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Reconsidering the Auctoritas of Augustus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2013

Gregory Rowe
Gregory Rowe*
Affiliation:
University of Victoria
*
gdrowe@uvic.ca
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Abstract

Res Gestae 34.3 (‘auctoritate omnibus praestiti’) is conventionally taken to reflect Augustus' conception of the fundamental nature of his rule, and a great deal of attention has consequently been given to the word auctoritas. But no other source repeats this idea or gives weight to auctoritas. The passage is best understood as alluding to a specific event, probably Octavian's becoming princeps senatus in 28 b.c.

Keywords

AugustusRes Gestaeauctoritasprinceps senatus
Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 103 , November 2013 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2013. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 

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Footnotes

*

My earlier thoughts on auctoritas were aired at a meeting of the American Philological Association (San Francisco, 2004) and a joint meeting of the Classical Associations of the Pacific Northwest and the Canadian West (University of Washington, 2010), and versions of this paper were given at the University of British Columbia and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. My sincere thanks to organizers and audiences on all four occasions; to Marguerite Hirt Raj, Ittai Gradel, Gwynaeth McIntyre, and Cedric Littlewood for allowing me to abuse their patience; to Andrew Lintott for commenting on a draft; and to the Journal's editor and readers. None should be implicated in my conclusions.

References

1 Syme, R., The Roman Revolution (1939), viiiGoogle Scholar.

2 Res Gestae 34.3. Except where noted, I have used the text of Scheid, J., Res gestae divi Augusti. Hauts faits du divin Auguste (2007)Google Scholar, and I have based my translation on Brunt, P. A. and Moore, J. M., Res Gestae Divi Augusti: The Achievements of the Divine Augustus (1967)Google Scholar. On every point I have also consulted Mommsen, T., Res gestae divi Augusti: ex monumentis Ancyrano et Apolloniensi (2nd edn, 1883)Google Scholar; Cooley, A., Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary (2009)Google Scholar; and Mitchell, S. and French, D., The Greek and Latin Inscriptions of Ankara. 1. From Augustus to the End of the Third Century AD (2012) = I.Ankara, no. 1Google Scholar.

3 von Premerstein, A., ‘Zur Aufzeichnung der Res gestae divi Augusti im pisidischen Antiochia’, Hermes 59 (1924), 95–107Google Scholar, at 104–5: ‘Mit dem inhaltschweren Ausdruck auctoritate … hat Augustus seine tatsächliche Machstellung als Princeps viel offener und wahrheitsgemäßer gekennzeichnet.’ Subsequently Premerstein, in Vom Werden und Wesen des Prinzipats (1937), propounded the thesis that Augustus' auctoritas was formally conferred or confirmed by senatorial decree. In modified versions, this view, for which there is no evidence, has found some adherents (Magdelain, A., Auctoritas principis (1947)Google Scholar; Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G., ‘The settlement of 27 B.C’, Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, Coll. Latomus 196 (1986), 345–65Google Scholar; Rich, J. W., Cassius Dio: The Augustan Settlement (Roman History 53–55.9) (1990), 140)Google Scholar, but is generally rejected (Béranger, J., Recherches sur l'aspect idéologique du principat (1953), 114–31Google Scholar; Ferrary, J.-L., ‘À propos des pouvoirs d'Auguste’, Cahiers du Centre Gustave-Glotz 12 (2001), 101–54, at 113–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

4 Heinze, R., ‘Auctoritas’, Hermes 60 (1925), 348–66Google Scholar, at 355 = Vom Geist des Römertums. Ausgewählte Aufsätze (1938), 43–58, at 49: ‘“An zwingender Machtbefugnis habe ich nie mehr besessen, als mir jeweils, innerhalb der durch die Kollegialität gezogenen Schranken, kraft der mir übertragenen Ämter zustand; meine Vorrangstellung beruhte auf dem Einfluß, den man mir, mehr als irgendeinem anderen als dem in politischen Fragen maßgeblichsten Führer freiwillig einräumte.” Das ist die authentische Erklärung des Augustus über seine Auffassung des “Prinzipats” und sie ist von eminenter geschichtlicher Bedeutung, weil sie uns wirklich die Wurzeln dieser einzigartigen Institution aufdeckt.’ Heinze's paraphrase is quoted approvingly by Wickert in his Pauly-Wissowa article ‘Princeps’ (RE 22.2, col. 2287); see also Béranger, op. cit. (n. 3), 116–21. For the bibliography on auctoritas see Ramage, E. S., The Nature and Purpose of Augustus' ‘Res Gestae’ (1987), 142–6Google Scholar; The Emperor's Retrospect: Augustus' Res Gestae in Ridley, R. T., The Emperor's Retrospect: Augustus' Res Gestae in Epigraphy, Historiography and Commentary (2003), 222–7; Scheid, op. cit. (n. 2), 91–2Google Scholar.

