and an augur; he was enrolled among theFetiales, the Arvales and the Titii.
Augustus was not a censor, nor did he, as Emperor, possess the powers of the censor's office, although he sometimes temporarily assumed them. The reason why he refrained from assuming these powers permanently is obvious. It was his aim to preserve the form of a republic and to maintain the senate as an independent body. One of the chief functions of the censors was to revise the list of senators; they had the power of expunging members from that body and electing new ones. It is clear that if the Emperor possessed the rights of a censor, he would have direct control over the senate, and it would no longer be even nominally independent.
In 28 B.C., as we have seen, Augustus and Agrippa held a census as consuls, by virtue of the censorial power which originally belonged to the consular office. And on the two subsequent occasions on which Augustus held a census, once by himself (8 B.C.) and once in conjunction with Tiberius (14 A.D.), he did not assume the title of censor, but caused consular power to be conferred on him temporarily by the senate. In 22 B.C. the people proposed to bestow on Augustus the censorship for life, but he refused the offer, and caused Paulus Emilius Lepidus and Munatius Plancus to be appointed censors. This was the last occasion on which two private citizens were colleagues in that office. Three times it was proposed to Augustus to undertake as a perpetual office "the regulation of laws and manners" (morum legumque regimen), but he invariably refused. Such an institution would have been as openly subversive of republican government as royalty or the dictatorship. Nevertheless some of the functions of the censor, and especially the census equitum, seem from the very first to have fallen within the competence of the Princeps.
It should be specially observed that the Princeps did not possess consular power, as is sometimes erroneously stated. Occasionally it was decreed to him temporarily for a special purpose, but it did not belong to him as Princeps.
While the Emperor avoided the names rex and dictator, he distinguished himself from ordinary citizens by a peculiar arrangement of his personal name. (1) All the Emperors from Augustus to Hadrian, with three exceptions, dropped the name of their gens.(2) They never designated the tribe to which they belonged. (3) Most of them adopted the title Imperator as a praenomen. This designation had been first used as a constant title by Caesar the Dictator, being placed immediately after his name and preceding all other titles. Thus it might have been regarded as a second cognomen; and the younger Caesar claimed it as part of his father's name, and, to make this clear, adopted it as a praenomen instead of his own praenomen Gaius.
All the agnate descendants of the dictator bore the name Caesar, which was a cognomen of the Julian gens. But when the house of the Julian Caesars came to an end on the death of the Emperor Gaius, his successor Claudius assumed the cognomen Caesar, and this example was followed by subsequent dynasties. Thus Caesar came to be a conventional cognomen of the Emperor and his house.
Augustus was a title of honor; it did not, like imperator or consul, imply an office, and hence an Emperor's wife could receive the title Augusta. But it was not, like Caesar, hereditary; it had to be conferred by the senate or people. At the same time it was distinctly a cognomen; and it has clung specially to him who first bore it as a personal name. It was always assumed by his successors along with the actual power; and it seemed to express that, while the various parts of the Emperor's power were in their nature collegial, there could yet only be one Emperor.
In much later times Augustus and Caesar were distinguished as greater and lesser titles. The Emperor bore the name Augustus; while he whom the Emperor chose to succeed to the throne was a Caesar. Moreover, there might be more than one Augustus, and more than one Caesar.
We must carefully distinguish two different uses of Imperator in the titulary style of the Emperors. (1) As a designation of the proconsular imperium, it was placed, as we have already seen, before the name as a praenomen. (2) Imp. with a number, standing among the titles after the name, meant that he had been greeted as imperator so many times by the soldiers in consequence of victories. Yet the two uses were regarded as closely connected. For the investiture with the proconsular imperium was regarded as the first acquisition of the name Imperator, so that on the first victory after his accession the Emperor designated himself as imperator.
The order of names in the imperial style is worthy of notice. In the case of the early Emperors, Caesar comes after the name; for example, Imp. Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus. With Vespasian begins a new style, in which Caesar generally precedes the propel cognomen; thus, Imp. Caesar Vespasianus Augustus. Augustus retained its place at the end
The Princeps had the right of appearing publicly at all seasons in the purple-edged toga of a magistrate. On the occasion of solemn festivals, he used to wear the purple gold-broidered toga, which was worn by victorious generals in triumphal procession; and although in Italy he did not possess the imperium militiae, he had the right to wear the purple paludamentum (purpura) of the Imperator even in Rome, but this was a privilege of which early Emperors seldom availed themselves. The distinctive headdress of the Princeps was a laurel wreath. As Imperator he wore the sword; but the scepter only in triumphal processions. Both in the senate-house and elsewhere, he sat on a sella curulis;and he was attended by twelve lictors, like the other chief magistrates. His safety was provided for by a bodyguard, generally consisting of German soldiers; and one cohort of the praetorian guards was constantly stationed at his palace.
Under the Republic the formula of public oaths was couched in the name of Jupiter and the Penates of the Roman people. Caesar the Dictator added his own genius, and this fashion was followed under the Principate. The oath was framed in the name of Jupiter, those Emperors who had become divine after death, the genius of the reigning Emperor, and the Penates. The Princeps also had the privilege of being included in the vota or prayers for the welfare of the state, which it was customary to offer up in the first month of every year. And it was regarded as treason to encroach on either of these privileges—to