significance of speech of maecenas

American Philological Association

The Significance of the Speech of Maecenas in Dio Cassius, Book LIIAuthor(s): Mason HammondSource: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 63 (1932),pp. 88-102Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/283208 .

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88 MlIason ltamuitond [1932

VII.- The Significance of the Speech of Maecenas in Dio Cassius, Book LII

MASON HAMMOND HARVARD UNIVERSITY

The speech of Maecenas, as Patul Meyer maintaiined, presents a picture of the Augustan constitution which is perhaps even more regularized than was the government under which Dio himself lived. It is not, however, necessary to conclude from this that Dio was describing not the Augustan constitution but an ideal monarchy in opposition to the contemporary senatorial program. Rather, he summarized the facts and implicatioils of the reforms introduced by Augustus as they appeared to him after the developments of two centuries.

The accepted view of the significance of the speech of Maecenas in the fifty-second book of Dio Cassius' Roman History is still that so ably advocated by Paul Meyer in a dissertation published in 1891.1 Meyer maintained that Dio wrote this speech as a polemic against the pro-senatorial policies of the then emperor, Severus Alexander, and as an exposition of his own political program. Although he based his proposals largely on previous constitutional arrangements, he also embodied original suggestions, many of which were actually realized later among the innovations of Diocletian.2 Dio himself (LII, 41, 1) openly states that although Octavian "preferred to adopt the advice of Maecenas he did not, however, immediately put into effect all his suggestions, fearing to meet with failure at some point if he purposed to change

I Paul Meyer, De Maecenatis oratione a Dione ficta, Berlin, 1891. Cf. also M. Wellmann in Pauly-Wissowa, Reihe I, VI, 1719-1720. In the notes, Meyer's thesis is referred to by page only, without title. Throughout the notes, unless otherwise indicated, Mommsen (T.) refers to his Staatsrecht3 (references in parentheses are to the French translation); Greenidge (A.H.J.) to his Roman Public Life, London, 1901; Rostovtzeff (M.I.) to his Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, New York, 1926.

2 P. 4: qua ex re apertissime apparebit suorum praeter cetera temporum a scriptore respici, atque quemadmodum rempublicam administratam velit elucebit. Cf. also his conclusioni, p. 93. For a summary of the points in which Meyer thinks that Dio anticipated Diocletian, cf. pp. 72 f.



Vol. lxiii] The Speech of Maecenas in Dio 89

the ways of all mankind at one stroke; but he introduced some reforms at the moment and some at a later time, leaving still others for those to effect who should subsequently hold the principate, in the belief that as time passed a better oppor- tunity would be found to put these last into operation." I

It was, of course, entirely in accord with the canons of historical composition in antiquity to insert at crucial points speeches in which the writer might present either sentiments which seemed appropriate to the occasion or his own opinions. There come to mind immediately such examples as the discussion upon the three types of government placed by Herodotus (iII, 80- 82) in the mouths of the Persian nobles, or the Melian dialogue by which Thucydides illustrates the hybris which led to Athens' downfall in the Sicilian expedition (v, 84-111). The year 29 B.C. marked for Dio the end of the republic and the beginning of the empire under which he himself was living. He naturally paused to summarize what appeared to him to be the significant features of the new form of government. There is no reason to assume that in so doing he had any record of an actual discussion between Octavian, Agrippa, and Maecenas. He may not have sought even to adapt the speeches to the known opinions of the two advisors, since actually it was not Maecenas but Agrippa who became the chief promoter of the policies of empire.4

That the speech represents Dio's own attitude towards the ernpire, no one will doubt who has read Meyer's comparison

I The translations are those of Cary in the Loeb edition, vol. vi, London and New York, 1917.

4 In 21 B.C. Maecenas said to Augustus of Agrippa: "you have made him so great that he must either become your son-in-law or be executed," Dio LIV, 6, 5. Again, although Maecenas had shared the praefecture of the city with Agrippa in 31 B.C. (Dio LI, 3, 5), Augustus gave this post to Agrippa alone in 21 B.C.

