Alberto Dalla Rosa The provincia of Augustus, or how to reconcile Cassius Dio’s vision of the Principate, Augustus’ own public image and early imperial institutional practices Introduction Fewer issues have attracted more scholarly attention than the nature of the imperium of Augustus. In this apparently endless debate, the definition of the superiority of the imperial provincial command over that of the ordinary proconsuls remains polarized around two main positions: that of those who think that in 23 BC Augustus received a general imperium maius over the proconsuls once and for all; and that of those who prefer to limit the scope of the grant of 23 and push the actual concession of an overarching high command to a later date under Augustus or even under Tiberius The debate is an aspect of the traditional opposition between the interpretation of the Roman emperor as an autocrat or as a sort of magistrate. While current scholarship generally traces the beginning of this debate to the 19th century, the dispute is much older and has its origins in the Renaissance, as recently shown by Ferrary 2015.. Underneath these two opinions lays a fundamental divergence in our sources. The followers of the former interpretation base their analysis chiefly on Cassius Dio’s narrative, while the supporters of the latter object that a more gradual establishment of Augustus’ superiority better correspond to the political programme of restoration of the Republic (restitutio rei publicae) that the prince himself puts forward in his Res gestae. Given that Cassius Dio’s account of the various institutional settlements of the years 27-19 BC is the only comprehensive description available, his point of view has been largely followed by scholars up to the final decades of the 20th century. The emergence of new interpretative approaches and the discovery of the senatusconsultum de Pisone patre have given momentum to the “republican” view and influential publications by, among other, Klaus Martin Girardet, Jean-Louis Ferrary and Frédéric Hurlet in the 1990s and early 2000s consolidated this interpretative trend The bibliography on the matter is enormous. For the purpose of this paper I will limit myself to the most recent contributions to the debate. For a general overview of the production of the last two decades, see Hurlet and Dalla Rosa 2009; Hurlet 2016; useful summaries of older scholarship can be found in Chilver 1950; Staveley 1956; Ferrary 2001a; Dalla Rosa 2014: 13-20.. Recent scholarship, however, partly reverted to Cassius Dio’s views, making the point that the measures of 23 BC actually gave Augustus an overarching authority over all provinces and armies This is chiefly represented by the work of Koehn 2010 and Vervaet 2014.. Since both positions are rooted in the ambivalent presentation of the nature of the Principate in our sources, it seems difficult to find the right balance between them. The epigraphic evidence remains open to different interpretations and no document seems for now to clearly contradict what Cassius Dio says. This notwithstanding, I will argue that there is a way to reconcile Dio’s narrative with the more gradual view of definition of Augustus’ supreme command on the provinces. In fact, a generally overlooked aspect of Dio’s presentation of the settlements of 27 and 23 BC, is its tendency to introduce Augustus’ prerogatives in a rather abstract way. While Cassius Dio admits that the first prince never held imperium for life and had his provincial command renewed for periods of ten or five years each time, he considers these powers as already definitive and inherent to the imperial position and therefore susceptible to be described in general constitutional terms See in particular Dio 53.13.1; 16.1-3.. In the following pages, we will see how this perspective is at odds with attested republican and early imperial practices and was influenced by the constitutional thinking of Dio’s own times. Cassius Dio and contemporary theories on the institutional nature of the Principate In book 53 of his Roman History, after having reproduced the political speech given by Octavian to the senate in January 27 BC and having presented in great detail the new provincial settlement of the empire, Cassius Dio observes that “In this way the power of both people and senate passed entirely into the hands of Augustus, and from his time there was, strictly speaking, a monarchy” (53.17.1). This statement opens a long section dedicated to the definition of the powers of the emperors, that are seen as a combination of prerogatives belonging to traditional republican magistrates: as consuls and proconsuls they command the armies, make levies, collect funds, declare war, make peace and have the right to inflict capital punishments; as censors, “they investigate our lives and morals as well as take the census”; “the tribunician power […] gives them the right to nullify the effects of measures taken by any other official, in case they do not approve it, and makes them immune from scurrilous abuse”. They enjoy the privilege of being released from the laws, bear the titles of Caesar, Augustus, and that of father of the fatherland (pater patriae). This section constitutes just one part of the larger reflection on political theory that Cassius Dio develops when he reaches pivotal points of his Roman History Such generalizing reflections are normally inserted at the beginning and/or at the end of the reign of one emperor. In the case of Augustus, the beginning of his principate is used to introduce a global presentation of and meditation on the new constitutional regime. On the topic see the recent contributions of Kemezis 2014: 139-145 and Coltelloni-Trannoy 2016a. See also Millar 1966: 74-77.. The presentation of the institutional fabric of the Principate and of the new political practices initiated by Augustus are followed by some remarks about the ineluctability of the monarchic evolution of the Roman state and on the benefits that this regime has over the chaotic status of the degenerate Republic of the civil wars. The description of the powers of the emperor traced by Dio (53.17-19) does not reproduce exactly the reality of the settlement of 27 BC nor those of the rest of the Augustan age. For example, the censoria potesta was permanently integrated into the imperial powers only with Domitian – an evolution that Dio later recognizes (53.18.5). Speaking of the tribunicia potestas (actually granted in 23 and not in 27 BC), he omits to mention the right it gave to the prince to convene the senate and to personally present a rogatio before the people; this is evidently due to the fact that in Dio’s own time legislation did not pass anymore through the popular assemblies, but was an imperial and senatorial prerogative only See Rich 1990: 151. All prerogatives of the tribunician power are correctly given in the annalistic section concerning the year 23 (53.32.5). This probably indicates that Dio was following more closely his sources at that point, while he relied upon his constitutional knowledge in 53.17.9.. Numerous anachronisms can also be found in the description of the provincial administrative structure that precedes the passage on the emperor’s