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Constitution of the Roman Empire
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The constitution of the Roman Empire was that of a military dictatorship. It also describes the theoretical political underpinnings and governmentality of the Roman Empire. It developed, initially, from the constitution of the Roman Republic and used continuities with the republic to legitimise itself, but evolved through the imperial period to become more clearly an autocratic government.

In the Principate, the emperor was putatively the first among equals, ruling with the consent of the senate and people of Rome, secured by law through the powers – an imperium proconsular maius and tribunicia potestas – granted to him by the senate. His actual power, however, was largely reliant on three elements: the loyalty of the army, the material wealth of the imperial estates, and the ability to grant boons to collaborators.

By the Severan era and the crisis of the third century, the constitutional niceties that Augustus would have needed to honour had fallen away: the so-called Dominate replaced it and revealed a monarchy which largely legitimised itself through appropriation of divine imagery.

Early Principate

Augustus, the first Roman emperor, depicted wearing the civic crown.

Augustus' transformation

Further information: Constitutional reforms of Augustus

After the war of Actium, the triumvir Octavian – known later as Augustus – emerged as the most powerful dynast at Rome. From 30 BC, the whole Roman world no longer stood before a politics of distributed power and decision-making, but rather, before a single man who possessed all political power and made or delegated all decisions. John Antony Crook, in the Cambridge Ancient History, divides Augustus' role into two sections: power and authority. The former being the actual reality of government and the latter being the "dress in which the power was clothed". In the aftermath of Actium, in the words of Tacitus, Augustus:

set aside the title of triumvir and paraded himself as consuls and as content with the tribunician authority for looking after the commons. The soldier[s] he enticed with gifts, the people with corn, and all alike with the charms of peace and quiet; and thus he edged forward bit by bit (insugere paulatim), taking into his hands the functions of [the] senate, magistrates, [and] laws.

Augustus' power was backstopped by the support of the army. It took him some time to clothe the power afforded by his armies, moving bit by bit, in civilian authority. Much the mystery of Augustus' success is how he was able to legitimise himself before the soldiery and how he was eventually able to professionalise it, depoliticise it, and ensnare it into loyalty for him and his "divine family". The explanations for this range from his overwhelming advantage in personal resources (beginning simply with wealth) to the weariness of the Roman people with chronic years of civil war. Also importantly, Augustus by this point had become a "universal patron": the threat of his military and financial resources did not only coerce compliance, but the benefits of cooperation induced it.

The politics of the late republic left a mark of the early imperial regime inasmuch as people in the western Mediterranean were uncomfortable with the rule of a single man. To that end, he legitimated his sole rule in terms of Rome's republican heritage and terminology, rejecting formal powers or offices inconsistent with it. To that end, he had himself receive concatenated powers that justified his interference in all affairs of state. These concatenated powers, he received in parcels: the first was in 27 BC, at his "first settlement", where he stood as an ordinary consul with Agrippa and took on a province – utterly unrepublican in its scope, comprising Spain, Gaul, and Syria for ten years, – in the traditional manner. The political purpose of doing so was likely to convince people that any political experiments would be for a fixed term which would result, upon his death, with the traditional res publica standing inviolate. On the first day of 24 BC, the senate voted him a general dispensation from all Roman laws, which has been one of the dates put forward for his accession to a constitutional monarchy. In 23 BC, he set upon his "second settlement", where upon he stopped holding continuous consulships – doing so granted back to the aristocracy one of its social prizes and cemented a less aggressive modus vivendi – and made it clear he would not regularly seek it again; alternative means were then found to legitimise his power, largely by granting him the powers of the plebeian tribunes (tribunicia potestas) which he renewed annually. The powers were vague but generally wide-reaching and also symbolised a general protectorate over the people writ large. Augustus' proconsular imperium also became maius, giving him the power to overrule any other provincial governor and he was allowed to keep that imperium within the boundaries of Rome. These two elements, the imperium proconsular maius and tribunicia potestas, proved the "main constitutional elements of the imperial system".

