experience and involvement not automatically guaranteed by the Augustan system. At some time before 4 B.C. Augustus had instituted a committee (consilium semenstre) made up
of the consuls in office plus one each of the other magistrates and fifteen other senators selected by lot, serving for periods of six months, to help the princeps to prepare business for
the Senate. Its random membership and relative informality should have made it a useful sounding-board; but its nature and composition changed significantly in the last year of his
life, and it came to an end with Tiberius' withdrawal from Rome in A.D. 26. Of course, Augustus had always had an intimate circle of friends' and supporters (most of them senators,
but including also equites such as Maecenas and Sallustius Crispus) whose advice and judgement and experience he valued-and needed, for 'no man is an island, entire of itself' - and
with whom he could discuss in confidence the most sensitive and important issues and options; and this less institutionalized body continued under his successors. Outside Italy
Tiberius was ready to devolve wide areas of delegated discretion and initiative for very long periods: the outstanding example was Poppaeus Sabinus who was left as virtual viceroy
of the Balkans from A.D. 11 until his death in 35. But Tiberius was exceptional, and Poppaeus surely sometimes came back to Italy for leave and consultations.
The Emperor and the Gods
When M. Aemilius Lepidus, the erstwhile triumviral colleague of Octavian and Antony, long retired from public life, finally died in 12 B.C., Augustus was elected to succeed him as
Rome's Chief Pontiff (pontifex maximus), an office which now took its place among the imperial prerogatives. His election was the occasion for a massive demonstration of popular
support, and this formal position as 'head of the national church' sat well with his programme of regeneration of traditional religion and morality. Already the very name 'Augustus'
with its 'by the grace of God' overtones had marked him out as somewhat larger than life-size; and in 2 B.C. he was formally accorded the title of 'Father of the Fatherland' (pater
patriae). Official deification had to await his death, but from very early days he had advertised that he was 'divi filius', the son of the deified Julius Caesar. For Virgil's Tityrus
(Eclogues 1. 7-8), 'He will always be a god, often will a tender lamb from my flock be sacrificed at his altar'; and for Horace (Odes 3. 5. 2-4), 'Augustus will be held to be a god here
on earth with the addition to the empire of Britain and Persia.' The cult of his guardian spirit, his genius or numen, became established in many western municipalities, temples were
set up in most provinces to 'Rome and Augustus', and oaths were regularly taken in his name. At Rome itself the splendid Altar of Augustan Peace (well worth seeing in its modern
reconstructed form) portrayed the 'royal family' in simple and awesome majesty (below, pp. 544, 776f). Nevertheless, there was a line which could not be overstepped, and the living
Augustus was never formally and explicitly a god in Italy and the West. Things were different elsewhere: in Egypt he was as divine as the Pharaohs had been, and an inscription (ILS
8781) from Gangra in Paphlagonia preserves an oath of total and unreflecting devotion and loyalty to Augustus and his descendants which was taken in 3 B.C. 'at the altars of
Augustus in the temples of Augustus' by all the inhabitants of the region (including resident Roman citizens), an oath in which Augustus is named along with 'all the gods and
goddesses' as a guarantor of the oath and of the dreadful penalties for betraying it.