powers, like – for example – the claim that the proconsular provinces were pacified and unarmed already at this stage. The same can also be said of the procuratorial salary hierarchy and of the principle that the emperor is legibus solutus. As commentators have shown, all these developments happened later under Augustus or under his successors Fishwick 1994; Bellissime and Hurlet 2018: 67-68; Noè 1994: 209.. These “mistakes” simply reveal that Cassius Dio is placing at the very beginning of Augustus’ Principate a description of what this regime eventually became in its more mature version under the Antonines and the Severans. With this discourse, Dio is clearly trying to fit the Principate into the well known coordinates of the three kinds of constitutions: monarchy, oligarchy and democracy. This is not an easy task, since the nature of the Augustan regime embraces both the preservation of republican magistracies and institutions and the introduction of a new autocratic figure. This is the reason why in his retrospective about the imperial politeia, placed after the death of Augustus in 56.43.4, Dio prefers to define the new regime not as a pure monarchy, but rather as a combination of monarchy and democracy, capable to unite a strong political and social control with a moderate freedom of speech Carsana 1990: 85-86; Freyburger-Galland 1997: 58-59; Coltelloni-Trannoy 2016b: 562.. Cassius Dio is just one among the many intellectuals who ventured to built a theoretical framework to interpret the imperial constitution or politeia. During the age of the Antonines, a number of Greek authors belonging to the so called the Second Sophistic reflected retrospectively on the long history of Rome and particularly on the Principate, seen as the high point of the entire Mediterranean civilization. These reflections fostered also a new approach to the old theory of the mixed constitution, which was applied to the Roman Empire in different ways Aalders 1968; Carsana 1990.. Aelius Aristides, in his oration in praise of Rome, reuses the Polybian model of the mixed constitution and applies it to the Roman empire, that he describes as forming a “single city” Fontanella 2008.. Dio Chrysostom had already proposed a similar approach in his discourses on royalty, but with a greater emphasis on the superiority of monarchic rule Gill 2000: 603-607; Desideri 2015; Atkins 2018: 33-34.. Inspired by the thinking of both Plato and Aristotle, Plutarch elaborated an original view, that is exposed in the fragmentary treaty that goes under the name of De unius in re publica dominatione, populari statu et paucorum imperio. In this work, Plutarch emphasizes the concept of dynasteia, that he uses to define the situation of the late Republic, characterized by the military domination of different party-leaders on the traditional republican institutions. Plutarch views probably influenced Appian, who often uses the term dynasteia for post-gracchan Rome and also for the beginning of Octavian’s rule at the time of the triumvirate. Both also agree that Augustus had founded a monarchic regime, despite maintaining the name and the form of the old politeia Carsana 1990: 47-55; Kemezis 2014: 115-120; Carsana 2016.. No elaborate theoretical discussion of the imperial constitution survives in Latin, but we possess a series of interesting references to these issues in the juridical sources. In his handbook of Roman law (the Enchiridion), Sextus Pomponius, one of the most influential jurists of the second century, reflects on how the sovereign legislative power of the populus Romanus had been exercised under different forms during the history of the Republic. When he comes to the situation of his age, he states that: most recently, just as there was seen to have been a transition toward fewer ways of establishing law – a transition effected by stages under dictation of circumstances (rebus dictantibus) – it has come about that affairs of state have had to be entrusted to one man, for the senate had been unable latterly to govern all the provinces honestly. An emperor having therefore been established (constituto principe), to him was given the right (ius datum est) that what he had decided be deemed law (ut quod constituisset, ratum esset) D. 1.2.2.11 Pomp. l. s. enchirid.: Novissime sicut ad pauciores iuris constituendi vias transisse ipsis rebus dictantibus videbatur per partes, evenit, ut necesse esset rei publicae per unum consuli (nam senatus non perinde omnes provincias probe gerere poterant): igitur constituto principe datum est ei ius, ut quod constituisset, ratum esset.. Pomponius maintains here that the sovereignty rests ultimately with the Roman people, but this supreme authority has been entirely handed over to the emperor, so that whatever he decides should be deemed law. Pomponius does not specify if the people’s assemblies retained a legislative capacity of if the emperor completely replaced their functions, but it is clear that the powers transferred to the princeps are not bound by any temporal limits (as in the case of the dictatorship or the decemvirate) or by the right of appeal (as in the case of the consuls) Straumann 2016: 245-247.. In Pomponius’ view, the emperor’s power is legitimately granted by the people; yet he is no magistrate, since he takes up the role of the populus Romanus altogether and – in a certain way – replaces it. The sovereignty transfer is definitive and is presented as the result of a single act, evidently to be placed at the beginning of Augustus’ reign. The cursory remarks of Pompinius on the political circumstances of the late Republic and to the incapacity of the senate to govern a vast empire encompassing numerous provinces reveal his belief in the ineluctability of the new monarchic regime. A similar view can also be found in Cassius Dio, who refers to the incapacity of the previous institutions to guarantee peace and safety to the citizens as an argument to justify the transition from δημοκρατία to μοναρχία 53.19.1; on Pomponius’ view of the necessity of constitutional change, see Marotta 2016: 204 n. 80. On Dio’s opinions about the ineluctable failure of democracy, see Madsen 2016: 143-145. The necessity of the monarchic rule is also accepted by Tac. ann. 1.1-9.. Ulpian, a contemporary of Cassius Dio, follows an analogous pattern when he discusses the origin of the imperial legislative powers in his Institutiones: a decision given by the emperor has the force of a statute (legis habet vigorem). This is because the people commits to him and into him its own entire authority and power (omne suum imperium et potestatem), doing this by the lex regia which is passed anent his authority (de imperio eius). Therefore, whatever the emperor has determined by a letter over his signature or has decreed on judicial investigation or has pronounced in an interlocutory matter or has prescribed by an edict is undoubtedly a law D. 1.4.1 pr.