Augustus attributed, in the Res Gestae (lit. 'things done'), his authority to auctoritas: the general sense influence of powerful men which convinced others to follow their advice. This concept had long been part of the republican tradition, where the chief men (Latin: principes viri) of the state had recommended things and others had done them because those men had recommended it. This auctoritas also proved a link between the republican tradition and the personality cult that emerged in the later empire. Central also to Augustus' powers was the emergence of the emperor as locus of final appeal – the emperor's judicial powers had no analogue in the republic, where the decisions of the quaestiones perpetuae (permanent jury courts) were unappealable, – it is not clear how this power was adduced, but it was possibly by a statute that is no longer known.

Senate

During the imperial period, the senate met – among other places – at the curia Julia, which was completed in 29 BC by Octavian and survives in the Forum to this day.

Reconstruction of the Forum of Augustus. At the centre of the forum was the Temple of Mars Ultor, which was another location at which the senate would meet. In front of it was a statue of Augustus on a chariot. "Many of the senate's meeting-places were now powerful symbols of the imperial regime".

The senate, which during the republic was in practical terms the government itself, became largely marginalised; there was no "dyarchy" in Mommsen's terms. This was in spite of the greater legal and judicial powers the senate gained and the senators' monopoly on all high magistracies, matters financial, and military commands (except in Egypt).

Membership in the senate became more restrictive than during the late republic – a new wealth minimum was set in 18 BC at a million sesterces – and it lost much of its indirect electoral character. During the late republic, a man became a senator not by inheritance, but by election to a magistracy (usually the quaestorship). Augustus, in 18 BC, made it so that only senators and their sons were eligible to stand for office – unless he gave his approval – turning the senate into "something closer to a hereditary peerage".

Augustus reformed senatorial procedure, setting various quorums for different business, attendance requirements (though the fines imposed were quickly dropped without comment), and specific days on which the senate would meet; he also formed a steering committee of powerful senators to set the senate's agenda. However, even though Augustus and some of his successors gave the impression of equality with the senatorial class, it was clear the emperor's dominant position was such that "it was pointless any longer to take an active, critical, independent part in sessions"; this was exacerbated when emperors acted on important matters without senatorial consultation. Even when the emperor declined to take a specific view, his relatives in attendance could be viewed as speaking on his behalf; the difficulties in trying to extort genuine views from the body led Tiberius and Claudius both to exclaim their disappointment. The pointlessness of debate was reinforced by Augustus' steering committee: "members in the full senate would hardly have been human if they... did not suspect... the real debate had already occurred in the committee".

Formally, however, the emperors scrupulously derived their legal authority from the senate. The senate's decrees would no longer require ratification by a popular assembly, as had been the case during the republic. It also kept its revered place as the supreme authority in religious matters, but it lost to the emperor almost all prerogatives related to real political power: public works, public finance, administration of the provinces, and disposition of military forces. Augustus during his reign seemed to treat the senate as an actual body for advice and for consensus-building among the elite. Tiberius, his successor, continued this approach and abolished the senate's standing steering committee, re-empowering the full body. He also transferred to it the prerogative of electing magistrates from the popular assemblies (though the latter continued meeting to ratify the senate's choices): this change, however, was of limited practical effect, as the emperor still dictated electoral outcomes for the higher magistracies. The later attempt by Caligula to return elections to the people was resisted by the senators and eventually reverted. Tiberius also saw the emergence of the senate as a high court: he frequently referred court cases to the senate, which made the republican quaestiones perpetuae obsolete; with exception of the court on adultery, they had disappeared by the end of the first century AD.

The senatorial order remained decisively influential in imperial affairs, even as the institution lost its power and decisions began to be transferred in practical terms to the imperial court. It provided legitimacy as the embodiment of the traditional republic as well as the people necessary to run the empire. This legitimising capacity was not in the scope of choosing a new emperor, however; it acted reactively as ratifying body for choices already made by the previous emperor or the army. Only during the crisis of the third century would this theoretical senatorial prerogative reassert itself, if only briefly.