(Dio LIV, 6, 4), and to Taurus in 16 B.C., ib. 19, 6, where Dio attributes the neglect of Maecenas to the fact that his wife was a sister of the conspirator Caepio (22 B.C., ib. 3, 4, Suet. Aug. 66, 3). On the other hand, Dio devotes some time to the regard in which Augustus held Maecenas when he records the latter's death in 8 B.C. (LV, 7), and the usual view is that the retirement of Maecenas was voluntary, due to his literary tastes. Cf. the article by-Stein in Pauly-Wissowa, Reihe I, VI, 207 ff.

7



90 Mason Hammond [193`2

of it with the sentiments of approval or disapproval which the historian expresses elsewhere in his work.5 Nevertheless, while Dio has perhaps been too much underrated as a historian, it suggests a more original and stronger initellect than the rest of his writing justifies to see in this resume, and hence in his whole picture of the empire, a sort of successor to Xenophon's (Cyropaedia, a treatise oIn how to rule, disguised as history.

Meyer first asserts that the very fact of the debate is incon- sistent with Dio's own later statement that Augustus still wished to give up his powers after he had presumably accepted the advice of Maecenas.6 Dio, however, merely tells how Augustus made ani offer of resignation to the senate when he had first primed certain of his friends to urge his retention of the principate.7 Meyer further points out that whereas the first part of the speech of Maecenas (LII, 14-18) balances that of Agrippa (2-13) and deals with such generalities as might be expected in a rhetorical piece, the rest of the speech (19-40), with its very specific recommendations, many of which were not even fully realized in Dio's own day, reads rather like special pleading aimed at contemporary politics.8 Dio himself (18, 6) is quite conscious that the disquisition oni the details of the government violates the strict rhetorical balance; but after all, the successful argument was the obvious place in which to include a general sketch of what he regarded as significanit in the new constitution. It is niot necessary to comiipare in detail the first part of the speech witlh Agrippa's propositions. They both have a Platonic colorimlg. Agrippa points out the disadvamltages of tyranny and Maecenas sup- ports the necessity that the " best men " (15, 1) should cooper- ate in the rule. In so far as Maecenas advocates an- aristo-

5 pp. 73-87. 6 P. 2; cf. Dio LII, 1, 1; LIII, 2, 6. 7 Meyer cites Suet. Aug. 28, 1 to support his contention that Augustus

intended to resign, but Suetonius miierely states that Augustus was reluctant to relilaiii in power because of the reproaches of the supporters of Antony, to which allusioin is iiiade by both Agrippa alnd Maeceinas, Dio LII, 2, 4 f.; 18, 1.

P. 31.



Vol. Ixiii] The Speech of Maecenas in Dio 91

cratic form of government rather than a democratic, he describes the general aims of Augustus, even though the founder of the principate might not have sympathized wholly with Tiberius and his successors in the complete elimination of the Roman people from politics and the substitution of the senate as representative of the state.9 Likewise, the advice that the emperor consult with the best men of the state about legislation, war, and the selection of officials, reflects the relation of Augustus to the senate and the senatorial consiliurm viewed in the light of later developments.10 There is nothing in this introductory section of the speech which Dio might not have derived from the constitution of the empire as it presented itself to him at the beginning of the third century.

It will be simpler to take up the remainder of the speech in Dio's order rather than to consider it under the various heads of public law, administration, finance, religion, and contemporary or personal material under which Meyer dis- cusses it. Maecenas' opening proposal, that the senate should be revised, accords with the lectiones actually held by Augus- tus.1" It is uncertain how far Augustus himself approved of extending inclusion in the senate and equestrian order to the best men not only of Italy but of the allies and subject nations, but certainly by the end of the first century this had become customary and Dio is himself an example, a hundred years later, of a Greek who had risen to the highest summit

9 Ann. i, 15, 1; Mommsen, iII, 2, p. 1255 (vii, pp. 488 ff.). Greenidge (p. 372) suggests that this passage may refer only to the praetorian elections and that the consular remained popular. For the change from the order Populus Senatusque Romanus to Senatus Populusque Romanus as indicating the primacy of the senate, cf. Gardthausen, Augustus und seine Zeit, Leipzig, 1891-1904, I, p. 563; ii, p. 306, note 3; Mommsen, iII, 2, p. 1257 (vii, p. 490).

