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  • 4 - The emperor and his advisers

  • from PART II - GOVERNMENT AND CIVIL ADMINISTRATION
  • Edited by Alan K. Bowman, University of Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge, Dominic Rathbone, King's College London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    12 October 2000, pp 195-213

  • Summary

    The bulk of our sources, whether historiographic, juristic or epigraphic, give the impression that the Roman emperor was all-powerful and always busy. There are only a few contemporary sources from the first and second centuries which give any real insight into the composition of the emperor's circle of advisers. Juvenal's fourth Satire contains the only depiction, however distorted, by a literary source of a specific meeting of the consilium and its individual members, in this instance a meeting early in Domitian's reign. According to Juvenal, Domitian was staying at his estate in the Alban hills south-east of Rome, when a fisherman presented him with an extraordinary present: the largest barbel ever to have been caught. Juvenal has not invented the bringing together of senators and equestrians in an advisory body for appearances' sake. It is clear that during the second century, the membership of the emperor's consilium began to become regularized.