life, full of glory and eloquence no doubt, was ruinous to the Roman People . Posterity, generous in oblivion, regards with

r groups and superseding them all. The policy and acts of the Roman People were guided by an oligarchy, its annals were writ

en in Syria and on the western shore of Asia. The Empire of the Roman People , perishing of its own greatness, threatened to br

ass. Naked power prevailed. 4 The anger of Heaven against the Roman People was revealed in signal and continuous calamities:

to itself power, and after conceding sovranty to the assembly of the People was able to frustrate its exercise. The two consu

quent ennoblement) was a rare phenomenon at Rome. 3 Before the sovran people he might boast how he had led them to victory in

entary character, not by the ostensible opposition between Senate and People , Optimates and Populares, nobiles and novi homine

quired allies and supporters, not from his own class only. The sovran people of a free republic conferred its favours on whom

e in 104, then carrying a law to transfer sacerdotal elections to the People : he was elected pontifex maximus in the next year

stripped them. They soon repaid Pompeius. Through a tribune’s law the People conferred upon their champion a vast command agai

lections and legislation. To gain office from the votes of the sovran people , no surer password than the favour shown or prete

he support of Pompeius even though the one of them turned against the People when elected consul and the other lent his servic

n Pompeius’ behalf were more open and more offensive: a decree of the People was enacted, permitting the conqueror of the East

pretext for intervention to vindicate the sacred rights of the Roman People . Men feared a civil war. When Pompeius asked that

us Magnus trod warily and pleased nobody. His first speech before the People was flat and verbose, saying nothing. 3 No happie

cal. The remedy was simple and drastic. For the health of the Roman People the dynasts had to go. Augustus completed the pur

ies and save the Commonwealth. Curio became a popular hero, and the People was incited against the Senate. The threat of a c

o the other consulars will not mislead: too much is known about these people . 2 The Lentuli were Spinther (cos. 57) and Crus

defence of the rights of the tribunes and the liberties of the Roman People . But that was not the plea which Caesar himself v

defence of the authority of the Senate and the liberties of the Roman People , that all the land would rise as one man against

ction, and in so doing wrought his own destruction. A champion of the People , he had to curb the People’s rights, as Sulla had

to be asserting the rights of the tribunes, the liberty of the Roman People . He was not mistaken. Yet he required special pow

before in Gaul. Easy victories but not the urgent needs of the Roman People . About Caesar’s ultimate designs there can be o

ced deadly weapons in the hand of his rival, namely the appeal to the People against oligarchy, oppression and murder: cum d

r, like Sulla, was a patrician and proud of it. He boasted before the people that his house was descended from the immortal go

oted and invincible they could tear down the very heavens, so he told people at Hispalis, misguided Spaniards. 4 The centurion

with the battle-cry of Caesar’s dignitas and the liberty of the Roman People . 5 In his dispatches Caesar duly requited the val

, towns, provinces and kings were bound to the imperator of the Roman People by personal ties of allegiance. In the imminence

Note also men of Cnidus (SIG3 761; Strabo, p. 656, &c). On these people cf. further below, p. 262 f. 4 P-W IV, 2802 f.

hem upon the religion of the Roman State and the history of the Roman People . The Secular Games were once an observance of the

for ever, the chance of gaining an ascendancy over the Senate. The people , unfriendly to begin with, turned sharply against

’ PageBook=>099 the benefactions bestowed by his will upon the people of Rome, the crowd broke loose and burned the bod

deaf ear; for the august traditions of the Roman Senate and the Roman People they had no sympathy at all. The politicians of t

n kinsman Bibulus. 3 Debauched by demagogues and largess, the Roman People was ready for the Empire and the dispensation of

f the tribunes, was manoeuvred into a clash with the champions of the People . Symptoms only, no solid ground for optimistic in

utus appears to have persisted in irrational fancies about that Roman People which he had liberated from despotism. As late as

ready had another favourite. More truly representative of the Roman People should have been the soldiers of the legions and

that the Republicans did not dare to show themselves before the Roman People , all was not lost. The Dictator was dead, regrett

re, among the ‘Republican’ measures of Antonius, the removal from the People of the right of electing the pontifex maximus. Th

s, the proud and tortuous Ap, Claudius, was yet merciful to the Roman People , for it suppressed along with the principes a sou