10 For the consilium, cf. E. Cuq, "Le consilium principis," Memoires pre- sentes a I'Acad. des Inscrr. et Belles-lettres, Ire serie, ix (1884), pp. 311 ff.; Mommsen, ii, 2, pp. 988-992 (v, 279-284). The legislative committee of the senate formed by Augustus ceased, probably upon the retirement of Tiberius to Capreae, and was not revived until a committee of twenty senators was established to assist the young Severus Alexander.

11 A summary of the evidence and problems connected with the lectiones may be found in E. G. Hardy's edition of the Monumentum Ancyranum, Oxford, 1923, pp. 54-60. Cf. Mommsen, Res gestae divi Augusti2, Berlin, 1883, pp. 35 f.



92 Mason Hammond [1932

of a senatorial career, the consulship."2 The extension of the citizenship to all subjects of the empire would never have met with the approval of the Julio-Claudians 13 but by Dio's time it had been realized through the famous edict of Caracalla.14

With regard to the republican magistracies, Maecenas recommends an age in accordance with the Augustan practice, twenty-five years.15 In limiting election to the major republican offices and in placing the selection of candidates in the hands of the emperor himself in order to prevent political conflict among the people and rivalry among the senators, Maecenas reflects the practice, if not the theory, of the empire."6 The rapid reduction of these posts to mere honors

12 Augustus adopted a narrow policy with regard to the senate. Hirschfeld's emendation of the opening words of the second column of Claudius' speech on the chiefs of the Aedui, accepted by Bruns, Fontes Iuris Romani 7, Tulbingen, 1909, p. 196, note 2, is not sufficiently sure to prove that he admitted Italians;

cf. E. G. Hardy, Roman Laws and Charters, Oxford, 1912, part ii, pp. 141 f. The phrase there used, florem coloniarum et municipiorum, refers to the com-

munities only of Italy, not of the whole emrpire, cf. Furneaux ad Ann. i, 79, 1.

Claudius first urged the extension of senatorial rights to the Romanized pro-

vincials in this famous speech, Ann. xi, 23, 1 ff.; Hardy, op. cit. ii, pp. 133-154; Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, Berlin, 1892-1906, No. 21; Bruns, Fontes, p. 195, No. 52. Augustus did, however, seek to extend the equestrian

order through the oppida (the Italian towns only ?), Suet. Aug. 46. The great extension of these privileges came with the Flavians.

13 Augustus was chary of granting the citizenship, Suet. Aug. 40, 3. Even the edict of Claudius on the Anauni (Hardy, op. cit. II, pp. 119-132; Dessau, I.L.S., No. 206; Bruns, Fontes, p. 253, No. 79), only recognizes a right confirmed

by long usage if not by legal grant and does not indicate any departure from the Augustan policy, though the venality of his court made it easy to acquire the citizenship corruptly, Dio LX, 17, 5; Acts 22, 28; Sen. Ludus 3.

14 On the date and scope of this edict, cf. C. L. Sherman, T.A.P.A. LIX

(1928), 33-47, with references; Rostovtzeff, p. 369 and notes; A. LeFranc, L'Edit de Caracalla, Bordeaux, 1907.

15 On the age of admission to the senate in relation to that of admission to the decuriae, cf. J. Stroux, "Ein Gerichts-reform des Kaiser Claudius," Sitzb. Bayer. Akad. Phil.-Hist. Klasse viii (1929), 29.

16 The emperor controlled the elections in the senate by nominatio, the recommendation of candidates, and commendatio, the demand for their election, as well as by his probable right to grant the latus clavus, the token of a senatorial career, Greenidge, pp. 349, 399; Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des

Antiquites grecques et romaines, Paris, 1877-1919, i, p. 1243, s.v. clavus; Pauily- Wissowa, Reihe I, vii, 7, s.v. clavus.




without actual power and especially without military resources likewise occurred in the first century.17

