8 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
authority ( auctoritas ) was greater, within a restored Republic. As he wrote
in the Res Gestae , with reference to the main business of the momentous
meeting of the senate on the Ides of January, 27 BC : ‘I transferred the republic
from my power to the dominion of the senate and the people of Rome’( Res
Gestae 34.1).^12
Under the Republic, the leading fi gures in the state were the consuls,
whose imperium carried with it command of the army in the fi eld and very
considerable discretionary powers at home. The people, that is, the popular
assemblies (primarily the comitia centuriata, comitia curiata and concilium
plebis ), between them had supreme authority in legislation, elections and
criminal trials. It was, however, the senate (a body of around 300 members,
and later, from the 80s BC , 600, whose members served for life and consisted
largely of former magistrates) that dominated the political scene, controlling,
among other things, fi nance and foreign relations, including affairs in Italy.^13
Its role was, strictly speaking, advisory and its power was exercised
informally, not by means of authority vested in it by a constitution. The
constitution, as it developed over time, was a combination of written,
statutory law, and unwritten customary law (that is, traditional practice, or
ancestral custom, mores maiorum ), and it was within the latter category
that the power of the senate fell. This was the chink in its armour. The time
would come when traditional practice was questioned, breached and set
aside, and with it the authority of the senate.
Our main source for the period in question, the last century of the
Republic, is Cicero (106–43 BC ), a prominent though ultimately ineffectual
politician and the leading orator of the time. In his heyday the infl uence of
the senate was already substantially diminished, as political life came to be
dominated by powerful individuals, generals or tribunes, who exploited
fi ssures that had opened up within the governing class. After the battles of
Actium and Alexandria, a senate demoralized by two decades of civil war,
proscription and confi scation, and by the introduction into its ranks of
partisans of Caesar and of the triumvirs Octavian, Antony and Lepidus, was
at the mercy of the victor. In Augustus’ hands the senate underwent a
thoroughgoing refurbishment and a change of character and direction, to
equip it for the government of the empire. Augustus overhauled its
membership, restructured the senatorial career, and supervised entry into
the senate and promotion through its ranks.
The reconstructed senate did not make independent decisions. It lay with
the emperor whether it discussed matters of importance and issued
recommendations. For this reason it is diffi cult to accept that the senate was
a genuine partner in the government of the state.^14 On the other hand the
emperors made extensive use of individual senators (as they did of
equestrians).^15 There were some senators on the emperor’s consilium , the
informal group of amici to which he turned for advice like any magistrate
under the Republic.^16 The documentation is thin, but their discussions and
decisions would have covered areas such as fi nance and war that were