, L. Antonius, the brother of the consul, to allow him to address the People . By the middle of the month, the consul himself w

was sparsely attended. But Antonius chose to get his command from the People . The tenure of the consular provinces, Syria and

deceive; about the same time, Antonius delivered a speech before the People , friendly and favourable to the Liberators. 3 S

ntent with the plebs and a tribune. Brought before an assembly of the People by Ti. Cannutius, the young man delivered a vigor

ook=>137 levying of a private army against a consul of the Roman People . Servilius, however, was not altogether blamele

ato or a Brutus; and Brutus later remarked ‘as long as Cicero can get people to give him what he wants, to flatter and to prai

a century earlier, namely a stable and balanced state with Senate and People keeping loyally to their separate functions in pu

consular who professed to be defending the highest good of the Roman People . The survival of the Philippics imperils historic

y, hypocritical or edifying. Persons, not programmes, came before the People for their judgement and approbation. The candidat

the blameless chieftains of Balkan tribes, loyal allies of the Roman People , were foully done to death. 5 Piso’s colleague Ga

double coating of deceit, democratic and aristocratic. In theory, the People was ultimately sovran, but the spirit of the cons

iples of authority, in theory working in harmony, the libertas of the People and the auctoritas of the Senate: either of them

t its validity. 1 The Romans believed that they were a conservative people , devoted to the worship of law and order. The adv

t members of the two orders, Senate and knights, should withstand the People , maintain the rights of property and avert revolu

do his best to curb the dangerous and anachronistic liberties of the People . That was the first duty of every Roman statesman

ambitious individuals exploited the respectable names of Senate and People as a mask for personal domination. The names of g

ms against the government ‘in order to liberate himself and the Roman People from the domination of a faction’. 3 The term w

e constitution was being perversely invoked against them: what if the People should appear misguided in the use of its preroga

were there: when the constitution had perished, the will of Army and People could be expressed, immediate and imperative. F

mutinous and seditious, Antonius could be no true consul of the Roman People . On the other hand, the adversaries of Antonius d

ly of a Catilina, NotesPage=>162 1 Phil. 3. In a speech to the People on the same day he states: ‘deinceps laudator pro

side of insurgents the authority of the Senate and the liberty of the People . Cicero spoke before the People as well as in the

of the Senate and the liberty of the People. Cicero spoke before the People as well as in the Curia. 1 There he boldly invert

a Spartacus. He must be crushed and would be crushed, as once Senate, People and Cicero had dealt with Catilina. In brief, C

uggle? The authority of the Senate was now to be played against the People and the army commanders. As at present composed,

en. It had not been done even for Pompeius. That the free vote of the People , and that alone, decided the choice of magistrate

nction given to a private adventurer against a proconsul of the Roman People . The extreme proposal in Cicero’s programme, th

sing on his right to Gallia Cisalpina under a law passed by the Roman People to say nothing of condoning the rank conferred up

not to make meddling proposals for peace: neither the Senate nor the People approves of them nor does any patriotic citizen.

s and despised Lepidus may yet in treachery be held true to the Roman People at a time when patriotism and high principle were

mies gives a more faithful reflection, of the sentiments of the Roman People than do the interested assertions of politicians

ssertions of politicians about the ‘Marvellous unanimity of the Roman People and of all Italy’. 2 The energy of Antonius, th

haste. A tribune friendly to Cicero announced the glad tidings to the people in the Forum; and an officer was dispatched to or

nter the city with armed men a ‘free election’ was to be secured. The people chose him as consul along with Q. Pedius, an obsc

e proscriptions by the arrest and execution of a tribune of the Roman People . 4 Roman society under the terror witnessed the

ld the existing order and prevented a reconstitution of the old Roman People through a more equitable division of landed prope

n root or termination now invade and disfigure the Fasti of the Roman People . A new generation of marshals enters the field,

ur spoke freely of his death. The rejoicing was premature: Senate and People steeled themselves to celebrate instead the day o