-1 Ulp. 1 inst.: Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem: utpote cum lege regia, quae de imperio eius lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat. Quodcumque igitur imperator per epistulam et subscriptionem statuit vel cognoscens decrevit vel de plano interlocutus est vel edicto praecepit, legem esse constat. haec sunt quas volgo constitutiones appellamus.. Ulpian agrees that, from a constitutional point of view, the sovereign body is ultimately the Roman people, but that all its power is transferred to the emperor with a single legislative act, the so called lex regia. Unlike Pomponius, the mention of this particular statute suggests that Ulpian accepts that the people regains its prerogatives at the death of each emperor, only to transfer them again to the successor chosen by the senate and the armies. Despite that, Ulpian evidently considers that the people’s renunciation to exercise its sovereign authority is definitive and that the lex regia is simply the constitutional instrument expressing this fundamentally political choice In Cass. Dio 72[71].33.1-2 Marcus Aurelius manifests to be aware of this fact when he asks for the senate’s authorization to draw money from the public treasury, stating that these as all other funds ultimately belonged to the people. Cassius Dio praises this exemplary behaviour, but reminds that at the time everyone accepted that the emperor had undisputed control over state finances. Following Ulpian, Mommsen 1887-88: 2.1132-1145 famously stated that the principate as a constitutional regime ends with the death of each emperor but is renewed with the elevation of his successor; being founded on a series of prerogatives granted extra ordinem to an individual, the imperatorial position is constitutionally admissible, but not constitutionally necessary. See also Marotta 2016: 192-196.. For Ulpian also the emperor is no magistrate and the exercise of his souverain power is not limited by any sort of statute or counter-power. This constitutional view lays also underneath the principle, expressed in another passage, that the emperor is not bound by the laws (legibus solutus) D. 1.3.31 pr. Ulp. 13 ad leg. Iul. et Pap.. The same reasoning is followed by Arcadius Charisius at the end of the third century D. 1.11.1 pr Arcad. l. s. de off. praef. pr. regimentis rei publicae ad imperatores perpetuos translatis ad similitudinem magistrorum equitum praefecti praetorio a principibus electi sunt. Arcadius draws a parallel between the republican dictator, who received supreme powers for six months only, and the emperor, to which these supremes powers were granted for life. , but the idea that the Principate was constitutionally based on the transfer of all people’s prerogatives to the emperor in a single act can also be found outside the world of Roman legal experts. In a letter sent to his pupil Lucius Verus on the importance of eloquence for those exercising the supreme power, Cornelius Fronto echoes the doctrine of the transfer of sovereignty when he speaks of a general decadence of eloquence postquam res publica a magistratibus annuis ad C. Caesarem et mox ad Augustum tralata est Fronto, ad Verum 2.1.6: postquam res publica a magistratibus annuis ad C. Caesarem et mox ad Augustum tralata est, Caesari quidem facultatem dicendi video imperatoriam fuisse, Augustum vero saeculi residua elegantia et latinae linguae etiam tum integro lepore potius quam dicendi ubertate praeditum puto.. Fronto refers to the magistrates and not to the people since his focus is on public office holders; yet the quick reference to the translatio rei publicae shows that the idea that the civil wars forced the Romans to actually replace the old institutions with a monarch was widespread among senators and was part of the common constitutional culture of the governing class. From these examples we can better understand how Cassius Dio really is a man of his time when he represents the birth of the Principate in book 53 as a de facto transfer of sovereignty from the people and the senate to Augustus. This picture, however, does not completely correspond with the treatment of Augustus’ various grants of power in the annalistic parts of books 53-56, which attest that the authority of the prince underwent an evolution during his long reign. In Dio’s annalistic narrative, the settlement of 27 established that Augustus should receive a ten-year command over the most important military provinces (Gaul, Spain, Syria and Egypt), leaving the others in the hands of proconsuls appointed by the senate and the people according to the traditional republican practices. Four years later, in 23, in compensation for the voluntary deposition of his consulate, the senate and the people granted Augustus the tribunician power and other prerogatives. In relation to his provincial command, Dio adds that the senate and the people “gave him in the subject territory authority superior to that of the governor in each instance Cass. Dio 53.32.5: ἐν τῷ ὑπηκόῳ τὸ πλεῖον τῶν ἑκασταχόθι ἀρχόντων ἰσχύειν ἐπέτρεψεν. At the same time, Augustus was granted an exemption from the rule imposing that a proconsul’s imperium automatically terminated at the crossing of the pomerium. On the issue, see Ferrary 2001b..” The scholarly tradition – mainly following Mommsen’s admirable Römisches Staatsrecht – considers the superior proconsular authority mentioned in this passage (τὸ πλεῖον τῶν ἑκασταχόθι ἀρχόντων ἰσχύειν) as corresponding to the imperium maius that Ulpian employs in his commentary ad edictum when he states that a proconsul represents the highest authority in his province, but remains subordinated to the supreme power of the emperor (praeses provinciae maius imperium in ea provincia habet omnibus post principem) D. 1.18.4 pr. Ulp. 39 ad ed. . Ulpian’s words would therefore confirm that Augustus’ overarching authority over the proconsular provinces was practically the same as that enjoyed by his successors reigning at the beginning of the third century. If we accept this view, Augustus’ provincial command would have passed from being limited to a number of provinces in 27 to being extended to the entire empire only four years later This interpretation leaves open the question of the relation between Augustus’ supreme authority and the proconsuls. While submitted to the imperium of the prince, the proconsuls should not be simply identified with imperial legates, since Augustus never directly governed the public provinces (see Hurlet 2006: 184-189). In the military domain, however, these governors would certainly have lost their independence (Rich 1996: 109-116).. That means that, even if we start from Dio’s annalistic narrative, the overall picture of a concession of supreme powers to the emperor at the beginning of the Principate does not fundamentally change. Augustus’ own words Not everyone, though, was willing to follow Dio’s narrative on Augustus’ powers. Donald McFayden in the 1920s and Michael Grant in the 1940s have been among the most prominent opposers of the view that Augustus could exercise an imperium maius over the proconsular provinces. Building on a generalizing reading of Augustus’ Res Gestae 34, they asserted that it was on the ground of his unrivalled political influence (auctoritas) that the prince could de facto make his will heard in every corner of the empire McFayden 1921; Grant 1946: 432-433. For the debate on the different interpretations of the auctoritas Augusti as an informal or more or less formalized power, see Grenade 1961: 