When was the Roman Empire considered...the Roman Empire?

This thread, with its varied opinions, is perhaps an example of what makes republic to empire so insidious.

There is no one single big event.

It was a gradual, almost imperceptible, event.

It's not like in Revenge of the Sith when Palpatine pulls a Ric Olie and declares: "Look, this was the republic, now it's an empire, and I'm going to be its emperor".

The thing is though, really, that it is the people themselves as a society that are largely to blame for what happens. In the case of Rome they started with an outright rebellion against the concept of kings and despots. And then slowly generations went by and children grew up who didn't have the same experiences and, as far as I can tell, the old tales and lessons and revered history was either self-servingly re-interpreted, intentionally forgotten, or considered an archaic value.

 

It's also worth noting that the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, and the eventual foundation of the Principate under Augustus had very little in common with the rule of the Etruscan Kings. Caesar, despite what the Senate thought of him, was quite liked by the people, and avoided most of the negative aspects of previous dictators (no proscription, etc), and Augusts operated as a "first amongst equals" kind of ruler, deriving his power by bending the rules, instead of outright breaking them.

 

Could it be said though, that later Emperors became closer to the concept of kings? I'm sure there was very little of the same traditions int he two positions: such a thing would have been needless, counter-productive, and incendiary. But didn't later Emperors take different tacks on the power obtained by Julius and Augustus (Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Commodus, etc)?

 

Some of them went crazy. I mean no reasonable king would act like Commodus or Nero.

 

Oh, of course. There were definitely some wildly varying interpretations of the nature of the power of the Emperors. Just look at the difference Commodus and his father Marcus Aurelius, who was a stoic philosopher and believed in the importance of public service and providing for and protecting the people.

 

Yeah, Commodus wasn't much on protecting the people.

 

I wonder how much of how thing turned out with how many emperors turned out might be attributable in some ways on how badly things went after Augustus died.

From what I've read, the Emperors sort of "jumped the shark" for a time after Augustus. Tiberius became resented by the people, and the people only thought Caligula was great for that few months until he got ill and recovered with his newfound superpower of outright insanity.

Had say, things somehow (this is technically an impossibility: I'm just playing with personalities here) progressed from Augustus straight to someone like Claudius, could the precedent have become much different and the Empire have held together more cohesively for a longer period?

For instance, I sometimes have the notion that one of the main reasons the US has remained a stable democracy was because the first Presidents and foudning fathers laid an incredible precednet on the surrendering and turonover of power. Washington, who could have stayed in power as long as he liked, chose to serve only two terms. Adams and Jefferson, despite thier acrimony, decided thier differences in peaceful elections and thier terms never came to political violence of one against the other.

Had the Empire a more "stable" set of rules after Augustus had laid down the first rule as Emperor and laid down a more proper mode of succession, and had Tiberius and Caligula been removed from that vital first period of handovers, might this in itself been enough to prevent later emperors like Nero and Commodus getting the needed political clout to become Emperor since the station of Emperor might be held to a higher standard (and people might have thought twice about assassination OF the Emperor, even if they didn't like him)?

 

I'm not particularly sure jumping straight to Claudius would have done much, as it seems the issues were as much in the system as they were in the personalities that were in charge of the system. The nebulous nature of the powers of the Emperor, the even more nebulous nature of the limits on those same powers, the over-importance of the Praetorian Guard in the selection of Emperors, the lack of a firm official process of succession, and the presence of numerous over ambitious generals with large loyal armies at their disposal (Year of Three Emperors, Year of Five Emperors, Crisis of the Third Century) had as much to do with the eventual collapse of the system as nutters like Nero and Caligula did.

Interestingly enough the period of the Five Good Emperors, probably the most continuously solid era of Imperial Rome, was pretty much the only time the Principate had even a semi-official order of succession (the next Emperor was a good man chosen by the current Emperor and adopted as his son), and that era came to an end when Marcus Aurelius broke tradition and made his own son Emperor.

 

I agree that Augustus failing to establish precedent on the nature and selection of the Emperor probably caused Rome's eventual downfall.