Assemblies and the people

The death of competitive politics, however, led many wealthy senatorial families to leave the political arena, which was reflected by multiple attempts by the state to compel people to stand for election as plebeian tribune, aedile, and to the vigintiviri. However, the top magistracies, of praetorship and consulship, were still eagerly fought over by the elite, and still won by canvass before the people. Augustus in fact insisted on giving people the right to vote, allowing colonies to vote in absentia for the first time and building a new voting hall, the Saepta Julia, for elections. He also campaigned for his candidates, giving gifts and personally meeting with the voters. After the reign of Augustus, however, popular elections became "just a piece of pageantry" before disappearing entirely during the crisis of the third century.

The public cult of the emperor also started under Augustus. In the Greek-speaking eastern provinces, Augustus was already worshipped as a god. He and his supporters in fact actively promoted this worship there. However, in Rome the elite "had been too strongly principes inter pares"; Augustus accordingly declined all divine honours and vetoed Agrippa's original proposal to name the Pantheon after him as Augusteum. In the Gallic provinces, without these social barriers, temples were set up to "Rome and Augustus" and, for the Roman plebs, were established to the genius ("abiding spirit") of the ruler. He constructed, moreover, in many colonies a college of freedmen, the Augstales, who were dedicated to the imperial cult.

The imperial court

The emperor Claudius, during whose reign many of the institutions of the imperial court emerged.

Around the emperor, there quickly emerged an imperial court. No such institution existed during the republic. Of the court, historians know little, as monarchical rule precluded the open decision-making processes before the senate and people that characterised the republic. The ancient historian approached the court in terms of rumours, conjectures, and anecdotes. Four major themes emerge: the importance of imperial favour for political success, the role of the emperor's family and freedmen in procuring that favour, the importance of certain officials that controlled access to the court, and the mixture of political and social life which made political success complement social success.

Modern historians, however, view it instead in terms of administrative bureaucracy that preserved the imperial system from its faults. The ability of the court to retain the service of influential freedmen and of the elite at each succession – along with its collective interest in having an emperor to perpetuate itself around – created an underlying continuity of personnel which allowed the court to continue the business of government, regardless of who ruled.

Composition

The court's composition was undefined. If it had a definition, it was those who were socially close to the emperor. Friends, amicitia, of the emperor could be distinguished perhaps only by the social proximity they enjoyed. The court had no formal public functions; the senate and the emperor alone took on those responsibilities. Its location, however, quickly became fixed on the Palatine hill, which gives rise to word "palace", and the imperial residence atop it. Those who could access the court drew on traditional Roman practice: family members and freedmen of the emperor operated as an interface that mediated imperial access to the public; the emperor's personal friends and high-status officials in government also played a similar role. In that role, the senators and equestrian orders were the main pool from which courtiers were drawn.

Patronage

The main role of the court was in the allocation of patronage, which determined the holders of power and responsibilities for government. The republican aristocracy had for the entirety of the republic competed within itself to maximise followings among the plebs, but by Augustus' time the concentration of wealth with the ruler made it impossible to compete successfully. The court in the imperial period reflected a change in elite practice, where the elite looked to the emperor as the fount for gifts which they then distributed to others.

The emperor, as universal patron, was at the core of this network and could grant beneficia of all sorts: increases in legal status such as citizenship or senatorial rank, magistracies, posts in the army and administration, financial grants or tax concessions, and favourable judgements in legal cases. Because the court was at this time informal, these boons were all mediated through the emperor's social networks, with each member acting both as a broker of access and beneficiary. These informal social networks probably started under Augustus and became formalised by the time of Claudius, creating various Palatine offices: ab epistulis (letters), a libellis (petitions), a legationibus (ambassadors), a cognitionibus (judicial cases), a memoria (record-keeping), and a rationibus (finance, specifically of the imperial fiscus). These offices, however, were not a formal bureaucracy until after the Julio-Claudians and still very much reflected the household of the Roman aristocrat, though blown to enormous proportions; only starting in AD 79, until the emperor Vitellius, were equestrians appointed to head these divisions.

