18, Plut. See, also K. Lowenstein, The Governance of Rome (The Hague 1973) 48, "All magistrates, including, those endowed with imperium...possessed a lesser kind of office authority called potestas. For discussion of the military activities of the early praetorship, see. auctoritas, domi splendor, apud exteras nationes nomen et gratia, toga praetexta, sella curulis. held to represent the normal civic powers of magistrates. of the pomerium, but these occasions were considerable exceptions to the norm. While our knowledge about the triumph does not, in itself, disprove the notion of imper, ium domi, the weight of the evidence already presented should encourage us to suspend, any assumption of the existence of imperium domi and reconsider anew the relationship, between imperium and the triumph. Therefore, as the Roman state grew, concepts of, Many modern scholars have argued that the consulship was not created at the foundation of the Republic as Roman tradition maintained, and that the government of the early Republic went through several stages of development before it reached the familiar ‘classical constitution.’ Building on this work, this article considers what the early civilian government of Rome may have looked like. Although the main battle between Opimius' soldiers and Gracchus' followers took place, outside the pomerium on the Aventine, much of the preceding military activity took place inside the, pomerium, including the assemblage of Opimius' forces in the Forum, and probably also the execu. Leg. 3.10, Omnes magistratus auspicium iudiciumque habento. ), The, Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge 2004) 38 has recently come close to, this position: "Now, every republican magistrate had potestas, that is, the legitimate and legitimiz, ing power that was inherent in and peculiar to one's magistracy." 10.8 A, Livy Per. Imperium was the supreme military power in the state and empowered, a magistrate with absolute regal authority, including the power of life and death, over, citizen-soldiers, allies, and enemies assigned to him by the state. Only when civil strife threatened the security of the state was the military, force of imperium permitted within the city, where its immunity to provocatio enabled, it to crush conflict.140 This would also explain why full Roman citizens were subject, to harsh punishments - including scourging and summary execution - while serving in. There is, in fact, considerable debate about the true origin of the praetorship as distinct from, the consulship, but one widely held view considers that the chief magistrates of the Early Republic, were three military commanders called praetors, two of which developed into consuls and the third, into the later praetorship. 272; 1966. His argument, however, is based upon the assumption, that imperium - specifically the so-called imperium domi - was the source of a magistrate's judicial, authority. Leggi gli appunti su ius-controversium-e-metodo-casistico qui. 2.21, Licinia, est lex altera Aebutia, quae non modo eum, qui tulerit de aliqua curatione ac potestate, sed etiam, collegas eius, cognatos, adfines excipit, ne eis ea potestas curatiove mandetur, Agr. (as in n. 17) 46, A. H. M. Jones, "The Imperium of Augustus", JRS 41 (1951) 115. Perhaps he personally believed the traditional, rituals to be unimportant or hoped that no one would notice the oversight,123 but the, unprecedented and universal refusal of proconsuls and soldiers alike to recognize his, command demonstrates that the general belief among the Romans was that imperium. It included the convocation of the populace and the submission of pro, posals thereto, together with the conducting of the affairs of state in conjunction with the Senate. 192 While Livy celebrated men like L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, who resisted the allure of supreme power, and resigned the dictatorship a mere sixteen days into his office (3.26.7), he noted that some men, were less noble and used their power for personal ends. To begin with, imperium was not necessary within the pomerium, because potestas, provided all the power and authority magistrates needed to perform the duties of their, offices. While the Colosseum, imperial palaces and Pantheon are famous features of the Roman capital, Rome is addressed in this volume primarily as a city in which many thousands of men and women were born, lived, and died. mans of the later Republic did not possess the notion of imperium domi. Just as the Greek word hegemonia became the English hegemony and the Latin word imperium became the English empire, the Chinese word tianxia is entering English-language political discourse as something related to, but distinct from, its original Chinese meaning(s). Once a Roman (who was authorized to do so) had performed these, rituals and changed his clothing, he was termed paludatus, or "wearing the general's cloak". The institutionalization of a professional police force represents a fundamental change in societal as well as individual attitudes towards and demand for public order. Although these occasions may seem like good evidence, for magisterial possession of imperium in the civic sphere, they actually show the op, posite: these episodes were extraordinary and therefore cannot be taken to represent, the normal state of Roman civic authority, and as such they underline what the normal, situation was. to use the powers of that office to engage in criminal profiteering (Cic. 68 R. Stewart, Public Office in Early Rome (Ann Arbor 1998) 133, 203; Kaser, Zivilprozessrecht (as in. The Roman people understood that emergencies might require, the unusual use of imperium within the pomerium, and the later practice of declaring troublemakers, to be hostes would have made such emergency use of the consuls' imperium more palatable to the, citizenry. 