5 Galinsky, K., Augustan Culture: an Interpretive Introduction (1996)Google Scholar; see now Galinsky, , Augustus: Introduction to the Life of an Emperor (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Lowrie, M., Writing, Performance, and Authority in Augustan Rome (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 285: ‘auctoritas is … a capacity to make things happen through words.’

6 Edmondson, J. C. (ed.), Augustus (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 108 (Ferrary); 179 (Purcell); 218 (Raaflaub). Ferrary's essay is an abridged translation of Ferrary, op. cit. (n. 3).

7 Syme, op. cit. (n. 1), 523; Brunt and Moore, op. cit. (n. 2), 82–4; cf. Scheid, op. cit. (n. 3), 91: ‘Dans la recherche moderne, ce concept a été surévalué. L’auctoritas n'est, en effet, jamais isolée, elle est toujours liée dans l'esprit des Romains à un réel pouvoir institutionel, sans oublier la vaste clientèle et la fortune du Prince. Autrement dit, elle est la résultante de la situation institutionalle, politique et sociale du Prince.' (‘In modern research this concept has been overvalued. For auctoritas is never isolated, it is always connected in Roman thinking to a real institutional power, not to mention the vast clientela and wealth of the emperor. In other words, auctoritas is the product of the institutional, political, and social position of the emperor.’)

8 Crook, J. A., review of Galinsky, op. cit. (n. 5, 1996), in Journal of Roman Studies 87 (1997), 287–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 We now know that the Res Gestae was also published at Sardis, apparently in an alternate Greek translation; see Thonemann, P., ‘A copy of Augustus' Res Gestae at Sardis’, Historia 61.3 (2012), 282–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Accumulating evidence now suggests that the Res Gestae was diffused and displayed immediately: in a.d. 14 at Ancyra (see Mitchell and French, op. cit. (n. 2), on I.Ankara 2, drawing on the work of A. Coşkun); before a.d. 17 in Sardis (Thonemann, op. cit., 288). Also note that the casual mention of Cn. Piso as eponymous consul at Res Gestae 16.2 should guarantee that both the Roman original and the provincial copies were inscribed before Piso's downfall in a.d. 20.

10 Velleius 2.124.3. On Velleius' career see Sumner, G. V., ‘The truth about Velleius Paterculus: Prolegomena’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 74 (1970), 257–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 The view of Grant, M., From Imperium to Auctoritas: a Historical Study of Aes Coinage in the Roman Empire, 49 B.C.–A.D. 14 (1946)Google Scholar, that ‘CA’ on the bronze coinage of ?28–27 b.c. stood for ‘C(aesaris) a(uctoritate)’ rather than e.g. ‘c(ommune) A(siae)’ has never found much acceptance. Inter alia Béranger, op. cit. (n. 3), 126–9 points out that the expected word order would be auctoritate Caesaris (but see Seneca, Cl. 1.15.1 (n. 39 infra)). For a catalogue of personified abstractions on Roman coinage see Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘The emperor and his virtues’, Historia 30 (1981), 298–319Google Scholar.

12 Res Gestae 20.4; the Greek is [δόγμα]τι συνκ[λ]ήτου. Cf. AE 1983, 210 (SC from Larinum), line 12: ‘eludendae auctoritatis eius ordinis gratia’ (‘in order to evade the senatorial decree’); AE 1996, 885 (SC de Cn. Pisone patre), lines 30–1: ‘Germanico Caesari, qui a principe nostro ex auctoritate huius ordinis ad rerum |[tra]nsmarinarum statum componendum missus esset’ (‘Germanicus Caesar, who in keeping with a senatorial decree was sent by our princeps to organize overseas affairs’); Roman Statutes 37 (Tab. Siarensis), fr. i, lines 23–4: ‘in iis regionibus, quarum]| curam et tutelam Germanico Caesari ex auctori[tate senatus ipse mandasset]’ (‘in those regions, whose care and protection he himself (Tiberius) committed to Germanicus Caesar in keeping with a senatorial decree’). At Res Gestae 12.1, Mitchell and French, op. cit. (n. 2) = I.Ankara, no. 1 rightly prefer Mommsen's restoration ‘[senatus consulto eodem tempor]e’ to ‘[ex senatus auctoritat]e’ (Volkmann, accepted by Scheid). As they say, the restoration better fits the space and corresponds more closely to the Greek. It also makes more sense for an embassy of senators to be sent directly ‘by senatorial decree’ than indirectly ‘according to the terms of a senatorial decree’; for the force of the preposition ex see Badian, E., ‘Notes on the Laudatio of Agrippa’, Classical Journal 76 (1980), 97–109, at 99–100Google Scholar.