By positioning the emperor at the top of a hierarchy of favours, he consolidated power within imperial society and exercised control over the incentives of the elite. The concentration of power in the court at Rome also made the city indispensable politically, discouraging rival regional power blocs. Moreover, the emperor gained the ability to balance the power of his subordinates by granting or withholding favours as needed and playing them off one another. Through their connections too, the emperor's influence extended into the provinces, exerting more tight control over the empire.

Advice

The other main role of the court was to provide advice. The emperor's friends were called upon at various circumstances, whether at public trials, secret trials intra cubiculum, or in formation of imperial policy (whether minor or major). Later emperors disbanded the senate's standing committee (formed under Augustus) in favour of dealing with such matters in private and ad hoc in the court. These advisory committees were informal and there was no "consilium principis" with permanent members, though some people were called upon more frequently. The lack of such a standing committee helped increase the emperor's discretion.

Culture

Factions in the court vertical rather than horizontal. Some senators colluded with allied freedmen and equestrians to vie for power and influence for their factions; these would vie against other factions doing the same. These cabals, heterogeneous and fluid in composition, clustered around specific women and freedmen in the imperial household. Livia, for example, is represented in inscriptions as having secured for the island of Samos privileges from Augustus. They also clustered around potential candidates for succession and their supporters. The rise and fall of political fortunes of those near the emperor could trigger rapid and radical realignments in these factions. And the need to keep up positive relations with powerful actors drove many to flattery and concealment, even as emperors such as Tiberius and Claudius complained of an excess of servility.

Provincial government

This map depicts the extent of the empire and the division between public and imperial provinces as of AD 117 during the high empire.

Depiction of Paul of Tarsus in the Basilica of St. John Lateran. Paul was a Roman citizen who was brought up on charges multiple times, producing a confused series of inconsistent judicial decisions under mixed Roman and provincial laws and statuses.

See also: Roman province § Augustan settlement

The separation of the empire into imperial and public provinces with Augustus' first settlement catalysed a profound shift in provincial administration. Many of the changes were themselves continuities from the late republic: Augustus ruled his provinces at a distance through legates, just as Pompey had after his consulship in 55 BC. The public provinces were given back to the senate, which assigned them by lot in the traditional manner to proconsular magistrates. The status of provinces was fluid: if major campaigning was necessary in or near a public province, the emperor would assume control over it, and the social status (eg consular, praetorian, equestrian) of a province's governor also did shift from time to time.

The imperial provinces, governed by legates and procurators, usually had governors with tenures of several years. Proconsuls in the public provinces almost always for a single year, though there are a few exceptions. Augustus scrupulously had the assignment of the imperial provinces to him renewed, but after his death in AD 14, this practice was dropped and the assignment was made permanent. However, it is easy to exaggerate the separation between imperial and public provinces; Augustus' claim of greater proconsular imperium gave him the authority to act in the public provinces at his own initiative. Emperors also from the earliest period did exercise this authority. Augustus found himself embarrassed in 22 BC when a governor in Macedonia exceeded his authority by invading neighbouring Thrace but escaped punishment by asserting that Augustus advised him to do it. By the time of Claudius, inscriptions indicate it was acceptable for the emperor to issue direct instructions to proconsular governors.

Provincial governors

The imperial government in this period still remained indirect. The very few higher provincial posts were normally held by senators and equites, who largely relied on the local city and community governments to implement policies. Governors all held the theoretically absolute authority implied by imperium, but the ability to use this was subject both to the will of the emperor, the forces available to him, and the legal privileges of the subject communities. The main goal of a governor, however, was not conquest or aggrandisement, but rather, the maintenance of good order and peace in their province (quies provinciae). The public provinces were garrisoned by only small forces; imperial provinces contained all but one of Rome's legions by Augustus' death in AD 14.

