Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/102

CHAP. III
_____gustus soon added the splendid as well as important dignities of supreme pontiff, and of censor. By the former he acquired the management of the religion, and by the latter a legal inspection over the manners and fortunes, of the Roman people. If so many distinct and independent powers did not exactly unite with each other, the complaisance of the senate was prepared to supply every deficiency by the most ample and extraordinary concessions. The emperors, as the first ministers of the republic, were exempted from the obligation and penalty of many inconvenient laws : they were authorised to convoke the senate, to make several motions in the same day, to recommend candidates for the honours of the state, to enlarge the bounds of the city, to employ the revenue at their discretion, to declare peace and war, to ratify treaties ; and by a most comprehensive clause, they were empowered to execute whatsoever they should judge advantageous to the empire, and agreeable to the majesty of things private or public, human or divine^[1].

The magistratesWhen all the various powers of executive government were committed to the imperial magistrate, the ordinary magistrates of the commonwealth languished in obscurity, without vigour, and almost without business. The names and forms of the ancient administration were preserved by Augustus with the most anxious care. The usual number of consuls, pretors, and tribunes^[2] were annually invested with their respective ensigns of office, and continued to discharge some of their. least important functions. Those honours still

1. See a fragment of a decree of the senate, conferring on the emperor Vespasian all the powers granted to his predecessors, Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius. This curious and important monument is published in Gruter's Inscriptions, No. ccxlii.
2. Two consuls were created on the calends of January ; but in the course of the year others were substituted in their places, till the annual number seems to have amounted to no less than twelve. The pretors were usually sixteen or eighteen. Lipsius in Excurs. D. ad Tacit. Annal. 1. i. I have not meniioned the ediles or quaestors. Officers of the police or revenue easily adapt themselves to any form of government. In the time of Nero, the tribunes legally possessed the right of intercession, though it might be dangerous to exercise it. Tacit. Annal. xvi. 26. In the time of Trajan, it was doubtful whether the tribuneship was an office or a name. Plin. Epist. i. 23.