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Imperivm Maivs: A Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Hugh Last
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Extract

Twenty years ago the publication of the Augustan edicts from Cyrene (now SEG 9, 8) was widely believed to have brought final proof that, as Dio asserts (53, 32, 5), Augustus held an imperium which was maius than that of other proconsuls and so enabled him with constitutional propriety to intervene in a senatorial province like Crete and Cyrene. But it may still be thought that the debates which led to this conclusion left certain unnecessary obscurities. If so, the present may perhaps be an appropriate time for an attempt to remove them, because the whole issue has lately been reopened by Mr. Michael Grant in his notable study of the base-metal coinages of the Roman world from 49 B.C. to A.D. 14.

As his is the most recent treatment of the matter, and one which will call for close consideration, it may be well to begin by noticing his conclusions, although the purpose of what is said below does not include any general discussion of the imperium conferred on Augustus. He writes (p. 412) that ‘Caesar's dictatorial imperium which began in 49 B.C. was an imperium maius’, and that ‘an imperium maius … controlled the provinciae of others, and subordinated imperia to an imperium’; and consistently with this he goes on to describe an imperium maius as ‘the revolutionary element which permitted the un-Republican subordination of imperia to an imperium’ (p. 422).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 1-2 , November 1947 , pp. 157 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Hugh Last 1947. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 See Anderson, J. G. C., ‘Augustan Edicts from Cyrene’; JRS 17, 1927, 33 ff.Google Scholar, at 43: von Premerstein, A., ‘Die fünf neugefundenen Edikte des Augustus aus Kyrene’; ZSS, RA, 48, 1928, 419 ffGoogle Scholar., at 435: Wenger, L. in Stroux, J. und Wenger, L., ‘Die Augustus-Inschrift auf dem Marktplatz von Kyrene’; ABAW, philos.-philol. u. hist. Kl., 34, 1928, 2, at 61 f.Google Scholar: Hammond, M., The Augustan Principate (Hammond)—Cambridge, Mass., 1933, 36ffGoogle Scholar.

2 From Imperium to Auctoritas: a Historical Study of the Aes Coinage in the Roman Empire, 49 B.C.–A.D. 14 (Cambridge, 1946). See also below pp. 209Google Scholar ff.

3 ‘The Extraordinary Commands from 80 to 48 B.C.: a Study in the Origins of the Principate’: Am. Hist. Rev. 24, 1918–1919, 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff.

4 Evidence in Mommsen, , Romisches Staatsrecht (Sr) I 3, 382 ff.Google Scholar: Le Droit public romain (Dp) 2, 13 ff.

5 Römische Rechtsgeschichte I (Leipzig, 1885), 208Google Scholar.

6 Die Einheit des Gewaltgedankens im römische Staatsrecht (Einheit)–Munich, 1914, 205 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 Le Senat de la Republique romaine 2 (Louvain, 1883), 571, n. 5Google Scholar.

8 ‘The Princeps and the Senatorial Provinces’: Class. Phil, xvi, 1921, 34 ff., at 36 fGoogle Scholar.

9 Greenidge, A. H. J., Roman Public Life (London, 1901), 386, n.Google Scholar1.

10 Hammond, 41.

11 These lines were in proof before Magdelain's, A. Auctoritas Principis (Paris, 1947Google Scholar) became available. Though his remarks (especially at 87 ff.) have not made me regret anything that stands in the text, I could have wished that it had been possible to insert a statement of the reasons for which his very ingenious interpretation does not appear to me altogether acceptable as it stands; but that explanation must await another opportunity.

12 ‘Zur Genesis der Res gestae divi Augusti’: Sitzungsber. d. preuss. Ak. d. Wiss., phil.-hist. Kl., 1932, 225 ff., at 240 ff.