336-363; Rich 1990: 140; Galinsky 1996: 10-41; Ferrary 2001a: 113-115; Scheid 2007: 91-92; Rich 2012: 62-63; Rowe 2013: 1-3; Marcone 2015.. More recently, Klaus Martin Girardet has systematically deconstructed the idea that Augustus ever received such an overarching command, proposing instead the auctoritas as well as the tribunicia potestas as means for Augustus’ interventions Girardet 2000.. Girardet’s interpretation has been influential during the early 2000s in the wake of the discovery of a fragment of Augustus’ laudatio funebris for Agrippa and of the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre which in many ways confirmed the continuation of republican institutional practices in the domain of provincial commands This has also contributed to the reevaluation of the Pompeian precedent, as in Hurlet 2010 and Vervaet 2010.. At the core of this trend lays the conviction that we should give preeminence to Augustus’ Res Gestae and contemporary evidence over later historiographical narratives. Dio’s tendency to exaggerate Augustus’ role in the decision-making processes has in fact been masterfully demonstrated by Peter Brunt in an article of 1984, where he showed that for many instances in which Cassius Dio just mentions an order of the prince, other sources inform us that a traditional procedure involving a decree of the senate, a magistrate’s edict or a legislative act was actually followed Brunt 1984.. While most of the examples studied by Brunt concern the political life in Rome and not in the provinces, his observations demonstrated the concrete application of the general message of respect for republican traditions stressed in the Res Gestae and pushed other scholars to reconsider Augustus’ proconsular command from the same perspective Similar articles by Millar 1971 and Laffi 1993 confirmed the general respect of republican practices also under the triumvirate.. For the partisans of this “republican” interpretation, ordinary proconsuls were never subordinated to the authority of Augustus and what we see as direct interventions by the prince in their provinces were either the result of senatorial decrees simply inspired by Augustus, of personal communications rendered practically binding by his auctoritas, or of official acts based on other powers than the imperium, like the tribunicia potestas Hurlet 2006: 187-188.. The merit of this scholarly trend has been to show that, despite the clear statement of Cassius Dio, things must actually have been more complicated. In fact, if after 23 the proconsuls had all become Augustus’s subordinates, why could they still celebrate triumphs until 19 BC? Why do we find proconsuls (and proconsuls only) as commanders of the legio III Augusta in Africa proconsularis until 39 AD, when Caligula finally took over this unit and handed it to an imperial legate? Why bother to take control of this legion if the proconsul of Africa had really been subordinated to the imperium maius of the prince for over sixty years? Why does the written communication between the emperor and the proconsuls refrain from using verbs expressing direct orders? and why administrative documents like the texts inscribed on boundary stones consistently avoid formulas indicating the subordination of the proconsuls under the emperor’s imperium? Dalla Rosa 2014: 111-229. And finally, if restoring the res publica and building a political consensus around his figure had such an importance for Augustus, why accept such an unprecedented power and why so early in the his reign? Why adopting a more constitutionally acceptable Pompeian model for the provincial settlement of 27 and then accept a general imperium maius, exercised in such an absolute way only four years later? One way to answer these questions, has been that of seeing such alleged anomalies simply as features of the style of government of Augustus. The critics of the “republican” interpretation point out that the edicts of Cyrene and other attested interventions in the proconsular provinces show that Augustus was indeed capable of exercising an overarching command, and the anomalies simply suggest that he refrained from fully exercising or even displaying his power as a sign of respect towards traditional practices and senatorial prerogatives, as a civilis princeps was supposed to do See for example Vervaet 2014: 287-288.. In other words, the fact that Augustus possessed an imperium maius does not necessarily imply that he had to exercise it all the time if a different, more consensual way of getting his decisions approved was easily at hand. One should also not forget the political nature of a document such as the Res Gestae before generalizing claims contained in it which could be only partially true Ridley 2003; Rich 2010: 171-173.. In fact, while the Res Gestae duly insist on the conquests and military expeditions of Augustus and his legates, the text never mentions the settlement of 27 or that of 23 and nowhere hints at the extension of the provincial command of the prince. Augustus’ imperium is mentioned only twice and exclusively in connection with the census operations of 8 BC and 14 AD Res gest. 8.3-4.. As for the funeral speech for Agrippa – of which we possess a fragment of the greek translation – it just defines Agrippa’s authority as never having been inferior to that of others. Augustus may here have just been stressing that even his own imperium was not greater than that of his friend; as far as the ordinary proconsuls are concerned, the text leaves the question open P.Köln I.10 ll. 7-11: Καὶ εἰς {ς} ἄς δήπο|τέ σε ὑπαρχείας τὰ κοινὰ τῶν Ῥω|μαίων ἐφέλκοιτο, μηθενὸς ἐν ἐ|κείναις <εἶναι> ἐξουσίαν μείζω τῆς σῆς ἐν | νόμωι ἐκυρώθη. On the possible interpretations, see Badian 1981; Roddaz 1984: 347-350; Ameling 1994; Hurlet 1997: 287-294.. The evidence about the early imperial provincial commands The main issue in this debate is that the imperium maius of Augustus is generally considered in absolute terms and on a purely theoretical level. For decades, scholars have been discussing on the existence or not of Augustus’ supreme command without really questioning the nature itself of this power, as if the term imperium maius had always had the same institutional meaning under Augustus and the Severans. It is as if scholars had implicitly been trapped inside Cassius Dio’s view, simply searching in the Augustan era the origin of a later attested feature of the mature imperial power See, in this sense, the observations of Hurlet 2006: 193-194.. It is therefore not surprising if significant progress on this point has come from scholars moving from the “republican” point of view. In a seminal article published in 2000, Klaus Martin Girardet proposed to interpret the position of Augustus vis-à-vis the proconsuls on the basis of what we know about the supraprovincial commands of Pompey and M. Iunius Brutus Girardet 2000. See also Girardet 2007: 461-514.. Girardet’s goal was to demonstrate that Augustus did not need an imperium maius, since the invoked republican precedents showed that potential conflicts with the ordinary proconsuls could be solved with the careful definition of the provincia of the extraordinary commander. The most revealing example is the