Transcript Roman – Empire

Roman – Empire
Julio-Claudians (55 years)
•Executive institutionalized
•Growth of palace bureaucracy
•Strong influence of army
•Assemblies cease to elect magistrates
•Senate does not act independently of emperor
•Consilium Principis develops
Further developments
Flavians – emperor didn’t have to be nobility or
of senatorial class
5 Good Emperors – almost 100 years
of good rule
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Entente between senate & emperor
Senate membership enlarged
Continued growth of imperial executive
Liberalizing social policies (limits to potestas and
manus)
Urbanization of provinces
Revenue sharing
Tax rollbacks
Army as garrison force – provincials enlisting
Dominus added to emperor’s title (Princeps out of
use)
Courts takes trappings of oriental monarch
First Province - Sicily
• Won in the first Punic War, 241 BC
• Senate decided it would be ruled by a
Praetor
• Civilian, not military rule
• By end of 2nd Punic War:
As Republic enlarged…
• Governors drawn from former Consuls,
Proconsuls, and former Praetors, Propraetors.
• Generally, local structures and law left in place
• Tax matters contracted out to tax ‘farmers’
• Provincials had the right to petition Republican
government for redress against depredations of its
magistrates
• Roman Citizens bound by Roman law and sent
back to Rome for trial
Augustus
• Provinces divided into Senatorial and Imperial
• Augustus sent Legati (Legatus) out as ‘his men’ in
the provinces
• Later imperial magistrates known as procuratores
also sent out with special responsibility for money
matters
• Provinces further divided into important and not
important areas. Governors of these were drawn
from the Equestrian class.