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The Elections under Augustus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

A. H. M. Jones
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Extract

The Tabula Hebana already has a bibliography more than six pages long, in which figure the names of most of the eminent scholars of Europe. It may seem, therefore, both superfluous and presumptuous to add to it. But very few of the studies hitherto produced have attempted to deal with the political implications of the document, and of these few only one, Professor Tibiletti's monograph, Principe e magistrati repubblicani, has tackled them seriously. As will appear, I owe much to Professor Tibiletti's acute analysis of the procedure laid down in the Tabula, but as I differ profoundly on several points from his interpretation of the political background, I have thought it worth while to propound my views.

It is almost accepted doctrine that Augustus throughout his reign systematically gerrymandered the elections, those at any rate for the higher offices, especially the consulate. What I may call the prosopographical school of historians, in particular, assume that the consuls were de facto the nominees of Augustus, and regard the consular fasti as a barometer of his personal policy or that of the narrow group which controlled affairs. I would challenge this view. The liberty of the elections was, I would agree, to some extent limited by the predominant influence of the Princeps, but the evidence, I maintain, strongly suggests that genuine electoral contests continued, not only for the lower offices, but for the praetorship and the consulate, with which alone the Tabula Hebana is concerned.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1-2 , November 1955 , pp. 9 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © A. H. M. Jones 1955. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

*

This paper was delivered to the Roman Society at the Annual General Meeting on 8th June, 1954.

References

1 Tibiletti, G., Principe e magistrati repubblicani (Rome, 1953), 283–9Google Scholar:

2 Div. Aug. 41, 1.

3 LIV, 17.

4 LIV, 26; cf. 30.

5 LV, 13.

6 Ann. 1, 75; 11, 37.

7 ILS 212, col. 11, 3 ff.

8 LIV, 26.

8a Res Gestae, 8, 2: Cassius Dio, LII, 42 (28 B.C.); LIV, 13–14 (18 B.C.); LIV, 26 (13 B.C.); 35 (11 B.C.); LV, 13 (a.d. 4). It is perhaps significant that according to Dio (LIV, 10 and 30) Augustus accepted a cura morum with censoria potestas in 19 and 12 B.C., the years preceding the lectiones of 18 and 11 B.C.

9 Vesp. 4, 3.

10 Div. Aug. 38, 2.

11 LIX, 9.

12 Tristia IV, X, 29–37.

13 Suet. Div. Aug. 94, 10Google Scholar.

14 The Thesaurus yields few examples of latus clavus in its technical sense, and these in Flavian or later authors (e.g. Tacitus, Dial. 7; Pliny, Ep. II, 9Google Scholar; VIII, 23). Usually—and always in Augustan authors—it means either the actual dress or senatorial rank. Seneca, , Ep. 98, 13Google Scholar: ‘honores reppulit frater Sextius, qui ita natus ut rem publicam deberet capessere latum clavum divo Iulio dante non recepit,’ looks at first sight like a formal grant in the technical sense under Caesar, and Seneca may have meant this. But he or his authority more probably meant ‘senatorial rank’ or ‘a seat in the Senate’.

15 LIV, 26, cf. ILS 914–5.

16 LIV, 26, 30; LVI, 27.

17 LV, 24.

18 Tac. Ann. III, 29Google Scholar.

19 Mommsen, , Staatsrecht3, I, 554–7Google Scholar. The only evidence is Cassius Dio, LII, 20 (in the speech of Maecenas), and the inscriptions, which show that most senators, other than patricians, did hold the aedileship or tribunate (a few very early ones hold both). Velleius, who is not backward in recording his offices, mentions nothing between his quaestorship and praetorship (11, 111, 124).

20 id. LIV, 2.

21 Vell. Pat. 11, 91–2; Cassius Dio, LIII, 24. The brigades were taken from the aediles in 7 B.C. (Cassius Dio, LV, 1; cf. Suet. Div. Aug. 30, 1Google Scholar).

22 LIII, 28.

23 Vell. Pat. 11, 89; Cassius Dio, LIII, 32.

24 LVI, 25.

25 Tac. Ann. 1, 14Google Scholar.

26 Cassius Dio, LVI, 25.

27 See the fasti (Ehrenburg and Jones, Documents, pp. 32–43).

27a JRS XLI, 1951, 112 ffGoogle Scholar.

28 Tac. Ann. 1, 14, 81Google Scholar.

29 Vell. Pat. 11, 92.

30 Ann. 1, 15.

31 e.g. ILS 1043, 1051, 1056, 1068, 1086, etc. (quaestors), 1022, 1039, 1045, 1051, 1061–2, etc. (tribunes), 1096 (one aedile).

32 ILS 944.

33 Div. Aug. 56, 1.

34 LV, 34.

35 ILS 244.

36 Cassius Dio, LIV, 10.

37 id. LV, 34.

38 id. LIII, 2.

39 Div. Aug. 40, 2.

40 LIII, 21.

41 Syme, , The Roman Revolution, 370–1Google Scholar.

42 Res Gestae, 5; Cassius Dio LIV, 1 and 2.

43 id. LIV, 6 and 10.

44 Vell. Pat. 11, 92.

45 Cassius Dio LIV, 16; cf. Suet. Div. Aug. 40, 1Google Scholar, and Dig. XLVIII, XIV.

46 Cassius Dio LV, 5.

47 Div. Aug. 40, 2.

48 Cassius Dio LV, 34.

49 op. cit. 17 ff.

50 op. cit. 28 ff.

51 op. cit. 75 ff.

52 cap. xiv. Tibiletti also cites Cassius Dio XLVI, 44–5 (Octavian's first consulate). But here also the Senate's part must have been to release him from the Lex annalis.