More important are the proposals bearing upon the imperial administration. The praefectus urbi, who dates indeed from Augustus, is here given the plenitude of his second century powers and jurisdiction."8 The creation of a special subcensor to perform those censorial functions which the emperor had from the first absorbed is possibly a recollection of the committees censoria cumn potestate which Augustus created to review the roster of knights and attempted to establish in the senate as well."9 There is no need to see in either of these offices suggestions of Dio's own which anticipated the reign of Diocletian.20 Furthermore, the payment of regular salaries to public officials started under Augustus and had become fully established by the time of Dio.2" The reorganization of Italy and the empire on the basis of a much greater sub- division of territory and a separation of the commissariat from the public and military business is, in the words of Meyer, abhorrent to the Augustan age and exceeds somewhat the developments of even Dio's own days. But in the second century the policy was already well recognized of breaking the provinces down into smaller administrative units and of assimilating them all to the same general form.22 Even from the time of Augustus, not only the imperial but also the senatorial governors tended to retain their posts for terms longer than a year. The imperial legates apparently averaged

17 Greenidge, pp. 363-371; Willems, Le droit public romain7, Louvain, 1910, pp. 453-464.

18 It is disputed whether the praefectus urbi was a permanent officer before the accession of Tiberius, cf. Furneaux ad Ann. VI, 10, 5; Greenidge, p. 408; Mommsen, ii, 2, p. 1060 (v, p. 362).

19 For boards to revise the rolls of knights and juries, see Suet. Aug. 37, 39; Dessau, I.L.S., No. 1954; for senatorial committees to revise the senate, Dio LV, 13, 3.

20 pp. 15 f. 21 Dio LIII, 15, 4 f.; cf. Mommsen, I, pp. 293-306 (I, pp. 330-345). 22 Pp. 46-53; Greenidge, pp. 424 f.; for Italy, cf. Mommsen, ii, 2, pp. 1081-

1086 (v, pp. 387-394).




the three to five years recommended by Maecenas (23, 2).23 Moreover, the extension not only of imperial procurators but of special imperial legati, like Pliny in Bithynia, into senatorial provinces had already become common.24 In fact, modern historians tend to push further and further back the beginnings of what are held to be peculiar characteristics of the Diocle- tianic monarchy and there is reason to think that Diocletian regarded himself not as an innovator but as the restorer, the second Augustus.25

Maecenas further recommends the appointment of two praetorian praefects from the ranks of the equestrians with military power in Italy over both the praetorian guard and the other troops. The sharing of this post between two men became the regular rule after Sejanus so nearly succeeded in making it the stepping stone to the imperial power.26 The presence of troops other than the guard and the urban cohorts in Italy dated from the time of Septimius only and was part of the tendency, which he accelerated, to assimilate Italy to the norm of the ordinary provinces.27 Maecenas also provides for the equestrian praefects of the watch and of the grain supply, who are to hold their posts not for life, like the praetorian praefects, but for a stated term. The fiscal program presents, to Meyer's satisfaction, a picture by no means Augustan. Both the aerarium and the fiscus are to be in the hands of salaried officials of the equestrian class so as to separate the financial from the military power and to provide a trained civil service which will assure the subjects of an equitable administration. While already in the first century,

23 For the legati Augusti, Pauly-Wissowa, Reihe I, xxiii, 1146, s.v. lega,tus;

in general, cf. Furneaux, Annals of Tacitus2, Oxford, 1896-1907, I, pp. 112-118, where examples are given.

24 Cf. Ann. xiv, 18, 2 (Acilius Strabo); Abbott and Johnson, Municipal

Administration in the Roman Empire, Princeton, 1926, p. 359, No. 55 (Dexter); Dessau, I.L.S., No. 2927 (Pliny).

25 Rostovtzeff, Pp. 454 ff. 26 Greenidge, P. 409; Mommsen, ii, 2, p. 866, note 8 (v, p. 141, note 6). 27 Meyer, p. 54; Rostovtzeff, p. 353; M. Platnaiier, Septimius Severus,

Oxford, 1918, pp. 161 f.




with the appointment of imperial praefecti for the aerarium, the distinction between the senatorial and imperial treasuries began to be blurred out and, as Meyer says, the aerarium lost its importance, it maintained a separate existence into the third century and the praefects were senators, not knights.28 Nevertheless, in Dio's own eyes, there was little distinction between aerarium and fi1cu8 and perhaps Septimius or his successors had already sought to abolish the former.