13 AE 1996, 885, lines 162–4: ‘senatum arbitrari eorum (sc. militum) curae atq(ue) offici esse, ut aput eos ii, | qui quandoq(ue) ei<s> praessent, plurumum auctoritatis <haberent>, qui fidelussuma pietate | salutare huic urbi imperioq(ue) p(opuli) R(omani) nomen Caesarum coluissent.’

14 Valerius Maximus 7.2.ext.17: ‘auctoritate et prudentia ceteros praestans.’

15 Valerius Maximus 6.2.12: ‘nullius enim aut gratia aut auctoritate conpelli potuit ut de aliqua earum rerum, quas triumuiri dederant, formulam conponeret.’

16 Velleius 2.80.1: ‘hic uir (sc. Lepidus) omnium uanissimus neque ulla uirtute tam longam fortunae indulgentiam meritus exercitum Pompei, quia propior fuerat, sequentem non ipsius, sed Caesaris auctoritatem ac fidem, sibi iunxerat’; 2.111.4: ‘quanto cum temperamento ** simul utilitatis res auctoritate imperatoris agi uidimus!’; 2.39.3: ‘Raetiam autem et Vindelicos ac Noricos Pannoniamque et Scordiscos novas imperio nostro subiunxit provincias. ut has armis, ita auctoritate Cappadociam populo Romano fecit stipendiariam.’

17 Velleius 2.89.3 (Loeb trans.). Cf. 2.126.2 (Tiberius' ascension), where auctoritas is restored to magistrates (‘magistratibus’, an emendation for ‘militibus’ in the witnesses to Velleius' text).

18 Universal consensus: Roman Statutes 37, fr. ii, col. b, lines 22–3 (‘quo facilius pietas omnium ordinum erga domum Augustam et consen|sus uniuersorum ciuium memoria honoranda Germanici Caesaris appareret’); Eck, W. and Pangerl, A., ‘Ein Senatsbeschluss aus tiberischer Zeit?’, in Cagnazzi, S. (ed.), Scritti di storia per Mario Pani (2011), 143–50Google Scholar, col. 1 (‘[ex -- o]mniumque cons|[ensu?-- r]ecognouerit uni|[uersis?]’). Virtues: AE 1996, 885, lines 90–2 (‘item senatum, memorem clementiae suae ius|titiaeq(ue) animi magnitudinisque, uirtutes quas a maioribus suis acce|pisset, tum praecipue ab Diuo Aug(usto) et Ti. Caesare Aug(usto) principibus suis didicisset’).

19 Galinsky, op. cit. (n. 5, 1996), 12, citing Cassius Dio 55.3.4–5. This passage, where Dio transliterates auktoritas because he can find no single Greek equivalent, is often invoked to demonstrate the ineffability of auctoritas. But Dio is talking about the auctoritas of the senate, not the emperor. Cf. Béranger, op. cit. (n. 3), 120: ‘L'historien grec ne voit aucun rapport entre l’auctoritas, sens technique, et l'exercise de pouvoir souverain. L'idée d'une parenté n'effleure pas son esprit. Il dissocie les sphères.’ (‘The Greek historian sees no connection between auctoritas in the technical sense and the exercise of sovereign power. The idea of a relationship never enters his mind. He treats them as separate spheres.’)

20 Galinsky, op. cit. (n. 5, 1996), 20–4, citing Servius, ad Aen. 1.151.

21 Galinsky, op. cit. (n. 5, 1996), 24–8, alluding to Quintilian, Inst. 5.12.21 and 12.10.7–8 without giving the references.

22 Heinze, op. cit. (n. 4); Béranger, op. cit. (n. 3).

23 The collection was assembled principally by searching for the string ‘auctor’ in the Epigraphische Datenbank Clauss-Slaby (http://www.manfredclauss.de/gb/index.html) and the Packard Humanities Institute CD Rom 5.3 Latin Texts (© 1991), using the program Diogenes 3.1.6 by P. J. Heslin (© 2007). I will be grateful to be informed of any omissions.