one that concerns the command of Brutus on a portion of the eastern provinces. In February 43 Cicero proposed a senatusconsultum to regularize the position of Brutus in the East. The Caesaricide was officially governor of Crete, but was the de facto in control of the entire region around Macedonia and Greece. In order to formalize this authority, Cicero passed a decree stating that: Quintus Caepio Brutus, proconsul, shall guard and defend and protect the province of Macedonia, and Illyricum, and all Greece, and preserve them in safety; and that he shall be in command of an army which he himself has levied and collected; he shall be able, if he has need of any, to exact money for the use of the military service, which belongs to the public, and can lawfully be exacted, and to use it, and to borrow money for the exigencies of the war from whomsoever he thinks fit, and to exact corn, and to endeavor to approach Italy as near as he can with his forces Cic. Phil. 10.26: utique Q. Caepio Brutus pro consule provinciam Macedoniam, Illyricum cunctamque Graeciam tueatur, defendat, custodiat incolumemque conservet eique exercitui, quem ipse constituit, comparavit, praesit pecuniamque ad rem militarem, si qua opus sit, quae publica sit et exigi possit, utatur, exigat pecuniasque, a quibus videatur, ad rem militarem mutuas sumat frumentumque imperet operamque det, ut cum suis copiis quam proxime Italiam sit.. As Girardet rightly noted, this senatusconsultum did not make Brutus governor of Macedonia, Illyricum and Greece (he was and remained proconsul of Crete only), but was tasked with protecting them with the army he would recruit Girardet 2000: 185-186.. In order to do so, he was granted formal authority to exact from these territories all resources he deemed necessary. Brutus had therefore the right to intervene in the province of another governor with the same level of imperium but only for matters concerning his special mission. The respective governors remained the sole responsible for all other aspects, like the ordinary administration of justice and the ordinary taxation. This scheme – that can be retraced also in previous supraprovincial commands, but for which we have here the most accurate definition – aimed at reducing to a minimum the interference with the ordinary governors without conferring an unprecedented overarching authority to the general To fully understand Cicero’s proposal, one have to consider that the proconsul of Macedonia, Q. Hortensius, had rallied the cause of the Caesaricides and that the senate could therefore expect his full collaboration. See Dalla Rosa 2014: 91-92.. The reluctance of the senate to approve such solutions was evident – Girardet points out – by the refusal of the assembly to pass a second decree proposed by Cicero to regularize the position of Cassius in Syria, to whom a special clause would have conceded an imperium grater of that of the governor in whose province he would have entered Cic. Phil. 11.30: senatui placere C. Cassium pro consule provinciam Syriam optinere, ut qui otpimo iure eam provinciam optinuerit; eum a Q. Marcio Crispo pro consule, L. Staio Murco pro consule, A.Allieno legato exercitum accipere eosque ei tradere cumque iis copiis, et si quas praeterea paraverit, bello P. Dolabellam terra marique persequi. Eius belli gerendi causa, quibus ei videatur, naves, nautas, pecuniam ceteraque, quae ad id bellum gerendum pertineant, ut imperandi in Syria, Asia, Bithynia, Ponto ius potestatemque habeat, utique, quamcumque in provinciam eius belli gerendi causa advenerit, ibi maius imperium C. Cassi pro consule sit, quam eius erit, qui eam provinciam tum optinebit, cum C. Cassius pro consule in eam provinciam venerit. Discussion in Girardet 2000: 186-189; Dalla Rosa 2014: 96-97; Drogula 2015: 328-329. The clarification that imperium maius could be fully exercised only if Cassius had been personally present in his provincia resembles the proposal that the tribune Messius made for Pompey’s cura annonae in 57 (Cic. Att. 4.1.7). This clause made sure that Cassius’ authority could not have been defined as a general supreme command, since it was restricted to a specific provincia. As Drogula 2015: 328 n. 72 interestingly points out, Appian – who lived in the 2nd century AD – describes the legalization by the senate in the following terms: “the senate instructed all of the others who were commanding Roman provinces and armies – from the Ionian Sea to Syria – that they were to comply with the orders of Cassius and Brutus” (civ. 4.58). Appian, as Cassius Dio, simply omits to mention the well defined provincia of the Caesaricides.. These precedents, Girardet concludes, gave Augustus all he needed to intervene in the public provinces without the inconvenience of asking for a very unrepublican supreme command. Instead of permanent sweeping powers, all Augustus needed was a temporary grant of a right of intervention in certain matters concerning the proconsular provinces during his inspection tours in the East (22-19 BC) and in the West (16-13 BC) Girardet 2000: 203-205 rightly notes that Augustus’ activity during this mission concerned issues like the foundation of new colonies or the revision of existing financial privileges, which did not normally fall into the competences of ordinary governors. Such matters could not generally be touched without a mandate from the senate or the Roman people.. In Girardet’s view, the same model applied also to the extraordinary commands granted to Augustus’ and Tiberius’ co-regents. The most important document in this regard is the senatusconsultum de Cn. Pisone patre of the year 20 AD, where we find a very precise reference to the mission in the East that was assigned to Germanicus three years before, in 17. Tiberius’ adoptive son was dispatched ad rerum transmarinarum statum componendum, that is to reorganize oversea provinces, from Epirus to Syria SC de Cn Pisone patre ll. 30-31. See Eck, Caballos, and Fernández 1996: 158-160. A similar formulation is used in the Tab. Siarens. I 14-15: ordinato statu Galliarum proco(n)- s(ul) missus in transmarinas pro[vincias Asiae] | in conformandis iis regnisque eiusdem tractus ex mandatis Ti(beri) C(a)esaris Au[g(usti). Other parallels are Suet. Cal. 1.2; Ios. ant. 18.54; P.Oxy 2435 recto, ll. 9-10.. He did not directly govern any one of these provinces, which remained under the responsibility of their respective proconsuls or imperial legates. We do not know the exact operative boundaries of Germanicus’ mission, but we know that he had been sent to settle the question of the Armenian succession and to reorganize as Roman provinces the former kingdoms of Cappadocia and Commagene, whose rulers had recently died. Germanicus mandate probably included some responsibility about the protection of the eastern border, since we know that he could order the imperial legate Cn. Calpurnius Piso to send troops from Syria to Armenia Girardet 2000: 222; Dalla Rosa 2014: 241-243.. As in the case of Brutus, it is very likely that Germanicus could intervene in the eastern provinces only for matters concerning his mission ad ordinandum statum prouinciarum. Everything else remained an exclusive competence of the provincial governors The SC