The following sections (25, 6-27) contain recommendations based on the facts as Dio found them. The opening of the senate to worthy knights was begun by Augustus, though the mention of "bearers of faggots and charcoal" may well be a contemporary allusion and the phrase "knights who began their service as centurions" perhaps alludes to Septimius' extension to these officers of the right to wear the gold ring.29 The provision of public education for the noble children began probably under Augustus, at least as respects military training for noble youths both at Rome and in the municipalities.30 Later, under the Flavians, the famous Quintilian was the first to hold at Rome a publicly paid chair of rhetoric.31 The Platonic tone of the recommendations for encouraging the nobility to participate in public affairs recalls Augustus' constant, but unsuccessful, efforts towards this goal.32 The creation of a standing army to protect the frontiers was in some ways the most important feature of the Augustan reforms,

28 P. 56; Greenidge, pp. 394 f.; Mommsen, ii, 2, pp. 1012 f. (v, pp. 307- 308); Ann. xiii, 29 for its history until Nero.

29 Meyer, p. 8. For the extension of the right to wear the gold ring, see Platnauer, Septimius, p. 164, from Herodian iII, 8, 5.

30 Rostovtzeff (Rostowzew), " R8mische Bleitesserae," Klio, Beiheft iii (first series), Leipzig, 1905, pp. 55-93, with citation of Maecenas' advice (26, 1) on p. 65.

31 Meyer, p. 6; for Quintilian, see St. Jerome, Chronica Eusebii under A.D. 89 (Migne, P.L. xxvii, 599).

32 A shortage of candidates for public office was one of Augustus' constant problems, cf. C. Cichorius, Romische Studien, Leipzig, 1922, pp. 288 ff.; Gard- thausen, Augustus i, p. 602; ii, p. 327 ff. He failed to set the example of making road building a "liturgy" for the rich and had to establish a government department for the purpose, Dio LIII, 22; 1 Dessau, I.L.S., No. 889.



96 Mason I1aminti-od [1932

for he sought thereby to cure the evil which had inade the empire necessary, the rivalry of generals who could control independent forces. Although Meyer considers that the en- listment of those " most in need of livelihood " is not consonant with the Augustan ideal of an army which drew for its main legionary strength upon the Italian bourgeoisie, the tendency for the army to depend largely on the lower classes had its roots back in the abolition of the census qualification by Marius and must have received a considerable impetus when, from the time of Vespasian, the provincials were more and more admitted into the legions.33 The construction of permanent camps was a second century departure from the Augustan scheme of mobile forces.34

Maecenas, returning (25, 28) to the fiscal problems, deals with the possible sources of revenues. The sale of the public property to provide a "farm loan fund" may represent a conflation of the sale of the imperial heirlooms by Marcus Aurelius and the invention of the "alimentary" loan funds under Nerva and his successors.3" At all events, Augustus himself for a time used the public lands not for revenue but to reward his veterans and, after he gave this up, the imperial estates increased rather than diminished so that here Dio departs perhaps even from the practice of his own day, despite some historical justification.36 Maecenas then advises a proper budget system and a regular anid fair collection of the taxes. Whatever view one holds about the existence of a central fiscus at Rome before the reigni of Claudius, it seems hardly p)ossible that Augustus could have maniaged his provinces or have left a full account of the funds in his charge at his death

33 P. 55. H. M. D. Parker, The Roman Legions, Oxford, 1928, p. 179,

shows that the change attributed usually to Vespasian was less abrupt than is

commonly assumed. 34 Parker, ib. p. 171; B. W. Hendersoin, Five Roman Emperors, Cambridge,

1927, p. 116. 35 Vita Marci 17, 4 f.; Dessau, I.L.S., Nos. 6509, 6675, gives the alimenltary

tables; cf. Greeilidge, p. 425; Rostovtzeff, p. 313; Moiimnisen, iI, 2, pp. 1079 f.

