This book has an implicit public choice theory, which I read as follows. Division of powers is ultimately impossible, so there is either rule by one man or rule by the crowd, or as it will turn out, both at the same time. Augustus represented the perfect fulfillment of the Roman ideal of statehood, and thus his reign heralded the beginning of the end. Augustus had replaced all institutions with his perfect yet ultimately destructive personhood. Given the importance of fortune, rule by a single man then meant an eventual downward ratchet in the quality of rule. Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero were successively worse, but even a lucky break in the genetic lottery would only have put off this trend; there is more downside than upside in the weak-institutions version of this game. The insane Nero plays all the different Roman roles on the stage and metaphorically Nero becomes Rome. He plays to the crowd, and the suicide of Nero is the suicide of Rome itself. Hope lies in the civilizations of the less historically conscious barbarians, who live on the fringe of the story, never becoming memorable but the modern reader knows they will allow Europe to one day live again.
For related points, I am grateful to fellow participants at a Liberty Fund conference this last weekend.
Division of powers is ultimately impossible, so there is either rule by one man or rule by the crowd, or as it will turn out, both at the same time.
This leaves out Senatorial oligarchy, which IIRC was Tacitus’s own preference; his complaint is that the Principate has degraded the Senate to where the choice does indeed collapse into TC’s either/or.
As for “hope,” that is obviously not where Tacitus found it; what he thought of the Senate of his own day is an excellent question.
Although Nero and some of these others make for quite a spectacle and fun to
rant about at Liberty Fund conferences, in fact most evidence suggests that living
standards in Rome continued to improve up until at least the time of Trajan and Hadrian
in the early second century, and really did not begin to decline until after Marcus
Aurelius at the end of the second century. The big factors in the decline include
a combination of high taxes, inflation, breakdown of market insitutions, and neglect
of the upkeep of urban infrastructure, the efficient building and managing of which
was central to the earlier economic growth of the Roman Republic and Empire.
Interestingly, at least in some places, conquering “barbarians” occasionally did fix
up the infrastructure, with Ravenna being an example, with nothing having been done to
the water and sewer systems since the time of Trajan, until after conquest by Arian
Ostrogothic barbarians who fixed it up. Of course, the real problem with this line
about hope lying in the barbarian periphery looks pretty silly when we look at the
broader picture. Living standards almost certainly declined with the fall of the Roman
Empire, and did not recover to their peak levels again in Europe until the dawn of the
Industrial Revolution.
Augustus represented the perfect fulfillment of the Roman ideal of statehood, …
A little revisionism? For 400 years, Rome extremely worked well as a Republic (we should be so lucky). During this period, no Consul ruled alone or for more than a year. Fear of a reestablished kingship led to a strong ethic that no Senator be elevated above others. Indeed, the main complaint against Julius Caesar by his assassins was that he was taking on the trappings of a king.
Augustus as Imperator was the compromise when the Republic could not quell three generations of civil wars. Senators swallowed their pride, accepted a “strong executive,” but retained a role for the Senate (Augustus was careful to co-opt the Senate, not disband it). Centuries after Augustus, Roman patricians still believed in a nominal republic. The Roman ideal of statehood was still a republic.
When Octavian was declared Imperator, it was not clear that the role would be hereditary. But if it was expected, and it was expected that some heirs would not live up to Augustus’s stature, wouldn’t this be better than the civil strife of the late Republic?
… and thus his reign heralded the beginning of the end.
Perhaps a peak but the beginning of the end? The end came centuries later in the Western Empire and a millennium later in the Eastern Empire.
He plays to the crowd, and the suicide of Nero is the suicide of Rome itself.
Um, this suicide takes another two centuries or more, no? If only all suicides took so long.
Why are we willing to take the word of an obvious partisan such as Tacitus about his conteporary polity? Would we put up Markos Moulitsas or Ann Coulter as authorities on the presidencies of Bush and Clinton, respectively? The fact is that Rome became much greater under the emperors than it was as a republic, and its decline occurred hundreds of years after Augustus.
Before the Empire , Sulla was dictator by two years.He was maned sine die , but after killing his political enemies( almost every man in the gens Julia) resign.He was dictator based in the army.
Cicero, the dreamer, killed 100 hundred citizens without due procees to show a lesson after Catilinas Conspiracy.
The first five emperors were not directly related or were adopted so the genetics lottery was not a factor .Caligula was the choice of the army to make fun of institutions.
And Nero was a populist , loved by the people , and supported by intelectuals like Seneca , Lucano and Petronius.
