THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT

THE TWELVE CAESARS

=The Emperor.=—­In the new regime absolute authority was lodged in a single man; he was called the emperor (imperator—­the commander).  In himself alone he exercised all those functions which the ancient magistrates distributed among themselves:  he presided over the Senate; he levied and commanded all the armies; he drew up the lists of senators, knights, and people; he levied taxes; he was supreme judge; he was pontifex maximus; he had the power of the tribunes.  And to indicate that this authority made him a superhuman being, it was decreed that he should bear a religious surname:  Augustus (the venerable).

The empire was not established by a radical revolution.  The name of the republic was not suppressed and for more than three centuries the standards of the soldiers continued to bear the initials S.P.Q.R. (senate and people of Rome).  The emperor’s power was granted to him for life instead of for one year, as with the old magistrates.  The emperor was the only and lifelong magistrate of the republic.  In him the Roman people was incarnate; this is why he was absolute.

=Apotheosis of the Emperor.=—­As long as the emperor lived he was sole master of the empire, since the Roman people had conveyed all its power to him.  But at his death the Senate in the name of the people reviewed his life and passed judgment upon it.  If he were condemned, all the acts which he had made were nullified, his statues thrown down, and his name effaced from the monuments.[145] If, on the contrary, his acts were ratified (which almost always occurred), the Senate at the same time decreed that the deceased emperor should be elevated to the rank of the gods.  The majority of the emperors, therefore, became gods after their death.  Temples were raised to them and priests appointed to render them worship.  Throughout the empire there were temples dedicated to the god Augustus and to the goddess Roma, and persons are known who performed the functions of flamen (priest) of the divine Claudius, or of the divine Vespasian.  This practice of deifying the dead emperor was called Apotheosis.  The word is Greek; the custom probably came from the Greeks of the Orient.

=The Senate and the People.=—­The Roman Senate remained what it had always been—­the assembly of the richest and most eminent personages of the empire.  To be a senator was still an eagerly desired honor; in speaking of a great family one would say, “a senatorial family.”  But the Senate, respected as it was, was now powerless, because the emperor could dispense with it.  It was still the most distinguished body in the state, but it was no longer the master of the government.  The emperor often pretended to consult it, but he was not bound by its advice.