(v, pp. 385 f.). 36 Pp. 61 f.; Rostovtzeff, inidex, s.v. E8tates, growth of.




without some organized bureau.37 But universal taxation on property and a fair distribution of the burden among all the communities under Roman sway was not fully attained even in Dio's own time.38 Diocletian first abolished the exemption of Italian land from the land tax.39 On the other hand, whereas it was the practice under the later empire to make communities corporately responsible for the payment of the taxes, Dio advocates the earlier system of payment by indi- viduals. Moreover, the provincial census instituted by Augus- tus undoubtedly envisaged a uniform and equitable system of taxation throughout the empire.40 Finally, as Dio saw, the administrative reforms of Augustus brought to a world ex- hausted by the capricious exactions of republican governors a welcome relief in the careful and honest collection of dues by accredited officials at stated seasons.41

While Dio did not, perhaps, see the entire elimination of popular government in the municipalities, this was certainly the direction which was being taken throughout the empire during the second century and one which had already been attained in Rome itself by the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.42 Dio had, moreover, ample material on which to base his strictures against extravagant public building and athletic competition.43 The horse races in particular had

37 P. 59. The breviarium totius imperii is mentioned by Suet. Aug. 101, 4, and Dio LVI, 33, 2. He also published an annual balance sheet, Dessau, Geschichte der Romische Kaiserzeit, Berlin, 1924, i, pp. 186 ff.; cf. Dio LIX, 9, 4; Suet. Gaius 16, 1.

38 When Augustus instituted the inheritance tax in Italy, he answered the objections of the senate by suggesting a property tax and they balked at the inquisition into their holdings which this would have entailed, Dio LVI, 28, 4.

39 Greenidge, p. 424; Victor, de Caesaribus 39, 31; further references in Willems, Le droit public romain, p. 620, note 6.

40 Greenidge, p. 429; Mommsen, ii, 2, pp. 1091-1095 (v, pp. 399-404). 41 P. 61. Collections from such sources as estates and mines and perhaps

other taxes were, however, still let out to individual conductores, cf. Rostovtzeff, pp. 339 f.; Fronto, Epistles, Loeb ed. I, p. 233 (ad Marcum 5, 34).

42 P. 36; cf. Greenidge, pp. 371-373, 423, 437-438; Mommsen, ii, 2, pp. 916 f. (v, pp. 198 f.); Abbott and Johnson, op. cit. pp. 85, 186.

43 Johnson, op. cit. pp. 149 f., 200-201; Abbott and Johilsonl, op. cit. 200-201; S. Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius2, London, 1925, pp. 218-222.



98 Mason HIalniond [1932

already become iiot inerely a wasteful anid corrupt form of public entertainment but a source of civil strife.44 Dio therefore felt that they should be confined to Rome and that the other games should elsewhere be strictly limited. His next recommendation, the abolition of local coinages, if not absolute in his own day, was at least sufficiently near completion, especially in the West, to justify him.4" The restrictioiis which he suggests on the sending of embassies by the provincials to Rome touches upon a problem mentioned in the inscriptions recently discovered at Cyrene. One of these edicts records the creation of a special senatorial board to expedite trials de repetundis, whose prosecutioin was a considerable burden aiid expense to the provincials.46 The reference of provincial petitions to the governor before they are forwarded to the emperor may be found in an inscription from Cos, wherein a governor of Asia under Augustus insists on this procedure.47 Maecenas is quite in accordance with the Augustan practice in urging that foreign embassies be brought before the senate.48 Yhen he further suggests that all legislation be enacted

through the senate, he propounds what had by the time of Hadrian become recognized legal doctrine. With the cessa- tion of comitial legislation, which had occurred in fact by the reign of Tiberius and in theory by the end of the first century, the decrees of the senate, originally hortatory, had in effect becoimie fully legislative.'9 Practice had actually gone beyond the stateinent of Dio since not only had the decrees of the

44 Abbott and Johnsonl, op. cit. p. 145; Rostovtzeff, pp. 140 f.; Friedlknider, Sittengeschichte Roms9, Leipzig, 1920, iI, pp. 32-40.

