(v.) Cultus.—In matters of religion and worship the dyarchy is again apparent. So far as the state had a religious head, the Princeps, in virtue of the chief pontificate, occupied this position, and we have seen the influence which this headship gave him.[1] But the Senate had not lost all its control over the cultus of the community or its right to pronounce on foreign worships, when their social merits or their legality were in question. It is the Senate that is consulted on the growth of Egyptian and Jewish worship at Rome,[2] and on the right of asylum in the provinces.[3] Claudius questions it on the subject of the restoration of the college of haruspices,[4] and Aurelian asks it for a pontifex to dedicate the great temple of the sun-god at Palmyra.[5] So far as the appointment to the great priestly colleges was not controlled by the Princeps, the gift of this honour was now in the hands of the Senate.
(vi.) Coinage.—The right of coinage, although its possession by a state may be taken as a mark of sovereign rights being enjoyed by that community, is scarcely a significant mark of the sovereignty within a state. Whether the Senate or the Princeps possessed this right would make little difference to the theory of the constitution. As a fact, the right was possessed by both powers, and was an additional illustration of the principle of the dyarchy. From the year 15 B.C. the Princeps undertakes the gold and silver coinage, the Senate that of copper. The possession of the latter was a privilege in so far as the exchange value of copper was higher than its intrinsic value, and payments of any amount could be made in what was really a token currency.[6]
We have now exhibited the system of dual control as it existed in all the chief departments of the state. It would be easy to prove that in almost every particular it might be made a fiction. The senatorial power of legislation is directed to so large an extent by the imperial initiative that the oratio of the Princeps is sometimes cited in place of the decree of the Senate to which it gave birth;[7] the independence of senatorial jurisdiction is often infringed by the tribunician power of the
- ↑ p. 351.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. ii 85.
- ↑ ib. iii. 61.
- ↑ ib. xi. 15.
- ↑ Vita Aurel. 31.
- ↑ Mommsen Römisches Münzwesen pp. 742 ff. He shows that the transitory usurpation of the copper coinage by Nero was due to the same desire of making a profit as his reduction of the value of silver.
- ↑ Dig. 2, 15, 8 "divus Marcus oratione in senatu recitata effecit ne, etc." Cf. 24, 1, 23; 27, 9, 1.
