Excerpt from With Illustrative Texts From Masterpieces of Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Modern European and American Literature, Fully Illustrated, Vol. 4
In 27 B.c. Octavius returned to Rome and surrendered to the senate and the Roman people any extraordinary power he had exercised under the stress of civil and foreign war. In gratitude to one who, possessing great authority and wide influence, yet held himself bound by the Roman constitution, the senate conferred upon him the title Augustus one worthy of reverence. In addition to this merely honorary title, he was made prince of the senate, pontifex maximus, and imperator, or commander of the army. Erelong he was given the proconsular imperium, whereby his authority was made greater than that of any other proconsul, and finally the people bestowed upon him perpetual tribunary power. This amounted to preserving the form of the republic, while in reality final control was in the hands of the princeps, or prince.
Augustus at once restored to the senate its former dignity, of which it had been stripped by Caesar when he augmented its membership to 900 and gave senatorial seats to Italians and provincials. Those who felt themselves unworthy to hold senatorial office were first invited to withdraw, some fifty voluntarily leaving. Then the senatorial list was revised and those who were unfitted for this high honor were dismissed. The rule of the prince and the senate which was now inaugurated has been called a dyarchy by certain German historians, meaning the rule of two powers; recently it has been called the principate, or rule of the prince, with the aid of the senate. Either term is preferable to that of empire, which implies absolute power in the hands of one man. While there is no question but that Augustus actually held supreme control, he nevertheless retained the forms of the old republic. Maintaining the magistrates established by the republic, he caused their titles to become chiefly honorary, while new servants of the principate, answerable to himself, absorbed many of their functions.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге With Illustrative Texts From Masterpieces of Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Modern European and American Literature, Fully Illustrated, Vol. 4 (Classic Reprint)