45 P. 39 f.; H. Mattiiigly, Roman Coins, London, 1928, pp. 112, 115, 194. 46 Pp. 37-39; J. Stroux and L. Wenger, "Die Augustus-Inschrift," Abh. der

Bayer. Akad. Phil.-Hist. Klasse, XXXIV (March, 1928), 112 ff. 47 Paton and Hicks, Inscriptions from Cos, Oxford, 1891, No. 26. 48 Dio LV, 33, 5; LVI, 25, 7. Client princes were heard by the senate, e.g.

Antiochus of Commagene, Dio LII, 43, 1; Archelaus of Cappadocia, Ann. ii, 42, 5; Rhescuporis of Thrace, Ann. iI, 67, 3. But the treaty-making power, as well as that of declaring war, rested with the emperor, Dio LIII, 17, 5; Strabo xvii, 3, 25; Bruns, Fointes, p. 202, No. 56, liiies 1 ff. (Lex de itriperio Vespasiani).

49 P. F. Girard, Manuel 6l6mentaire de droit romain7, Paris, 1924, pp. 58 ff.;

Greeniidge, pp. 377 f.




senate become mere ratifications of the orationes by which the emperor introduced the more important measures but also the constitutions of the emperor himself became under Hadrian the primary source of law.50 Here, therefore, Dio was reactionary in his program. The right of the senate to try its own members was usually admitted under the early emperors and was repeatedly asserted by the constitutional rulers of the second century, so frequently, indeed, as to raise doubts about its real validity.5' Despite the insinuations of the ancient authorities, neither Augustus nor Tiberius appears to have prosecuted libellous utterances against themselves without further grounds for action and, on the whole, they allowed, as Dio suggests, charges of plotting against themselves to be brought before the senate.52 In the reign of Claudius such trials were more likely to be heard by the emperor alone.53 The curious proposal that in trials before the senate only those who had held an office equal to, or higher than, that of the accused man should be allowed to vote upon him, may never actually have been employed.

The emperor's jurisdiction as portrayed in the speech accords sufficiently closely with the imperial practice. Appeals from his praefects and cases involving equestrian, military, and outstanding private offenders are to come before him. While the original distinction and basis of the appellate and primary jurisdiction of the emperor are not thoroughly clear, it is certain that he did exercise, apparently even in Rome, both these forms of jurisdiction.54 The use of a judicial con-

50 Girard, op. cit. pp. 61 ff. 51 Greenidge, p. 387, especially note 1; Mommsen, II, 2, pp. 960-962 (v,

pp. 249-251). 52 Cf. any modern discussion of the application of the maiestas law, e.g.

F. B. Marsh, The Reign of Tiberius, Oxford, 1931, pp. 289-295. 5 The best commentary on Claudius' judicial excesses is the promise made

by Nero, according to Tac. Ann. xiii, 4, 2: non enim se negotiorum omnium iudicem fore, ut clausis unam intra domum accusatoribus et reis paucorum potentia gras8aretur.

" Greenidge, pp. 381-394; Mommsen, II, 2, pp. 958-988 (v, pp. 246-279). The primary jurisdiction in Rome may have depended on the tribunicia potestas




silium, distinct from that legislative committee of the senate and magistrates which had a short life under Augustus and Tiberius, may be illustrated from all periods of the empire.55 Secret voting in these consilia was the method at least under Nero.56 The post of freedman a cognitionibus dates from the early empire.57

The speech ends with a long and varied exhortation on moderation and the setting of a good example for the subjects (34, 6-50), Maecenas sums up the whole virtue of a good ruler in the following golden rule (39, 2): " If you of your own accord do all that which you would wish another to do if he became your ruler, you will err in nothing and succeed in everything, and in consequence you will find your life most happy and free from danger." Perhaps the most important portion of this part of the speech is the advice against receiving divine honors and statues and on maintaining the state worship and limiting the use of magic to soothsaying and augury (35 f.). However one regards emperor worship, whether as a spontaneous growth from the gratitude of the people towards their savior or as a studied attempt to rest the imperial power on an extra-legal appeal direct to the populace, it is generally admitted that Augustus was excessively modest in the amount of such honor which he allowed to be paid to himself.58 More- over, he did try to revive and foster the state worship, to restrain atheism, and to abolish sorcery and magic.59 With regard to religion, therefore, the advice of Maecenas is strictly if the imperium was not applicable within the Walls. Dio (LIII, 17, 6), is probably anachronistic if he intended his statement that the emperors "had the right . . . even of being able to put to death both knights and senators inside the pomoerium" to apply to Augustus. Cf. in general E. de Ruggiero, Dizionario Epigraphico, Roma, 1995 ff., ii, 1, p. 319, s.v. cognitio.

