Chapter XIII.

       Principate of Tiberius (continued)

       Table of Contents

      SECT. I. — CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF TIBERIUS

      As the reign of Tiberius was singularly exempt from wars, the Emperor was able to devote his undivided attention to domestic government and the welfare of his subjects. His policy was distinguished by a conservative spirit. The chief principle of his administration was to follow the lines marked out by his predecessor. By abandoning the practice, which Augustus had adopted, of receiving an investiture of supreme power for a limited period only, he made a step nearer undisguised monarchy. The decennalia, or feast in honor of the decennial renewal of the tribunician power of the Emperor, survived as a mere custom, without any political meaning. In two important matters he went beyond Augustus in emphasizing the dyarchy and excluding the people from the government. (1) The functions which Augustus had left to the comitia of the people in electing magistrates were taken away by Tiberius, and transferred to the senate, soon after his accession. The only part left to the people was to “acclaim” those whom the senate chose. Tiberius preserved the imperial rights of nomination and commendation of candidates within the limits marked out by his father. (2) The people did not formally lose its sovereign right of legislation, but since the time of Tiberius it actually ceased to legislate. For the Emperor and the magistrates ceased to bring leges before the comitia; there are only two instances of such leges in the reign of Tiberius, while there are numeroussenatusconsulta. The later Emperors, Claudius and Nerva, temporarily revived the old practice; but with these exceptions it may be said that, from Tiberius forward, legislation consisted of the consulta of the senate and the rescripts of the Emperor. The only legislative purpose for which the people had any longer to meet in comitia was to confer the tribunician power on a new Princeps.

      Another important matter, in which Tiberius carried further an idea originated by Augustus, was the establishment of a permanent Prefecture of the city of Rome. We have seen that this office had been instituted as a temporary provision for the care of the city during absences of the Emperor, and Lucius Calpurnius Piso had been appointed prefect when Augustus left Rome in 14 A.D. Tiberius made the office a permanent post of great dignity, only open to senators of consular rank. He placed the three cohortes urbanae at the disposal of the prefect, and thus deprived the senate of the police control of the city. The prefect had a criminal court, in which he administered summary justice in the case of slaves and “roughs”. Piso held the office for nearly twenty years, till his death in 32 A.D.. Tiberius also instituted a new official of consular rank to look after the banks of the Tiber, cura riparum et alvei Tihberis, in addition to the cura aquarum which had been founded by Augustus.

      Tiberius concerned himself for the improvement of the civil service. One great defect of the prevalent system was that offices were filled by inexperienced young men, who held them for only a brief time. Tiberius tried to remedy this by extending the period of tenure, and men began to complain that they grew old in the discharge of the same duties. He did not attempt to introduce this innovation in the case of the magistrates appointed by the senate, and this was a sign that he was in earnest with the maintaining of the imperial system of Augustus, by which the senate had its sphere of activity independent of the Emperor. And when the proposal came from that body (in 22 A.D.) that the Emperor should test the qualifications of senatorial magistrates, Tiberius rejected it. He always behaved with studied politeness to senators, and he was accustomed to refer to the senate matters which might more naturally have come before himself. Like Augustus, he employed a consilium, which consisted of his personal advisers and twenty illustrious members of the senatorial and equestrian orders; but it does not appear that this cabinet council had any real influence in political affairs. Tiberius was curiously reserved in avoiding the assertion of his sovran power by titles and outward forms. In affecting to disguise his imperial position he went much further than Augustus. He never bore the praenomen Imperator, and called himself Augustus only when he was corresponding with foreign princes. He refused the title pater patriae, and forbade all, except his slaves, to address him as dominus. He did not permit temples or statues to be erected to himself, and he rejected the proposal to consecrate his mother, Livia Augusta.

      In the army he maintained strict discipline. He declined to fulfill the promises of higher pay, which had been made to the mutineers in Illyricum and on the Rhine, after his accession; and instead of shortening the period of service, he actually lengthened it. These facts indicate the strength of his authority with the troops. He took away from victorious generals the privilege of bearing the title imperator, and reserved it for members of the imperial family. In regard to the praetorian guards, he made an innovation, which had an important bearing on the future course of Roman history. Augustus had allowed only three cohorts to be quartered within the city, the other six being dispersed in the neighborhood of Rome. Tiberius caused a permanent camp to be built in front of the Porta Viminalis (23 A.D.), and henceforward all the nine cohorts were stationed there together. Thus united, they were conscious of their numbers, and felt their power; and at many a crisis, they disposed of the Empire and elected Emperors. This step also increased considerably the political power of the praetorian prefect; in fact, the idea seems to have emanated from the favorite councilor of Tiberius, L. Aelius Sejanus, whom he had appointed praetorian prefect, and who saw how his own position would be strengthened by a concentration of the forces under his command.

      The financial policy of Tiberius was careful and successful. The expenses of supplying Rome with corn and feeding the populace grew larger in his reign than they had been under Augustus. But in spite of this Tiberius was so economical that he was always able to act liberally in special emergencies. He did not waste the funds of the state in donatives or costly buildings. The only public edifices built by his command were the Temple of Augustus and the Theatre of Pompey. But when many of the famous cities of Asia were laid in ruins by an earthquake, Tiberius succored them with the princely gift of 10,000,000 sesterces and caused the senate to remit to the inhabitants the payment of their tribute for five years. He had himself to supply the deficiency in the aerarium. We find him, in 33 A.D., bestowing on that treasury 100,000,000 sesterces; and in 36 A.D. he gave the same sum for the relief of the sufferers in a great conflagration on the Aventine Hill. He never raised the rate of taxation. When Cappadocia became a province, on the strength of the addition which thus accrued to the revenue he reduced the tax of 1 per cent, on the sale of goods to 3 per cent.

      The liberality of Tiberius in coming to the relief of the provinces, in the case of disasters, introduced a new principle into Roman statesmanship. Men were beginning to see that Rome, the mistress, had duties towards her subject lands. This policy of Tiberius is, as has been observed, one of the first signs of the reaction of the provinces upon Rome. It was, indeed, in the exercise of his proconsular functions that Tiberius most conspicuously showed himself as a wise and large-minded statesman. If he was hated at Rome, he was loved