24 Auctoritas as imperium: Cicero, Phil. 3.5 (‘tribuenda est auctoritas’); cf. 3.14. As unsanctioned command: Phil. 3.7 (‘quarta legio … C. Caesaris auctoritatem atque exercitum persecuta est’); cf. Phil. 3.38. Subsequent references to Octavian's auctoritas: Phil. 5.46 (Cicero moves a decree calling Octavian dux et auctor); 10.21; 11.20, 37, 39; Fam. 10.28; Brut. 18.4. On auctoritas in the Philippics see Manuwald, G., Cicero, Philippics 3-9. Introduction, Text and Translation, References and Indexes (2007), 322–3Google Scholar.

25 Velleius 2.80.1 (n. 16 supra).

26 Res Gestae 28.2.

27 ILS 4966 (Rome): ‘Dis Manibus | collegio symphonia|corum, qui sacris publi|cis praestu sunt, quibus | senatus c(oire) c(onuocari) c(ogi) permisit e | lege Iulia ex auctoritate | Aug(usti) ludorum causa’; ILS 915: ‘proco(n)s(ule) iterum extra sortem auctoritate Aug(usti) Caesaris | et s(enatus) c(onsulto) misso ad componendum statum in reliquum prouinciae Cypri.’

28 Ovid, Met. 15.832–3; Manilius, Astronomica 1.384–6.

29 Res Gestae 8.5.

30 Regiones: Pliny, HN 3.45; kings: Tacitus, Ann. 2.64; acta senatus: Suetonius, Aug. 36.1; children: Suetonius, Tib. 47.1; Portus Iulius: Servius, ad Georg. 2.162; cf. Livy 4.20.7 (Temple of Jupiter Feretrius).

31 Diz. ep. 1.767–9, s.v. ‘auctor’ (Kuebler); cf. e.g. ILS 5977 (Sigus, Numidia, a.d. 138): ‘ex auct(oritate) P(ubli) Cassi Se|cundi leg(ati) | Aug(usti) a(gri) p(ublici) Sig(uitanorum) ‖ a(gri) a(ccepti) C(irtensium).’

32 Res Gestae 6.2 (legislation passed ‘per trib[un]ici[a]m p[otestatem’).

33 Virgil, G. 1.24–8; Ovid, Pont. 1.1.31–2. At Pont. 1.1.5–6 Ovid makes a joke, saying that his poems are barred from entering public monuments (i.e. libraries) by suus auctor — Ovid as the auctor of the poems, Augustus as auctor of the monuments. Cf. Pomponius Porphyrio, Commentum in Horati Epodes 9.3–4 (auctor of victory at Actium).

34 Suetonius, Aug. 28.2.

35 RIC Augustus 358: ‘IOM SPQR V S PR S IMP CAE QVOD PER EV R P IN AMP ATQ TRAN S E’ (Ioui Optimo Maximo senatus populusque Romanus uota suscepta pro salute Imperatoris Caesaris quod per eum res publica in ampliore atque tranquilliore statu est).

36 AE 1996, 885, lines 13–14: ‘praesentis status | r(ei) p(ublicae), quo melior optari non potest, quo beneficio principis nostri frui contigit.’

37 Cicero, Att. 16.14.2: ‘sed in isto iuuene, quamquam animi satis, auctoritatis parum est.’

38 Valerius Maximus 6.2.12 (n. 15 supra).

39 Seneca, Cl. 1.15.1 (Loeb trans.).

40 Pliny, HN 29.5/6; Frontinus, Aq. 31.1–3; Tacitus, Ann. 14.55; Suetonius, Tib. 11.4: ‘comperit deinde Iuliam uxorem ob libidines atque adulteria damnatam repudiumque ei suo nomine ex auctoritate Augusti remissum.’ In this last case, as Susan Treggiari has kindly explained to me, Augustus cannot have acted as Tiberius' tutor, since Tiberius was of full age and a tutor was concerned only with financial transactions (see Treggiari, , Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (1991), 460CrossRefGoogle Scholar), so auctoritas has a moral sense, not a formal legal one. Treggiari compares Augustus' compelling Agrippa to divorce Marcella (Dio 54.6.5) and Tiberius to divorce Vipsania (Suetonius, Tib. 7.2–3).

41 Pomponius, Enchiridion, Dig. 1.2.2.49: ‘primus Diuus Augustus, ut maior iuris auctoritas haberetur, constituit ut ex auctoritate eius responderent.’ Galinsky and others make much of the notion that auctoritas was personal and non-transferable.