only mentions the relation between Germanicus and the proconsuls of the eastern provinces, leaving open the question of the collaboration with the imperial legates governing Galatia and Syria (and perhaps the prefect of Egypt). The document reveals however that Cn. Calpurnius Piso, the governor of Syria, had been assigned as adiutor to Germanicus. As Girardet 2000: 223 rightly suggests, the formulation indicates that Piso was not submitted to the authority of Germanicus (he remained a deputy of Tiberius, whose imperium was even greater than that of Germanicus). While this is true, Piso had certainly received from the emperor mandata ordering him to assist the co-regent and to follow his orders in some areas (Dalla Rosa 2014: 243-249).. But the senatusconsultum adds also that the people had passed a law establishing that, if Germanicus entered the province of a proconsul, he should have a greater imperium vis-à-vis the governor SC de Cn. Pisone patre ll. 34-36: lex ad populum lata esset, ut in quamcumq(ue) provinciam venisset, maius ei imperium | quam ei qui eam provinciam proco(n)s(ul)e optineret esset, dum in omni re maius imperi|um Ti(berio) Caesari Aug(usto) quam Germanico Caesari esset.. This is the earliest occurrence of the term imperium maius and clearly means that in case of conflict with the proconsul of the province in which he found himself, the young prince could legally enforce his orders on the governor. The document then makes clear that Tiberius’ imperium would have prevailed over that of Germanicus under any circumstances, thus adding a third and supreme grade in the hierarchy of command. Firmly convinced that such an arrangement would have been impossible under Augustus, Girardet considers this to be the very first grant of an imperium maius to a Roman general Girardet 2000: 224. Eck, Caballos, and Fernández 1996: 160 prefer to remain cautious in the identification of possible precedents.. However, as Jean-Louis Ferrary has subsequently observed, it is unlikely that such a complex hierarchy could have been imagined from scratch at the beginning of Tiberius’ principate, particularly since a continuity with Augustan constitutional practices is well attested in other domains Ferrary 2001a: 135.. Ferrary follows Cassius Dio in accepting that an imperium maius had likely been given to Augustus in 23 BC. He nonetheless thinks that such authority was intended for and limited to the reorganization mission in the eastern provinces and was subject to the condition that the prince had to be personally present in a proconsular province in order to effectively exercise his imperium maius and issuing an order to the governor The strong link between the measures of 23 BC and the eastern command of 22-19 had already been proposed by McFayden 1921: 36-37.. It is particularly interesting that Dio employs the Greek equivalent of the term prouinciae ordinandae in referring to what Augustus did in the East between 22 and 19. The similarities with Germanicus’ tasks do not end here: the prince had to formalize the annexation of the former kingdom of Galatia and settle the issue of the return of Crassus’ standards from the Parthians. Dio tells also that he accorded privileges to some cities in Sicily and Asia, both proconsular provinces, and that looked into some fiscal issues in these provinces also For a detailed analysis of Augustus’ mission in the eastern provinces, see Dalla Rosa 2014: 186-191. Ferrary’s balanced interpretation has influenced Frédéric Hurlet and other scholars since it finds a middle ground between Dio’s narrative and the most recent epigraphic discoveries Hurlet 2006: 188; Dalla Rosa 2014: 186; Berthelet 2015: 298; Drogula 2015: 361; Marotta 2016: 25-27.. Despite taking a different perspective than Girardet, Ferrary also introduces the idea that Augustus’ imperium had limits and that a general supreme command only developed at a later, unspecified moment. The special conditions for the exercise of the imperium maius formulated in the SC de Pisone patre have pushed Ferrary and his followers to recognize in the laudatio funebris for Agrippa and in Dio’s account of the grant of the imperium maius to Augustus some veiled references to the need for the prince or for his co-regent to be physically present in a public province in order to issue orders to a proconsul Ferrary 2001a: 136; Hurlet 2006: 186-187; Dalla Rosa 2014: 182-184.. Moreover, the qualification ad ordinandas provincias is attested in our sources in relation to the five-year command of Gaius Caesar in the East, a hint to the fact that Germanicus’ command was not something exceptional, but had been preceded by a number of similar prerogatives granted to the various co-regents of Augustus Dalla Rosa 2014: 186.. Despite the success of Ferrary’s views, recent contributions by Clemens Koehn and Frederik Vervaet reverted back to following Cassius Dio on the concession of a unbounded imperium maius to Augustus once and for all in 23 BC Koehn 2010: 317-321 proposes to strictly follow the meaning of Cass. Dio 53.32.5, but he does not test if this assumption actually finds confirmation in the practice (see the remarks of Hurlet 2016: 592-593). One of the problems of Koehn’s argumentation is the misrepresentation of the relation between consuls and provincial governors; contrary to what Koehn thinks, the consuls never had the possibility of giving orders to provincial governors, except in the case when they had received form the senate a provincia overlapping whit that of a proconsul; even in this scenario, things could be more complicated and an actual hierarchy was established only in case of joint military operations (see Drogula 2015: 155-156). The edict of Kyme of 27 BC was certainly not based on traditional consular prerogatives and therefore cannot be adduced as evidence of this supposed consular general preeminence over the provinces (see Dalla Rosa 2014: 121-129). Vervaet 2014: 254-256, for his part, argues that before receiving a formal imperium maius in 23, Augustus had already been invested in 27 BC of a summum imperium auspiciumque over the entire empire. For a critic view of his positions, see Berthelet and Dalla Rosa 2015: 279-281.. Despite recognizing the attested limits to the exercise of supraprovincial commands in the late Republic and in the early imperial period, they point out that these do not concern Augustus’ imperium and therefore there is no need to correct Cassius Dio, who ultimately remains our only source about the grants to Augustus in this domain. The problem of Koehn’s and Vervaet’s interpretation is that it largely remains at a theoretical level and it does not adequately takes into account the actual frameworks within which proconsular authority was exercised. In other words, they forgo the very idea that, like any other imperium-holder, Augustus as well must have exercised his imperium maius within the limits of a provincia that defined the territorial area and the administrative and military domains of competence With the notable exception of Girardet, the debate on Augustus’ imperium has up to now focussed on the level (maius or aequum) and the geographical dimension (extended to a part or to all provinces, fully exercised from