Ti. Cannutius, the tribune who had presented Caesar’s heir before the people when he marched upon Rome for the first time. 1 D

ed to follow him before long to destruction, while Rome and the Roman People perished, while a world-empire as great as that o

oconsul, Pollio, celebrated the suppression of the Parthini, a native people dwelling in the hinterland of Dyrrhachium. 1 The

his own name, calling himself ‘Imperator Caesar’. 8 The Senate and People for these bodies might suitably be convoked for c

of literature and philosophy. From the official religion of the Roman People could come scant consolation in evil days, Note

s, had been carefully maintained by the aristocracy to intimidate the people , to assert their own domination and to reinforce

ustius wrote of the decay of ancient virtue and the ruin of the Roman People with all the melancholy austerity of a moralist a

cal development and did more than justice to the merits of Senate and People in earlier days. 2 There was no idealization in h

hem, or in digesting the legal and religious antiquities of the Roman People . The writing of Roman history, adorned in the pas

reedmen and foreigners. Aliens had served in the legions of the Roman People ; and the dynasts were lavish in grants of the fra

r derive confidence from the language, habits and religion of his own people . It was much more than the rule of the nobiles th

had collapsed at Philippi. The doom of empire was revealed the ruling people would be submerged in the innumerable hordes of i

story might be induced to revert to the remotest origins of the Roman People , august and sanctioned by divine providence; anci

onuments the glory and the traditions of a family, a dynasty, a whole people ; 4 and a return to the religious forms and practi

onarchy and national patriotism, between a world-empire and the Roman People . The new order in state and society still lacked

a degenerate Roman was striving to subvert the liberties of the Roman People , to subjugate Italy and the West under the rule o

valuable territories that had previously been provinces of the Roman People . The system of dependent kingdoms and of Roman pr

s, gifts and tribute to the rulers of Rome. The Empire of the Roman People was large, dangerously large. Caesar’s conquest o

burden of administration would impose a severe strain upon the Roman People . If the Roman oligarchy was to survive as a gover

and dispensed with it. When the time came, he went beyond Senate and People , appealing to a higher sanction, so far had the R

the retirement of his enemies not unwelcome. Even now, the Senate and People were not utterly to be despised: the consuls coul

d the moral justification for war, and the moral support of the Roman People . The charges and counter-charges in the dispute o

war between citizens was being forced by mad ambition upon the Roman People . In this atmosphere of terror and alarm Octavianu

onstitution he appealed to the voice and sentiments of the true Roman People not the corrupt plebs or the packed and disreputa

f Italy. The oath embraced all orders of society and attached a whole people to the clientela of a party-leader, as clients to

nd the reach of valid conjecture. 3 Of the Roman State, of Senate and People , no word. The oath of allegiance bound followers

ame course of action, or at least of acquiescence. The better sort of people in Italy did not like war or despotic rule. But d

conviction, interest or fear. Hence an impressive spectacle: a whole people marched under the gods of Rome and the leadership

e Principate. On the one side stood Caesar’s heir with the Senate and People of Rome, the star of the Julian house blazing on

s was defeated in battle. He took his own life. The army of the Roman People entered the capital city of Egypt on the first da

official language, to have added the land to the Empire of the Roman People :4 he treated Egypt as his own private and dynast

bestowed upon unworthy and criminal aliens the dominions of the Roman People . That did not matter now. The gifts to the Note

ent to defy, but it was easy to delude, the sentiments of a patriotic people . The disaster of Crassus and the ill success of A

mmonwealth from his own power to the discretion of the Senate and the People . By what right had it been in his hand? He indica

io of 32 B.C., when an extraordinary manifestation of the will of the people delegated its sovranty, passing beyond the forms

adopt—or at least publish— some tolerable compromise with Senate and People , certain eminent personages might have brought se

he advanced southwards in conquest farther than any army of the Roman People or monarch of Egypt. 4 NotesPage=>309 1 Me

d all powers and all provinces to the free disposal of the Senate and People of Rome. Acclamation was drowned in protest. The

provinces, as before, but responsible only to the Senate; and Senate, People and magistrates were to resume the rightful exerc

about. In name, in semblance and in theory the sovranty of Senate and People had been restored. It remains to discover what it

e been invoked: it is pretty clear that it was not. The Romans as a people were possessed by an especial veneration for auth

gainst oppression. Free elections returned—that is to say, a grateful people would unfailingly elect the candidates whom Caesa

ithout formal commendation. He controlled all the armies of the Roman People , in fact though not in law, and provided from his