And i agree a, failed empire ? It lasted 1100 years in the West. and until 1454 in the East?.
“When Octavian was declared Imperator, it was not clear that the role would be hereditary. But if it was expected, and it was expected that some heirs would not live up to Augustus’s stature, wouldn’t this be better than the civil strife of the late Republic?”
MW is, I think, entirely right to bring up the instability of the Republic in during the 1st cen BC.
Moreover, while there was certainly an expectation that succession would be hereditary in the Principate (cf. Augustus and the incident with Caesarion), jcm is also correct to point out that very few of the early emperors had a consanguine relation to a previous emperor (in the first two centuries, there is Commodus, of course, and maybe Domitian (?)). In large part this is due simply to the fact that some emperors didn’t produce any sons or that many sons didn’t survive to adulthood (cursus honorum, etc). But in a couple of cases, there was one–I think Claudius had a son. In any event, the overwhelming majority of early emperors attained the position through adoption. At least since Gibbon, the standard line has been that this system served the Empire very well at times–i.e. the period from Trajan to Aurelius (and perhaps you could back to Vespasian).
Max Weber went so far as to argue that this represented a fundamental rationalization of succession, since it enabled meritocratic considerations to enter into the selection process, overlain with the fig leaf of blood ties.
This is probably too simplistic a view, but it’s hard to argue that things didn’t go extremely well during the century prior to Commodus.
Excellent comments by E. Weininger, which lead me to wonder:
The fundamental changes in the nature of the Roman military have been cited as a major cause for the Republic’s late instability & collapse. When generals had legions loyal to them & looking for booty and pensions, the institutions of the Republic couldn’t hold the military in check.
Now, that may be a debatable thesis, but if it’s plausible, then the question becomes: what kept the soldiers in check during the period of the Annals, failed in A.D. 69, and again kept them in check during the Five Good Emperors’ reigns? Do we know?
Tiberius, to the best of my recollection, was Augustus’ “step”-child only. If this isn’t the case, please clarify.
Regarding the larger point: blood ties unquestionably carried the greater legitimacy in the early Principate. This actually comes up in the case of Tiberius’ succession, since, iirc, Augustus only turned to him after his two grandsons died prematurely.
On the other hand, there is the odd case of Nero’s accession, and its recognition as legitimate despite the fact that Claudius had a surviving son (his name escapes me, but again iirc, he was quickly dispatched by his stepbrother). An idiosyncratic case, presumably.
As to Anderson’s question about the loyalty of the armies in the Republic versus the Principate: Andromeda’s discussion of the civil wars, the Flavians, etc. all sound good to me. But let’s not overlook the obvious: wouldn’t Augustus and his successors have had greater access to the fisc and greater control over things like taxation policy than republican consuls and generals, thereby enabling them to better provide the armies with what they really wanted–regular wages, bonuses, pensions, land grants, and the like? Augustus certainly knew better than to rely on his ties (both adoptive and blood) to Caeser in this regard.
Tiberius Claudius Britannicus.
The cynical view is presumably that it was Augustus’ establishment of the aerarium militare and the tight control of charismatic generals on glorious campaigns beyond the imperial frontiers that stabilised the empire. (On the latter point see, for example, the career of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo.)
There’s an short biography of Corbulo (as well as biographies of a number of other Roman military leaders) in Adrian Goldsworthy’s In the Name of Rome.
Another interesting question is why Augustus’ system for taming the legions broke down in AD68, AD193, and at more times than I care to enumerate in the third century.
Adoption for political – or more accurately dynastic – reasons predates the Julio-Claudians by at least 150 years. The famous Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Numantinus, final destroyer of Carthage was adopted by Publius Cornelius Scipio, for example. (The “Aemilianus” indicates that his previous name was “Aemilius” – he was the son of Lucius Aemilius Paulus, conqueror of Macedonia.)
As for political adoption, perhaps the transition from the 18th to the 19th dynasties of the Egyptian New Kingdom provides the best parallel: Ay may have been a member of the family of Queen Tiy or Queen Nefertiti but became pharaoh after the premature death of Tutankhamun. After that there was a succession of generals, each chosen by his predecessor. Ay chose first the Nakhtmin and then Horemheb as his successor. Horemheb chose Ramesses I. Only with Ramesses did the succession become once more hereditary.
(There also are plenty of examples of successful generals marrying into royal families and going on to be ruler. Earlier in the New Kingdom, for example, Tuthmose I married Ahmose, a daughter of the pharaoh Ahmose I, and then went on to become pharaoh. Less peaceful examples abound too.)
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