2. For a recent survey of historians who have chal, lenged other aspects of Mommsen's arguments on imperium, see T. C. Brennan, The Praetorship in, 14 Perhaps most notable is Bleicken, Begriff(as in n. 1) 259-278, 294-295, who argued that auspicium, was the oldest and most fundamental source of magisterial authority, and that only later did imperium, become important as a source of civilian authority. Mommsen, l.c. While imperium was a special power, granted to certain magistrates only, every magistrate held potestas, which could include, the capacity to give judgments,28 block actions,29 give orders,30 administer,31 summon,32, and punish.33 Magistrates' potestas, moreover, enabled them to undertake additional or, unusual actions when instructed to do so by the senate or a higher magistrate.34 Cicero, described potestas as the legal aspect that empowered a magistrate to function,35 Fes, tus defined potestas as the power given to an individual by the people to enable him to, undertake an official task,36 and Aulus Gellius identified it as the characteristic power, of magistrates.37 Indeed, Gellius states that plebeian tribunes had the right to summon, the senate, indicating that such a summons was legitimized by potestas and not by /m, perium?% Cicero identified the potestas of the magistrates - along with the auctoritas, of the aristocrats and libertas of the people - as one of the three cornerstones of a stable, government,39 and stated that magistrates were ranked according to their respective (and. so his praetorian triumph remained forfeit. F/7. In doing so, he laid the groundwork for the early empire's rules of command. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and. ), Colloquium aus, Anlass des 80. Rep. 2.55 and Livy 2.7.7) refer to Publicola's establishment of provocatio in Rome in 509 B.C., and, are questionable because of this early date and because Livy's reference to insignia imperii appears, before Publicola's establishment of provocatio and his removal of axes from consular fasces. it did not define a man as a magistrate nor did it confer civic jurisdiction upon him. pomerium descriptively (if somewhat inaccurately) as zpotestas maxuma.ni Of course, an SCU was not a law lifting the ban on imperium within the city, but rather the senate's, instruction to the consuls (or praetors) that they ignore the ban and bring their imperium, into the city on their own authority, along with the promise of senate's full support should, the magistrate later be held accountable for this infraction. On the retention of the triumphator's imperium within. The Sallust passage (Cat. a praetor, designate, who had not yet assumed his magistracy, was sent cum imperio to fight a, plague of grasshoppers in Apulia,110 and Suetonius emphasized that Caesar had behaved, well neque in imperils neque in magistratibus.111 Several Roman statutes also make clear, that there is a difference between a magistrate and a holder of imperium, since at least, two laws use the phrase magistratum aut imperium.112 Imperium was the authority to, command Rome's citizen legions in the field, and therefore it could be bestowed upon, private citizens as easily as upon magistrates,113 and a man's imperium could continue, for a period in the Middle Republic (Staveley, "Fasces" [as in n. 92], 461-462), but in the Late. Magistratus nec oboedientem et innoxium civem multa vinculis verberibusve coherceto, ni par maiorve potestas populusve prohibessit, ad quos provocatio esto. In the formulary process, which seems to have been normally followed both in Italy and in the provinces under the late Republic, the part of the magistrate Imperium, remained outside the city with all other things military, while within Rome magistrates, functioned by right of their potestas to undertake their assigned duties. It was, Imperium, Potestas, and the Pomerium in the Roman Republic 423, 'power', many scholars feel that it must be filled with more specific powers to be mean, ingful. 1.9.25. and responsibilities of a magistracy were defined by the potestas it possessed, and ques, tions of precedence were likewise established by the level or type of potestas invested, in each office. magisterial coercitio (unless a tribune intervened), readily obeyed magisterial orders. The fact that tribunes could and did arrest consuls and throw them into prison is, another argument against the existence of imperium within the pomerium.146 Likewise, in. 58.5; Aug. RG 4; Veil. J. Martin, "Die Provokation in der klassischen und spaten Republik", Hermes 98 (1970) 87-91, A. H. McDonald, "Rome and the Italian Confederation (200-186 B.C. Flac. legitimacy of his enemies' commands by pointing out their failure to receive a lex curiata. Caes. Likewise, Aulus, Gellius 13.12.6 (citing Varro) points out that tribunes occasionally - and improperly - utilized the. 128 Several of Cicero's letters are addressed to Appius during the latter's provincial command (Fam. I would argue that provocatio was ineffective against imperium because the right, of appeal was originally intended to protect citizens only from magisterial abuse of, potestas, including coercitio. Ancient Latin authors understood this very well: Livy stated that triumphing, promagistrates (who, in order to triumph, must be holding imperium) triumphed non in, magistratu}07 and recorded private citizens (privati) who were not magistrates being, invested cum imperio.10* Festus pointed out that someone with imperium was merely a, holder of imperium, and therefore not necessarily a magistrate.109 In 173 B.C. Sed primum Bovi locum tributum fuisse narrat, unde et iisdem Bos vocabatur a)/lfa. 176 MRR 1.520. Cic. 102 Gellius NA 2.15.4 ...kapite VII legis Iuliae priori ex consulibus fasces sumendi potestas fit, non, qui pluris annos natus est, sed qui pluris liberos quam collega aut in sua potestate habet aut bello. Min. 29.3. Vis in populo abesto. citizenry and command them against the domestic insurgents (Cic. Ann. authority, control over territory, and military power underwent continual transformation. 1.28, 2 Verr. militiae was not spatial but task-oriented. formally taking up their imperium after crossing the pomerium. 180 The dictatorship fell into disuse after 202 BC (MRR 1.316), although it was revived by Sulla and, Caesar when each man wished to wield unmatched power within the city of Rome. Livy remarks that the Roman people were surprised by the new and unusual sight of. 1.67 [legate], 2 Verr.