PageBook=>331 THE pretext of a special mandate from Senate and People was not merely a recognition of the past services

should stand and endure, even when its sovran organs, the Senate and People , were impotent or dumb, even if the Princeps were

s and the prosecution of the Prefect of Egypt. In Rome the Senate and People might enjoy the blessings of order and the sembla

virtue and the decline of ancient patriotism had brought low a great people . Ruin had been averted but narrowly, peace and or

d the tribunician powers, were the Revolution itself the Army and the People . On them stood the military and monarchic demagog

t confront it. 1 Statues show him as he meant to be seen by the Roman People youthful but grave and melancholy, with all the b

e pleased, but not his imperium, for that was the grant of Senate and People , nor the leadership of his party Agrippa and othe

lory of the equestrian order modestly abiding within his station; the people might acclaim him in the theatre, in cheerful sub

should be confiscated by the government for the benefit of the whole people . 3 This was the New State with a vengeance. The n

by Sulla now entered the Senate and commanded the armies of the Roman People Pollio, whose grandfather led the Marrucini again

a centurion. But P. Ovidius Naso was not disposed to serve the Roman People . He might have become a lawyer, a Roman senator

ents of political science, especially by such as take the rule of the People as their ideal. The Romans, who distrusted democr

itary nobility. Yet the Senate had once seemed to represent the Roman People , for it was a ruling aristocracy by no means narr

our; and many men from the provinces entered the legions of the Roman People , whether they already possessed the Roman franchi

ector. The vassal kings, though still in name the allies of the Roman People , were in fact the devoted clients of the Princeps

eciate or retard the provinces of the West and that part of the Roman People which extended far beyond the bounds of Italy.

ant of the lattis clavus and by youthful quaestors. When Senate and People were ostensibly sovran, the members of a narrow g

veniently revived the Republic to be used as they had used it. To the People Augustus restored freedom of election. Fed by the

B.C. Saturninus blocked him, announcing that, even if elected by the people , Rufus should not become consul. The abandoned sc

ated, went on steadily encroaching upon the departments of Senate and People , law and magistrates. Electoral disorders were ba

two armies, cf. below, p. 394 f. PageBook=>374 Election by the people might be a mere form, but it could not be abolish

proper, a debt repaid to ancestors who had deserved well of the Roman People . 6 Yet there were certain nobiles whose merits fe

e various colleges took the form of co-optation or of election by the People , the claims of birth, influence and patronage had

rces, to whom cities paid honour, neglecting magistrates of the Roman People , were perpetuated in the exorbitant power of impe

uiet and unpretentious, like sombre and dutiful servants of the Roman People , but aloof, majestic and heroic. Livia might se

sar might have desired but could never have created. The power of the People was broken. No place was left any more for those

n’, decorative, quarrelsome and ambitious, seldom useful to the Roman People . Within the Senate or without it, a rich fund of

an alliance perhaps by no means as loyal and unequivocal as the Roman People was led to believe. In this year a public monum

es viri were tamed, trained and harnessed to the service of the Roman People at home and abroad. Plebs and army, provinces and

the presidency of the consuls. 6 Augustus had frequent resort to the People for the passing of his laws. But the practice of

o have lapsed. 3 The Senate no less than the assembly of the sovran people was a cumbrous and unsatisfactory body to deal wi

t and skill. Whatever nominal and legal prerogatives the Senate and People still retained in foreign policy mattered little

roduced to the Senate after a suitable rehearsal. The assembly of the People might declare war but the People did not decide a

table rehearsal. The assembly of the People might declare war but the People did not decide against whom; the wars, however gr

ood of the Republic. But was Augustus’ design beneficial to the Roman People ? Of that, a patriotic Roman might have his doubts

idated in his absence, at his expense and at the expense of the Roman People . In the last six years, Tiberius had hardly been

n in the Empire next to the Princeps refuse his services to the Roman People . The purpose of Augustus was flagrant, and, to

uch but not outrageous. To bestow the supreme magistracy of the Roman People upon an untried youth in the twentieth year of hi