Rome or conditioned by the actual presence of the prince in a province). The issue of the competences included or not in Augustus’ command has been largely overlooked, albeit being a fundamental question. In fact, even when Augustus’ imperium was finally extended to all provinces, it did not embraced all aspects of the provincial administration. The precedents of Pompey, Brutus and Cassius are clear in this respect (see Dalla Rosa 2014: 271-274).. The case of the conquest of Noricum by the proconsul P. Silius Nerva in 16 BC Despite the significant addition of the laudatio funebris and the SC de Pisone patre, we still do not possess any document clearly stating that Augustus’ imperium had been limited in the same way. It seems however that we have had such evidence right before our eyes for quite a long time. For the year 16 BC, Cassius Dio reports that the Camunni and the Vennii, two Alpine tribes located north of the colony of Brixia, revolted against the Romans but were rapidly conquered by P. Silius Nerva, proconsul of Illyricum. Silius then went back to his province to face an invasion by the Pannonians and the Norici. Silius marched through the kingdom of Noricum and subdued it. Dio describes the events in the following manner: The Camunni and Vennii, Alpine tribes, took up arms and were defeated and subued by Publius Silius. The Pannonians overran Istria with the Norici; they themselves were worsted by Silius and his legates and came to terms again, and they were responsible for bringing the Norici to the same state of subjection Cass. Dio 54.20.1: πολλὰ μὲν οὖν καὶ ἄλλα κατὰ τοὺς χρόνους ἐκείνους ἐταράχθη. καὶ γὰρ Καμμούνιοι καὶ Οὐέννιοι, ’Αλπικὰ γένη, ὅπλα τε ἀντήραντο καὶ νικηθέντες ὑπὸ Πουπλίου Σιλίου ἐχειρώθησαν· καὶ οἱ Παννόνιοι τήν τε ’Ιστρίαν μετὰ Νωρίκων κατέδραμον, καὶ αὐτοί τε πρός τε τοῦ Σιλίου καὶ τῶν ὑποστρατήγων αὐτοῦ κακωθέντες αὖθις ὡμολόγησαν, καὶ τοῖς Νωρίκοις αἴτιοι τῆς αὐτῆς δουλείας ἐγένοντο.. The campaign of Silius Nerva is to be placed in the wider context of the Augustan conquest of the Alps, an operation that had been in preparation for a certain time and was flawlessly executed in 15 by Augustus’ stepsons and legates, Drusus and Tiberius On the place of the conquest of the Alps in the wider consolidation of the empire’s northern border, see particularly Eich 2009: 581-583; Eck 2010: 27; Dalla Rosa 2015: 474-479.. Silius – one of the most trusted friends of Augustus – had brought to northern Italy an additional legion from Spain, where he had been imperial legate in the preceding year Wilkes 1969: 92. Silius’ intervention against the Camunni and the Vennii, situated in the central Italian Alps, took place outside the proconsul’s provincia (Illyricum) and was certainly authorized by Augustus and the senate, but was probably not part of the original plan As the nearest commander that Augstus could trust, the proconsul was likely dispatched to face the unforeseen rebellion. See Dalla Rosa 2015: 475.. In fact, the conquest of the Alps was meant to be the exclusive affair of the Julio-Claudian family, and the deeds of Augustus’ stepsons were later exalted by Horace and by the Res Gestae Hor. carm. 4.4.17-18; Res gest. 26.3: [Alpes a re]gione ea, quae proxima est Hadriano mari, [ad Tuscum pacari fec]i nulli genti bello per iniuriam inlato.. The wide-ranging effect of this celebration can be seen in the fact that Strabo and Velleius actually credited Drusus and Tiberius for subduing the Norici, while other sources simply do not mention P. Silius Nerva at all Strab. 4.6.8-9; Vell. 2.39.3; Florus 2.22 ; Festus., brev. 7 ; Suet. Aug. 21 ; Tib. 16; Eutrop. 7.9; see also Liv. per. 138 and Alföldy 1974: 53-54.. Most notably, the swift victory over the Alpine peoples was commemorated in 7/6 BC by the senate with the erection of a great monument, the Tropaeum Alpium, near modern La Turbie. The dedicatory inscription (CIL V 7817), reconstructed after the transcription of Pliny the Elder Plin. nat. hist. 3.137-138., reads: Imperatori Caesari diui filio Augusto | pont(ifici) max(imo) imp(eratori) XIIII trib(unicia) pot(estate) XVII | senatus populusque Romanus | quod eius ductu auspiciisque gentes Alpinae omnes quae a mari supero ad inferum pertinebant sub imperium p(opuli) R(omani) sunt redactae | gentes Alpinae deuictae Trumpilini Camunni Vennonetes… The complete list includes 43 names, but what is important here is that the first three subdued peoples clearly correspond to those defeated by Silius Nerva in 16. As most scholars have convincingly argued, the Vennonetes mentioned on the monument must correspond to the Vennii of Cassius Dio; as for the Trumplini, they do not appear in Dio’s narrative, but were certainly conquered at the same time, since they occupied a valley near Brixia Fuller discussion in Dalla Rosa 2015: 467-470.. Now, since Silius’ victories against these three tribes figure on the inscription, it is striking that no people from Noricum is included in the list of the gentes devictae. This anomaly has been unsatisfactory explained by postulating that the Norici surrendered without fighting and therefore were not officially defeated See for example Dobesch 2001: 859. A Norican tribe, the Ambisontes, actually appears on the tropaeum. They were located near the Vindelici and it is very likely that they were actually subdued during Drusus’ conquest of Rhetia in 15 and not by Silius (see. Alföldy 1974: 68).. This interpretation is extremely unlikely, not only because we have no proof of a surrender (as in the case of Cottius and his kingdom), but also why it contradicts what Cassius Dio, Velleius, Strabo and other sources say when they clearly speak of a conquest Dalla Rosa 2015: 471-472.. But if our sources tell us that the Norici were subdued, why then they do not appear on the inscription? To solve this puzzle we just need to look at the evidence from a different angle. In fact, if we keep in mind that the monument lists the tribes subdued under the auspices of Augustus, we can easily conclude that absence of the Norici from the Tropaeum Alpium does not mean that they were not gentes deuictae, but rather that they were not defeated under the auspicia of Augustus In this sense also Faoro 2014: 102 and 115 n. 191.. The victory over them must therefore be fought under the auspices of the proconsul Silius Nerva alone. This is a crucial point, because we can be certain that Augustus would have claimed this victory if he could, since the celebrative message he was sending was that he and his stepsons had been the protagonists of the submission of the entire Alpine regions to the Roman empire. As a matter of fact, Trumplini, Camunni and Vennii/Vennonetes – also conquered by Silius Nerva – figure on the monument. This means that Augustus could legitimately consider these victories as fought under his overarching auspices, probably because the tribes in question were situated outside the provincia of the proconsul of Illyricum and inside the provincia of extraordinary proconsul Augustus We know that Augustus styled himself proconsul after deposing the consulate in 23 thanks to the tessera Paemeiobrigensis found in El Bierzo in north-west Spain (Alföldy 2000).. If Augustus had possessed the sort of