from PART II - GOVERNMENT AND CIVIL ADMINISTRATION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
The bulk of our sources, whether historiographic, juristic or epigraphic, give the impression that the Roman emperor was all-powerful and always busy. Yet this picture of a ruler who was always personally active is only a very superficial and hence a partly misleading one. In reality the emperor relied on others in almost all aspects of his decision-making and actions. He needed advice and was dependent on his advisers; indeed he could not operate without them. Despite his omnipotence, this was evident to all who knew something of the emperor's work.
The sources give a generally accurate impression of imperial business because the emperor is always the central figure in them. He appears as the focal point of consultations and decisions. Even the way in which decisions were reached is dependent on the person of the emperor in each of his specific guises: he is the dominating point of reference for policy-making and central administration. In this respect the orientation of the works of Tacitus and Suetonius, while quite different in composition, and their emphasis on the individual emperors, are entirely appropriate to the matters they relate.
At the same time, however, the far-reaching dependence of imperial policy and government on the person of the ruler implies that, in essence, anyone who came into contact with the emperor could influence his decisions. How far this influence might go naturally depended to a great extent on the emperor's character, but equally on those who wanted to induce him towards certain courses of action.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.