ABSTRACT
As we observed in Chapter 7, Augustus succeeded with his consummate statecraft in establishing a form of government capable of engendering internal political stabilization and consolidating the Roman imperium. In all his earlier acts, Augustus made a great show of restoring the old republican forms of government. One method for accomplishing this so-called ‘restoration of the Republic’ was acknowledging the authority of the senate and the people, thereby appealing to the prevailing republican instincts held by a large section of the Roman population. Over time, the senate and the people responded by granting him the extraordinary powers he deemed necessary to complete the political reconstruction. In the end, all these powers were consolidated into a form where the individual elements could scarcely be distinguished. Thus, Augustus wielded a power greater than that normally accorded to any republican magistrate, and he virtually became the undisputed master of the state. His successors inherited his powers, but a long interval passed before the new system of government was so thoroughly institutionalized that the blatant exercise of imperial power was completely feasible. The princepsemperor may be described as a magistrate with a super-imperium, outranking all other magistrates and liberated from the check of the tribune’s veto by assuming the tribunician power himself. The existence of an imperium of this kind naturally had a tremendous influence on the development of the law. Initially, this influence manifested itself indirectly through the manipulation of the old republican institutions. Yet, as the last vestiges of the old regime gradually faded, the emperor became the only living source of law.