overarching command described by Cassius Dio, he would have had no scruple about taking credit for all victories gained by Silius Nerva and not only for a part of them. Given the context described above, we must accept instead that Augustus did not claim for himself the victory over the Norici not because of a benevolent disposition towards his friend, but because he could not legally do so Augustus’ behaviour in this instance seems to me clearly at odds with the interpretation that sees in the proconsular triumphs celebrated after 27 or 23 the result of the “willingness of Imperator Caesar Augustus to share the credit for military successes won by ordinary proconsuls under his overarching auspices” (Vervaet 2014: 288 n. 231). If Silius’ victories had been shared by Augustus, there would have be no problem to mention them on the Tropaeum Alpium. Now, since the idea of a peaceful occupation of Noricum is to be rejected, there seems to be no other plausible reason for the appropriation of only a part of the victories of Silius Nerva than to imagine that the intervention against Camunni, Vennonetes and Trumplini actually took place within the provincia of Augustus and outside that of the proconsul (see Dalla Rosa 2015: 474-483). When discussing Silius’ reports, the senate must then have decided to follow the rule that every victory won inside someone else’s provincia automatically fell under the auspices of that imperium-holder. For this “principle” see Vervaet 2014: 66-67, but exceptions are recorded (Dalla Rosa 2015: 478 n. 63).. In other words, this document hints to the fact that Augustus’ imperium over the provinces was not boundless, but on the contrary was exercised within the limits of a provincia. We may now try to figure out how these limits were defined. It is not unlikely that, when Augustus renewed his provincial command in 18, he justified the measure putting forward the need to consolidate the northern borders of Italy up to the Danube Rich 2012: 76.. The submission of the Alps was one of the main objectives of this new five-year term and therefore was given to the direct responsibility of Augustus, who in fact sent there his two stepsons as legati pro praetore. The Alps must therefore have been defined as part of the military provincia of the princeps at that time. As for the Noricum, this kingdom had entered Rome’s political orbit since the time of Caesar Alföldy 1974: 28-46. and its surveillance was probably one of the tasks regularly entrusted to the proconsul of Illyricum, the nearest Roman governor. It is therefore probable that, in intervening in Noricum, P. Silius Nerva simply fulfilled one of his duties as governor of Illyricum Dalla Rosa 2015: 467 with n. 16. See also Weber 2008.. If we follow the model proposed by Ferrary for Augustus’ extraordinary mission in the East, it is very likely that, as part of the renewal of his provincial command in 18 BC, the prince had received the right to intervene with imperium maius in a wide area including, among others, the still unsubdued Alpine region and the public province of Illyricum. However, the full exercise of his supreme authority over the proconsul was conditioned by Augustus’ personal presence in the province. The victory over Noricum was achieved auspiciis suis by Silius and Augustus – who was in Rome at the time – could not lay claim to it. No triumph was awarded to Silius for his conquests and the memory of his success quickly faded away under the relentless action of the Augustan celebration. Conclusions: recognizing the limits of Augustus’ provincia The revised reading of the absence of the Norici on the Tropaeum Alpium adds another element in support of the existence of limitations to Augustus’ imperium maius, at least at this stage of his principate. Despite the often allusive character of these documents and the uncertainties in their interpretation, the combined evidence coming from epigraphic and papyrological texts dating under Augustus or shortly after should convince us that Cassius Dio’s version of the measures of 23 BC contains some distortions and cannot be simply followed as such. As I tried to show in the first part of this paper, Cassius Dio considers this particular grant power as the first appearance of the supreme command that the emperors of his times could exercise. As with other imperial prerogatives and aspects of the provincial government, Dio is here inevitably influenced by the constitutional thinking of his own time, which interpreted the transition from the Republic to the Principate as the transfer en bloc of the sovereign authority of the senate and the people of Rome to one person An instructive parallel is provided by the presentation of the origin of the imperial privilege of being released from the laws (princeps legibus solutus). Dio introduces the principle in general theoretical terms in 53.18.1 when giving his overview of the powers of the emperor; he then he mentions it again in the annalistic part in 53.28.2, referring to this as the moment when the general dispensation was actually granted. Now, all commentators agree that in this occasion Augustus did not receive a general solutio legibus, but was just dispensed from some specific clauses of the lex de ambitu (see Rich 1990: 164; Noè 1994: 209).. While conscious that the new regime did not consolidate overnight and in one single act, Dio is not interested in following the evolution of each aspect in detail. Relativizing Dio’s narrative about the imperium maius of Augustus does not mean correcting a mistake by a literary source with data from epigraphy, but simply recognizing that a historian often sees the past through the lenses of his own time. What partisans of the general supreme command of Augustus do not seem willing to accept, is that the imperium of the prince could – horribile dictu – have limits. We are so used to considering the Roman emperor an absolute ruler that we cannot avoid applying this model to the founder of the Principate. Augustus’ power over the provinces was certainly immense, but he could not credibly present himself as the restorer of the Republic if he had received such an absolute authority over all provinces. A constitutionally defined space of free manoeuvre must be left to the proconsuls in order for Augustus to avoid being pointed to as a tyrant and eventually risking the same fate of his father, who was assassinated only a few years after having secured full power. The grant of a right of intervention with imperium maius in some well defined aspects of the administration of the proconsular provinces and with the condition of personally being in a specific province in order to fully exercise this superior authority was the solution found in 23 to give vast powers to the Augustus while safeguarding the formal independence of the governors of the proconsular provinces. Augustus was eventually granted the privilege of exercising from Rome an imperium maius over all provinces, but this evolution occurred in 6 AD at the latest, when the great Pannonian revolt, a serious famine in Italy and a number of disorders in various provinces pushed the senate to take some unprecedented measures. 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