AUGUSTUS
The Constitutional Settlements
The FIRST SETTLEMENT, January, 27 B.C.
Personal constitutional power:
- In ROME: consul ( imperium ) [43, 33,] 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, [5, 2] B.C.
- Outside Rome: proconsul ( imperium proconsulare )
His province was to include: (See: Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (1939) pp. 325-326.
Hispania Tarraconensis
Hispania Baetica
Tres Galliae
Gallia Narbonensis
Syria
Cyprus
Cilicia Campestris
Personal influence:
- auctoritas: see Res Gestae Divi Augusti, chapter 34.
- Princeps Senatus: the senior senator in the Roman Senate
- campaigning personally for his choices as magistrates every year
- using his amicitia ('friendship') as well as the threat of the loss of it to keep people cooperative (cf. the case of Cornelius Gallus, the Prefect of Egypt)
The SECOND SETTLEMENT, June-July, 23 B.C.
- resignation of the consulship (After 23, Augustus only held the office twice, in 5 B. C. and 2 B.C., to preside over the introduction of his adopted sons into public life.)
- In ROME: the grant of tribunicia potestas (the status and privileges, but not the burdens of the office, of a Tribune of the People). This gave Augustus the right to veto any actions of any magistrate(s), Senate, or Assemblies that did not suit him.
- Special grants (to compensate for the powers lost with the renunciation of the annual consulship):
the right ot a seat on the Consuls' platform at the front of the Senate House
-the right of speaking first at a Senate Meeting ( ius primae relationis )
-the right to summon a meeting of the Senate
-the cura annonae, care of Rome's grain supply (which brought patronage over the Plebs)
- In the Provinces: imperium maius proconsulare
-the right to govern his own provinces and armies
-the right to interfere in any other governor's province when Augustus deemed it necessary (cf. the Cyrene Edicts)