A governor's staff might include lictors, messengers, slaves, and soldiers, but still remained relatively small. The more important governors (imperial legates and proconsuls) would have had a number of subordinate legati, military tribunes, and other military officers. In public finance, the public provinces retained much of the republican infrastructure with quaestores but imperial properties in those provinces were largely outside their jurisdiction, falling instead in an equestrian procurator provinciae. Due to their small staffs, Roman officials in a province depended on local administrators and their cooperation. In the eastern provinces this was built largely on the Hellenistic poleis, and in the western provinces such local governments were organised into towns, civitates, for that purpose. Such towns later might try to increase their status to colonia or municipium.

The governors were also responsible for criminal jurisdiction in their respective provinces, with especially large discretion over people without Roman citizenship. They also were responsible for final disposition of civil cases, which was sometimes delegated to a specialised legate, the legate juridicus; these cases were normally heard by petition, during assize circuits (conventus), or remanded to judges or local juries; the demands of hearing so many cases between persons of mixed status entitled to different treatment produced a judicial system that was incoherent and not at all uniform. For the Romans, these issues were largely immaterial, as provincial government was flexible, worked well enough, and was economical.

Other staff supported the logistics of feeding, transporting, billeting, and otherwise supporting the provincial garrisons. The garrison, beyond its use in defence and suppression of revolts, also undertook infrastructural (eg building roads) and policing duties (eg suppressing banditry). The census also was a core function of the provincial government, as it allowed the Romans to assess taxable property: executing the census successfully required cooperation between governor, his procuratorial or quaestorian staff, and provincial communities.

Local government

These local governments were themselves heterogeneous, but many of them had popular assemblies, a local senate, and magistrates on a Roman or Greek model. The Romans also retained some of the leagues and intermediate federations in Greece, such as the Thessalian League; they did not regularly intermediate between Roman rule and their cities, but were sometimes referred matters within their limited competencies.

At the lowest level, the local authorities retained much of their internal autonomy: they elected boards of magistrates to manage village funds, administer local markets and temples, and dispose of community properties. Where local assemblies survived, the democratic element too was retained. At the city level, it was generally a rule that participation in city politics required sufficient wealth and free birth, which led to an "essentially oligarchic" set of municipal institutions. Later towns and cities sometimes held charters with the status of colonia or municipium that granted their inhabitants the Latin right. Some other favoured communities also by law enjoyed freedom from taxation, granted by law or senatus consultum. Others had further freedom from Roman intervention guaranteed by treaty, but by the second century AD such a right had largely disappeared.

The capacity for these communities to engage in internal legislation were also limited by Roman law. There were two general kinds: provincial and imperial laws. The former were leges provinciae or otherwise consistent with edicts promulgated by individual governors. The latter were usually in the context of privileges granted to specific groups across the empire, such as Jews or veteran soldiers. Roman interference in local autonomy increased through the imperial period, driven largely by internal factions appealing to the emperor to resolve internal disputes.

The core purpose of the cities also was as an organising unit for taxation. Roman provinces conducted both personal and en bloc taxation at the provincial level. The former was usually administered by the local authorities, which could determine for themselves the breakdown of tax liabilities for their citizens. To ensure prompt payment, the central government set quotas, which if not met by local tax collectors, fell to them personally. The burden of military requisitions and property tax similarly was placed on communities, who had a tax collector who would be personally responsible for any deficits. The failure to meet obligations would meet with Roman intervention.

High empire

By the high empire, the emperor's position in the state was perceived centrally and omnipotently. The position of the senate also was by this point marginalised, as the emperor had by this point absorbed many of its functions. Its importance remained largely as the preeminent social grouping in which the emperor positioned himself: his formal and informal advisers were always drawn from the senatorial class and the emperor still needed the tacit support of the senators to remain on the throne.

References

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