Triumvirate and Principate It is necessary to emphasise first how little can be confidently deduced
from the brief accounts we have of the establishment of theTriumvirate,
whichinthisrespectresembletheaccountsofthe‘‘settlement’’of.^4 More-
overtheevidencewehaverelatespartlytothepactof Bononiaandpartly
totheLexTitiaitself.Inspiteofaveryusefuldiscussion,^5 itisnecessaryto
reviewthemainpointshere.
For the actual powers of the Triumvirs, none of our earliest sources—
LivyasrepresentedintheEpitome,Augustushimself intheRes Gestae,and
VelleiusPaterculus—givesanyhelp.^6 Nordoestheopeningnarrativesection
of Suetonius’Divus Augustus(–) or his later references (, ),or the
descriptions of the pact and the proscriptions in Plutarch’sCicero() and
Antonius(–),orinFlorus(,).Soitisimportanttoemphasisethatthe
narrativesourcesonwhichwedependforourconceptionoftheformation
oftheTriumvirateandthepowersofitsmembersareessentiallyAppianand
Dio.FromAppian(BC,/–,onthepactofBononia)welearnthattheir
powerwastobeequaltothatoftheconsulsandtolastforfiveyears.They
were‘‘toappoint’’thecitymagistratesatonceforeachofthenextfiveyears.
Theyweretodividethegovernorshipsofprovincesand‘‘have’’thedifferent
regionsseparately.Nothingissaidabouthowthegovernmentoftheprov-
inceswouldactuallywork,except(in/)thatLepiduswastobeconsulfor
thefollowingyear,toremaininRomeandtogovernSpainthroughothers.
WhenAppian(in,/)comestodescribethepassingofthetribunician
LexTitiaitselfherepeatsonlythedetailthattheirpowerwastobeconsular
andforfiveyears.
Dio, describing Bononia (, , –), mentions the five-year term, the
righttogiveoffices(archai)andhonours(timai),andthedivisionoftheprov-
inces;hedoes,however,addsomesortofdefinitionoftheirpowers—‘‘they
shouldmanageallpublicbusiness,whetherornottheymadeanycommuni-
cationaboutittothepeopleandtheSenate.’’Headds,stilldescribingBono-
nia,thattheyagreedonexecutionsoftheirenemies(,,).Whenmen-
tioningtheirsubsequentactionsinRomehemakesonlyapassingallusionto
theLexTitia—‘‘themeasureswhichtheyhaddictatedandforcedthrough
assumedthenameoflaw’’(,,).Itisthusevidentthatourmajorsources
fortheseeventsarenotonlyremotefromthemintimebutlackinginclarity.
OnlytheEpitomeofLivytellsusformallythattheLexTitiagavealegalbasis
. Forthedirectevidenceontheprovincialaspectsofthesettlementof,seeJRS
():–(chapterinthisvolume).
. V. Fadinger,Die Begründung des Prinzipats: quellenkritische und staatsrechtliche Unter-
suchungen zu Cassius Dio und der Parallelüberlieferung(Diss.Munich,),esp.–.
. SeeLivy,Epit.;Res Gestae,;Vell.Pat.,.