42 S. M. Braund, Seneca, De clementia (2009), ad loc. rightly passes over ‘auctoritas’ without comment.

43 Scheid, op. cit. (n. 2), 92. Cf. Syme, op. cit. (n. 1), 523: ‘he excels any colleague he might have, not in potestas, but only in auctoritas.’

44 cf. Brunt and Moore, op. cit. (n. 2): ‘After this time I excelled all in influence, although I possessed no more official power than others who were my colleagues in the several magistracies’ (emphasis added).

45 For ‘[po]tens’ see Botteri, P., ‘L'integrazione mommseniana a Res Gestae Divi Augusti 34,1, “potitus rerum omnium” e il testo greco’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 144 (2003), 261–7Google Scholar; Scheid, op. cit. (n. 2), ad loc.

46 It seems clear that at Res Gestae 34.3, where auctoritas is contrasted with potestas, the particle autem has adversative force. But note that in the other nine instances where Augustus uses autem, the particle seems only to mark a transition (in addition, moreover). In seven of the instances the Greek translation from Ancyra and Apollonia has δέ without corresponding μέν (1.4, 14.2, 22.2, 23, 27.2, 28.2, 29.2), as at 34.3; in the other two it has οὖν (4.2) and τε (15.1). Note that in the ‘different and superior’ Greek translation from Sardis, Thonemann, op. cit. (n. 9), restores καὶ πάλ]ıν for autem at Res Gestae 22.2.

47 And so the sting in Tacitus' assessment, that Octavian was ‘secure in his power’ (‘potentiae securus’) in 28 b.c., when he ‘abolished what he had ordered during the Triumvirate and established the legal principles by which we would enjoy peace and a princeps’ (Ann. 3.28.2).

48 Béranger, op. cit. (n. 3), 117. Cf. Syme, op. cit. (n. 1), 322: ‘it was in virtue of auctoritas that Augustus claimed pre-eminence for himself.’

49 Scheid, op. cit. (n. 2), places ‘fui’ at the end of the sentence.

50 Zonaras 7.19.10 = a fragment from Dio, Book 6 (Loeb Dio, vol. 1, 178–83; Loeb trans.). Cf. Premerstein, op. cit. (n. 3), 105–6; Béranger, op. cit. (n. 3), 129–30.

51 Dio 53.1.1–3 (Loeb trans.).

52 Syme always emphasized the significance of alternating the fasces in 28 b.c.; see The Augustan Aristocracy (1986), 1: ‘The ruler handed over the twelve fasces to his colleague M. Vipsanius Agrippa. The practice of the Republic thus returned: rotation month by month of the “insignia imperii”. Normal government (it follows) was visibly heralded on February 1st of the year 28.’ Cf. Tacitus (1958), 365.

53 Dio 53.1.3: ὥσπερ ἐν τῇ ἀκριβεῖ δημοκρατίᾳ (‘just as in the true republic’); cf. 57.8.2 and 73.5.1: κατὰ τὸ ἀρχαῖον (‘in the ancient fashion’). On princeps senatus see Béranger, op. cit. (n. 3), 40–3; Bonnefond-Coudry, M., ‘Le princeps senatus: vie et mort d'une institution républicaine’, Mélanges de l'École française de Rome 105 (1993), 103–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ryan, F. X., Rank and Participation in the Republican Senate (1998)Google Scholar.

54 Varro ap. Aulus Gellius, NA 14.7.9. See below for Cicero.

55 Two notes regarding the date. First, regarding the year when Octavian became princeps senatus: Rich, op. cit. (n. 3), 132, citing Dio 52.42.1–5 (Octavian undertakes a lectio senatus), asserts that Octavian became princeps senatus in 29 b.c., and that Augustus' calculation of forty years (Res Gestae 7.2) omits both the first and last years; Scheid, op. cit. (n. 2), 38, concurs. Neither, however, gives cause for impugning Dio's express statement (53.1.3) that Octavian became princeps senatus after the completion of the census in 28 b.c. Second, regarding ‘post id tem[pus’: the words are generally taken to refer to 16 January 27 b.c., the date when Octavian was given the cognomen Augustus. But he received the clipeus uirtutis at some later date; we do not know when. I take ‘post id tem[pus’ to refer back to the previous explicit temporal marker, ‘in consulatu sexto et septimo’ (Res Gestae 34.1), and to mean, ‘from the time of my sixth and seventh consulships on’. One of the hallmarks of Augustus' style in the Res Gestae is the heavy use of explicit absolute and relative temporal markers, which are set out like stepping stones through the text.