53 Cassius Dio LV, 34.

54 Suet. Div. Aug. 38, 3Google Scholar; cf. Cassius Dio LIV, 26 (discussed above).

55 NH XXXIII, 30.

56 Lines 55–7. Since I wrote the above, Oliver, James H. and Palmer, Robert E. A. (AJPhil. LXXV (1954), 231, 246–7Google Scholar) have proposed another restoration which would eliminate the two classes of Equites in this passage. I am not convinced by their restoration, but it makes it impossible to use this passage as evidence for my thesis, which will, I hope, stand without it.

57 ILS 6747.

58 Pliny, , NH XXXIII, 32Google Scholar; cf. 29, and Horace, , Sat. 11, vii, 53Google Scholar.

59 Horace, , Epod. IV, 15–16Google Scholar.

60 Div. Aug. 40, 1.

61 III, 169; V, 213.

62 Asconius, in Pis. 94.

63 Suet. Div. Iulius, 41, 2.

64 Suet. Div. Aug. 32, 3Google Scholar.

65 Cassius Dio LV, 13.

66 Div. Aug. 32, 3.

67 NH XXXIII, 29–31.

68 Mommsen, , Staatsrecht,3 111, 406, n. 2Google Scholar; 553, n. 3; now they are known also from the Tabula Hebana, ll. 13–6.

69 Cicero, pro Cluentio, 121; cf. Horace, , Sat. I, iv, 121–3Google Scholar.

70 Ovid, , Tristia, 11, 132Google Scholar, ‘nec mea selecto iudice iussa fuga est.’

71 Suet. Calig. 16, 2Google Scholar.

72 ILS 6572–3; cf. 5006.

73 ib. 6744, cf. 7122.

74 ib. 6862.

75 ib. 5016.

76 ib. 6523.

77 ib. 6772.

78 ib. 4093.

79 de Benef. iii, 7.

80 In an able article (Rhein. Mus. 1953, 201–213, ‘iudex selectus’), which I only saw after mine was written, Mr. Staveley has upheld the continued existence of the tribuni aerarii as a decury. Like myself, he holds that the iudices selecti were the decuriae equitum (whom he takes to be equo publico), but he argues that the fifth decury which Gaius added probably was a decuria equitum, and that there were therefore under Augustus two decuriae of selecti (equites), one of tribuni aerarii, and (later) one of ducenarii. I would reply that the iudices selecti seem to be identical with the whole panel which provided jurors in criminal trials both in the late Republic (when therefore selecti included senators, Equites, and tribuni aerarii), and in the Augustan age: the term is unlikely to have changed its meaning, apart from Ovid's words, cited in n. 70. The title tribuni aerarii may have survived, but if so, the jurors so called were in my view among the selecti, and held the equestrian census, and might therefore be also called Equites, as Cicero frequently calls them in the late Republic: the meaning of the term, as Mr. Staveley agrees, remains a mystery.

81 Mommsen, , Staatsrecht, III, 535, n. 3Google Scholar.

82 Tacitus, , Ann. III, 30Google Scholar; Suet. Tib. 41.

83 Suet. Div. Aug. 32, 3Google Scholar.

84 Cassius Dio LIV, 18, 35; LV, 3.

85 Dig. XLVIII, xiv, 1, § 4; SEG IX, 8, l. 117.

86 Fr. Vat. 197–8; cf. Gaius IV, 30.

87 Suet. Div. Aug. 32, 3Google Scholar.

88 Suet. Div. Aug. 29, 3, 32, 3Google Scholar; Tib. 41.

89 Tac. Ann. III, 30Google Scholar.

90 Pliny, , NH XXXIII, 30Google Scholar, ‘nondum provinciis ad hoc munus admissis ’; cf. n. 64.

91 Suet. Div. Aug. 32, 3Google Scholar.

92 The proconsuls, quaestors, and legates of the public provinces (c. 35), legati pro praetore (c. 12), legati legionis (c. 25), other judicial legati, not to speak of comites of governors and special legati for the census and dilectus.

93 See p. 9, n. 7.

94 Vell. Pat. 11, 124.

95 Div. Aug. 46.

96 Marsh, The Reign of Tiberius, 63; Syme, The Roman Revolution, 362, 372–3.

97 Marsh, op. cit. 43 and 67; Syme, op. cit. 362, 434–5.

98 Tac. Ann. I, 15Google Scholar.

99 AE 1952, 80.

100 ‘Longum illud carmen comitiorum,’ or ‘solemnia comitiorum’ still went on in Pliny's day (Pan. 63, 2; 64, 1) and indeed in Dio's (LVIII, 20).

101 op. cit. 166 ff.

102 Ann. I, 15, clearly all belongs to the same sitting.

103 Ann. I, 14. The chief objection to this view is that in Ann. II, 36, Asinius Gallus ‘censuit in quinquennium magistratuum comitia habenda … princeps duodecim candidates in annos singulos nominaret’: here it must be meant that Tiberius was to draw up a list of twelve candidates per annum for the next five years. Tiberius is represented as objecting to this suggestion as unduly extending his powers, but only on the grounds that nominating twelve candidates for one year involved him in odium enough, to do so for years in advance would be intolerable. I think that Tacitus has misunderstood or misrepresented Tiberius' speech.

104 Tac. Ann. XIV, 28Google Scholar.

105 Suet. Vesp. 2, 3Google Scholar.

106 Ep. II, 9; VI, 6; cf. VIII, 23.

107 Ep. VI, 19.

108 Ep. III, 20.

109 Ep. III, 20; IV, 25.

110 Tac. Hist. I, 77Google Scholar.

111 Tac. Ann. I, 81Google Scholar.

112 LVIII, 20.

113 LIX, 9 and 20.

114 op. cit. 239 ff.