GOVERNMENT WITHOUT BUREAUCRACY 39subsidized the public treasuries with his own steadily increasing private
wealth, and was empowered to draw on funds from the public treasuries for
the administration of his provinces.
It remains to consider the roles of the emperor, his advisers and personal
staff in the administration.^12 The emperor was ultimately responsible for
policy decisions and the appointment of imperial offi cials, but in reaching
his decisions he took advice from those around him. The good emperor, in
the eyes of the aristocracy, found his advisers in his council ( consilium
principis ), a group of leading senatorial and equestrian friends.
This council also advised the emperor in his legal capacities as a judge
both of appeals and in the fi rst instance, and as a formulator of new laws.^13
Some emperors, most notably Claudius (but also Nero and Commodus),
aroused the aristocracy’s anger by allowing themselves to be swayed by
imperial freedmen, slaves or wives. In the case of freedmen and slaves, their
power was a natural result of the access they gained to the emperor while
helping him carry out routine duties, such as receiving reports from
provincial offi cials and writing replies, and responding to petitions for
favours or justice from cities and individual subjects.
However, the emperor also dealt with many letters and petitions
personally.
We can see the essentials of this administrative system in operation
already under Augustus: the employment of senators by the emperor in new
administrative posts, fi lling out the senatorial career and bringing it more
closely under imperial control;^14 the employment of equestrians and
freedmen to non- elective posts as offi cials and agents, dependent on the
emperor; the use of the imperial household, in effect, the emperor’s domestic
servants, as supporting staff. In later reigns greater order was introduced
into the non- senatorial sections of the administration. By the early second
century the procuratorial administrative posts (then about 60 in number)
were divided into four categories according to the salary of the offi ce- holder.
A career structure comparable to that of senators could now be held to
exist, with the great prefectures at the top and the lowest ranking procurators
at the bottom.^15 Similarly, a clearly defi ned hierarchy of posts can be
discerned in the imperial household itself ( familia Caesaris ). A slave on the
clerical staff might hope for manumission and promotion to the position of
record- keeper ( tabularius ) and fi nally to a freedman procuratorship.^16
Imperial freedmen and slaves continued to provide the permanent support
staff of the administrative system.
For an understanding of how this administrative organization worked and
where the power lay, it is important to know how the offi ce- holders were
appointed. The emperor ultimately made all the above- mentioned
appointments except to the proconsulships and quaestorships, but it must still
be asked how he made his decisions. This is an important question because it
shapes our view of how bureaucratic the administration became under the
Principate. Numerous scholars have held that during the second and early