56 I am grateful to Robin Lane Fox for insisting on this point.

57 Magdelain, op. cit. (n. 3), 76.

58 Zonaras 7.19.10 = Dio, frag. from Book 6. There is a long-standing debate about the identity of the ceteri at Res Gestae 34.3, a minimalist interpretation holding that they were only Augustus' colleagues in the consulship (down to 23 b.c., then again briefly in 5 and 2 b.c.), and a maximalist interpretation holding that they also included his colleagues in the censoria potestas and the tribunicia potestas (Agrippa and Tiberius, in both cases). Most scholars take ‘in ma[gis]tra[t]u’ strictly and favour the first interpretation. But note that at Res Gestae 22.2 Augustus can speak of ‘other magistrates’ even in reference to times when he did not hold a magistracy himself (‘aliorum autem m[agistr]atuum’). It is also important to remember that the content of the clause is negative (‘potest]atis au[tem n]ihilo ampliu[s habu]i’), corresponding to Res Gestae 6.1 (‘[summa potestate solus]’, ἐ[πὶ με]γίστηι [ἐξ]ουσ[ίαι] [μ]ό[νος], ‘alone with the highest power’). Finally, note that on the interpretation proposed here, the reading ‘quŏque’ (‘also’) at Res Gestae 34.3, which has generally been rejected in favour of ‘quōque’ (from quisque, ‘each’), may give better sense: ‘I surpassed all of them in auctoritas, but I had no more potestas than the others who were also my colleagues in a magistracy.’

59 This answers Andrew Lintott's objection that, despite the parallel with Res Gestae 7.2, princeps senatus is irrelevant to 34.3, because neither the senate nor individual senators, qua senators, had potestas. As Dio shows, princeps senatus designated not only a rôle within the senate — which Dio does not mention — but a position with respect to past and present magistrates.

60 Dio 57.8.2 (Loeb trans.).

61 cf. OCD 1st and all subsequent editions, s.v. ‘princeps’ (Balsdon): ‘Cassius Dio, for instance, in recording Tiberius' very typical remark (57.8.2), “I am dominus (lord, master) of my slaves, imperator of my troops, and princeps of the rest”, loses the point by using, for princeps, not ἡγεμών, but πρόκριτος, which means princeps senatus.’

62 ILS 50 (M.' Valerius Maximus): ‘princeps in senatum semel lectus est’; ILS 56 (Q. Fabius Maximus): ‘princeps in senatum duobus lustris lectus est’.

63 Res Gestae 1.2.

64 Res Gestae 14.1.

65 cf. Ryan, op. cit. (n. 53), 347–9.

66 Cicero, Att. 1.13.2 (Loeb trans.); note that C. Calpurnius Piso did not hold the formal title princeps senatus, then in disuse.

67 Perhaps relevant is the most common use of auctoritas in relation to Augustus, in the sense of legislative or administrative initiative. In the Republic, when there was open discussion of issues in the senate, the first speaker was functionally the initiator of the senate's decisions. Thus Cicero treats auctor and princeps (meaning first speaker) as synonyms: ‘in ipsa sententia, quoniam princeps ego sum eius atque auctor’ (‘in the motion itself, since I am its princeps and auctor’; Dom. 5/10); ‘Cn. Pompeio auctore et eius sententiae principe’ (‘with Cn. Pompey the auctor and princeps of this motion’; Pis. 15/35). Augustus also collocates auctor and princeps senatus in his elogium for M'. Valerius Maximus: ‘faenore gravi populum senatus hoc eius rei auctore liberavit … princeps in senatum semel lectus est’ (‘with Valerius as auctor of the motion, the senate freed the people from burdensome debt … he was enrolled as princeps in the senate once’; ILS 50). Lastly, note a Tiber terminus-stone of Claudius, the only time princeps senatus appears in imperial titulature before the reign of Pertinax, when it was briefly revived: ‘ex auctorit[ate] | Ti(beri) Claudi Caesaris | Aug(usti) Germanic[i] | principis s[en(atus)]’ (ILS 5926).

68 Others may call this petitio principii, but I will defend it as correct, nonetheless.

69 Journal of Roman Studies 63 (1973), xiGoogle Scholar.

70 See Syme, op. cit. (n. 1), Index s.v. ‘auctoritas’.