ABSTRACT
It would be misguided to expect marked changes in the government of Rome, Italy, and the Empire to become discernible with the accession of the new ruler. The deification of Augustus gave Tiberius immense political advantages;1 like Octavian himself when Julius Caesar was consecrated in 42 BC, he became Divi filius, the son of a divinity. Forty years later again, in AD 54, young Nero’s advisers procured the deification of Claudius-and wrote their protégé an accession speech in which he renounced the most objectionable features of Claudius’ reign: it was perfectly understood that the new Princeps, for his own sake, had to sanction his adoptive father’s deification. But the apotheosis of Augustus was different: the genuine and long-recognized merits of the old ruler were as much a consideration as the needs of the new. That fact imposed restrictions on the political and administrative activities of the man who had presided over the Senate’s consecration of Augustus. The Senate swore allegiance to Augustus’ acts (one member who failed to do so lost his seat), and the obligation rested most heavily of all on Augustus’ heir.2 Repeatedly Tiberius declared his intention of maintaining one or other Augustan precedent or institution. It was a principle with him-no doubt one that was sometimes convenient to cite.3 The coinage proclaimed the same message, by continuing Augustan types or by issuing gold coins with reverses that bore Augustus’ portrait and the legend DIVOS AVGVST(us) DIVI F(ilius) and copper displaying his radiate head within the majestic legend DIVVS AVGVSTVS PATER.4