Divi filius nor hope to supplant the patron and champion of the Roman People , the master of the legions, the king of kings. Fo

ving son of Agrippa and Julia. Of the true sentiments of Senate and People when the Claudian returned to power, no testimony

ght of his enemies and perhaps to the ultimate advantage of the Roman People . Julia, it was alleged, had slipped into the wayw

teen months before. 1 Augustus was ruthless for the good of the Roman People . Some might affect to believe him unwilling to co

the Romans to become conscious of their own individual character as a people . While they took over and assimilated all that th

ro and his contemporaries might boast of the libertas which the Roman People enjoyed, of the imperium which it exerted over ot

ive virtues: if it lacked them, it must learn them. The spirit of a people is best revealed in the words it employs with an

ich. His immoral and selfish descendants had all but ruined the Roman People . Conquest, wealth and alien ideas corrupted the a

year A.D. 9.1 Regeneration was now vigorously at work upon the Roman People . The New Age could confidently be inaugurated. Th

eals, personified in their betters: but it was to be a purified Roman People . At Rome the decline of the native stock was pa

he Romans were encouraged to regard themselves as a tough and martial people no pomp of monarchs here or lies of Greek diploma

solid yet flexible: it was not so easy to shape the habits of a whole people and restore the ideals of a governing class. Th

deals of a governing class. That the official religion of the Roman People was formal rather than spiritual did not appear t

ts as an orator but avid and ruthless. 2 The greatness of an imperial people derives in no small measure from the unconscious

eys of the Alps were pressed into service in the legions of the Roman People . 1 On no interpretation could these aliens pass f

evoke spontaneous manifestations of the true sentiments of the sovran people were indispensable to Roman politicians. Crassus

d in the Forum, with the greatest concourse and applause of the Roman People . PageNotes. 461 1 Virgil, Aen. 6, 726 f. Pa

een Romans who were a little shocked at hearing the army of the Roman People described as ‘Italians’: hinc Augustus agens It

very kind. The Republican dynast solicited the favour of the sovran people by lavish display at games, shows and triumphs. A

out, from the aqueducts which his son-in-law had constructed for the people . 1 He could have added that there were now public

and every festival was an occasion for sharpening the loyalty of the people and inculcating a suitable lesson. The family pol

a rhinoceros was solemnly exhibited in the voting-booths of the Roman People . 7 When Lepidus at last died in 12 B.C., August

or rather to confer the grant, for Augustus restored election to the People , in pointed contrast to Antonius’ action on the l

permanent methods of suggestion and propaganda. 9 When the man of the people turned a coin in his palm he might meditate on th

n solemn procession to sacrifice. A grateful Senate and a regenerated people participated. The new régime was at peace with th

ated from Victoria Augusti. The martial origin and martial virtues of people and dynasty were fittingly recalled by the Temple

rdly have prevented, even had it been expedient, the gratitude of the people to himself from taking the form of honours almost

re autonomous units of administration and integral parts of the Roman People . Moreover, the Roman citizen of the towns with hi

pects of his rule he is Princeps to the Senate, Imperator to army and people , King and God to the subject peoples of the Empir

government, in the provinces the colonies were outposts of the ruling people , fractions of the army placed at strategic positi

onist remembered with pride his ties with the army and with the Roman People . 1 Hence the veterans and the local dynasts would

ed. When Titius presided at games held in the Theatre of Pompeius the people arose in indignation and drove him forth. 8 Many

gger of a casual assassin, whether he might be a misguided man of the people or a vindictive noble a split in the party itself

e proscriptions and the most abominable actions of the Triumvirs. The people might be fooled and fed, the knights persuaded to

nd dwindled in both law courts and Senate; from the assemblies of the People , the function of which was now to ratify the deci

to families consular before A.D. 14 the year in which election by the people was abrogated. W. Otto s definition (Ib. LI (1916

se for which Cato fought had prevailed after his death when the Roman People was saved from despotism and restored to Libertas

raitors and time-servers survived, earning the gratitude of the Roman People . More reputable and more independent characters

t merely destroyed their spurious Republic: they had ruined the Roman People . There is something more important than politic

Republican Rome. Worn and broken by civil war and disorder, the Roman People was ready to surrender the ruinous privilege of f

d for orators any more, for long speeches in the Senate or before the People , when one man had the supreme decision in the Com

y abated their ambition, remembered their duty as Romans to the Roman People and quietly practised the higher patriotism. It w

ies. 3 Augustus’ rule was dominion over all the world. To the Roman People his relationship was that of Father, Founder and

eavily on Rome, with threatened ruin. But now the reinvigorated Roman People , robust and cheerful, could bear the burden with

knowledges his ancestry, recalling the dynasts Pompeius and Caesar. People and Army were the source and basis of his dominat

l ambition and in his ambition he had saved and regenerated the Roman People . NotesPage=>524 1 As W. Weber, Princeps 1