65 Mommsen, Strafrecht, pp. 266-268 (I, pp. 311-314). Cf. in general Cuq, Le consilium principis.

S6 Suet. Nero 15, 1. 57 Mommsen, ii, 2, p. 965, note 2 (v, p. 254, note 2); de Ruggiero, op. cit.

II, 1, p. 320. 58 Greenidge, p. 441, cf. Mon. Anc. iv, 51-54. In general, cf. L. R. Taylor,

The Divinity of the Roman Emperor, Middletown, Conn., 1931, chaps. viI-viIi. 59 Gardthausen, Augustus I, pp. 863-886.




" Augustan." So also is the concluding suggestion that Octav- ian should use not the title "king" but those of "Caesar," "imperator" as a praenomen, or "Augustus" so that he may enjoy the reality of kingship without incurring the odium of the name.60

In conclusion, little exception can be taken to the evidence which Meyer has adduced on each particular item. But those points in which he claims that Dio anticipated even the practices of his own day, e.g. the capital jurisdiction of the praefectwu urbi, the subcensor, the position of the senate, the powers of the emperor, the military administration in Italy, the establishment of salaries throughout the public services, the abolition of local coinages, the various details in the provincial administration, the status of Italy, the fiscal arrangements, etc., may be regarded as at least implicit in the empire which he saw and perhaps, if fuller information were available, many of them would be found more fully developed at an earlier date than Meyer assumes.6" In that case it would not be necessary to credit Dio with an imagination which could anticipate the future. Rather he, like Diocletian after him, merely rendered more consistent and uniform existing practice. If on the one hand the speech cannot be used as evidence for the character which Augustus intended to give to the principate, it may still have great value in so far as it shows how that principate appeared when viewed through the perspective of two centuries of development. Dio's interpretation, given here in broad outline, is that under which his predecessors, Tacitus, Suetonius, and the jurists, wrote. It is that which the Antonines realized, Platonic in its exaltation of the wisest and best, monarchical in the reduction of the senate to an impotent organ, constitutional in the outward show of coopera- tion between emperor and senate. And, curiously enough, modern historians have regarded the work of Augustus under

60 Cf. the famous remark attributed by Dio, LVII, 8, 4, "I am master of my slaves, general of my troops, and prince of the rest." See also Ann. ii, 87, 2.

61 pp. 13-15, 17, 19, 26, 33, 39, 47, 49, 51, 54, 60, 72, summarized on pp. 72 f.




each of these three aspects; Mommsen propounded an in- genious legalistic theory of a "dyarchy" between emperor and senate, Rostovtzeff entitled his third chapter "The Mili- tary Tyranny of the Julio-Claudians," and Eduard Meyer suggested that perhaps Augustus really did mean to restore the "republic" in some such fashion as Cicero, combining Plato and Pompey, had conceived of it.62

Moreover, if the speech be regarded not as a political pamphlet but as a summary exposition of the actual principate, it acquires further significance because it proves how strong was the sense of the continuity of the empire. Modern historians see in the upheavals of the year 69 A.D. or 193-197 A.D. real revolutions in the form of government. Dio could sincerely trace the institutions under which he lived back to the founder of the empire and could gather into one whole, as logical outgrowths from the original seeds, all the various changes that had occurred therein. This belief in the under- lying unity of the empire remained through centuries of storm and trouble the most abiding and strengthening characteristic of Roman political thought.

62 Mommsen, ii, 2, p. 748 (v, p. 5); Rostovtzeff, chap. III; E. Meyer, Caesars Monarchie2, Stuittgart, 1919, pp. 177-191.



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