ABSTRACT
The period of the Principate began with an attempt by Augustus to combine in his person the powers previously intended for several magistrates and institutions, and by the strength of his personal authority to make the constitution work. From the first, the princeps in reality was an absolute ruler, but one who chose to exercise his absolute powers through the channels by which they had passed in the age of the republic. For the first two centuries of the Principate, the senate has all the appearance of having become the legislative assembly of the Romans, and if one thinks of a legislative assembly in terms of being a parliament, a place where proposals are discussed, this is what it was. The period of the Principate contains the classical age of Roman civil law, the high water mark of civilian learning in the ancient world.