But Augustus had no idea that he was founding the "Roman Empire" or setting precedent for anything, didn't he genuinely believe that power would be returned to the Senate in time?

 

That's pretty debatable. It's arguable that if he had any intent to do so, that he had plenty of opportunities to do so before he died.

Honestly I think Augustus took the steps he did because he thought the republican system was broken, and that Rome couldn't survive without strong singular leadership.

 

I'd agree with that. I don't know if Julius believed the same this but it's possible as well.

I think Augustus was having a lot of problems with the notion of succession befor ehis death and never really solved the problem. I don't know why, but there seemed to be a need to tie the successor to him with the bond of family. I'm not sure why he didn't try to lay down a more mechanical process to choose the next Emperor... although perhaps it might have been becuase he groomed people like Tiberius (and others) too early and those people ended up presuming they would get the position. So later when it turned out to be a miscalculation, Augustus was contemplating civil war occurring upon his death if he tried to take everything back and go another route.

 

He had a couple people he liked lined up, but they died and he was kind of stuck with Tiberius, who it seems didn't really want Augustus' position to begin with.

 

Yeah Augustus had a bad run when it came to appointing an heir - Marcellus, Tiberius (1st go), Gaius, Lucius, Postumus, Tiberius (2nd go). Agrippa was also prepared as an emergency heir when Augustus fell really ill earlier in his principate (can't remember the date off the top of my head). It also didn't help that Augustus had no direct sons of his own, only grandsons via Julia as well as his 2 stepsons from Livia (Tiberius and Drusus) plus a nephew (Marcellus) - there was never really an 'obvious' choice to choose.

Tiberius does appear to have been reluctant to assume the role - some have suggested he was just following Augustus' earlier lead (originally declining, then accepting after the Senate's insistence) though Tiberius would have been well aware of how big a job it was as he had been pretty much-co-emperor during Augustus' final years.

 

Tacitus plays openly with the idea that Livia poisoned or eliminated all natural heirs to the Succession to secure the throne for Tiberius. I believe Augustus intended to restore the republic before an untimely demise.
-Darth Turambar

 

Tacitus plays openly with the idea that Livia poisoned or eliminated all natural heirs to the Succession to secure the throne for Tiberius. I believe Augustus intended to restore the republic before an untimely demise.

It's something of a mystery that a man who had been so very adept at rising to power and held some of his theoretical opponents in high regard (such as Cicero) much as Julius did seemed to have been unable to overcome the question of succession.

I think I'd question, again, why he felt he had to rely solely on his judgment and have family ties involved and couldn't have tried to apply a regimented process to the entire thing. In many ways it's what's saved nations and Empires from civil war in the past: once precedent is agreed and set, it's harder for someone who wants to break with it to get support. Which I think is why Parliamentary and Congressional systems work better than the republics and democracies of antiquity since they're very specific in this regard.

Did Augustus not think creating a solid process was possible? Did he never consider it? Was the question moot because at some point he was really planning to return the Republic (I don't know if I would agree with this because it's arguable that it would merely return the Republic to the effect of having two to three Emperors instead of one, since the political divisions of the likes of Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Mark Antony and many others over the years had essentially caused the Republic to function not unlike the Empire anyway before Augustus even came to power -- it just had a number of contenders instead of one agreed person)? Was he determined that he have complete authority in choosing his successor rather than laying down a set of rules for others to follow?

Perhaps I'm wrong, but it just seems that Augustus, as having the first enduring reign, had oppertunities to lay down firm laws that might have prevented later problems. Had it been possible to open up the position of Emperor to a process not entirely chosen by the current Emperor and not governed strictly by ties of family, things might have gone differently.

 

You posted a very interesting question here, vader. One way of answering the question is to rephrase it to something like this: 'When did Romans realise that the system of government under which they were ruled by Augustus and his successors was a monarchy?'

I believe that it was only after a long time that Romans openly acknowledged that they were living under a monarchy, openly rejecting Augustus' propaganda when he openly assumed power in 27 B.C., that he had 'restored' the Republic.

There was a Roman of Greek background called Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (c. 155 or 163/164 to after 229 A.D.), called Cassius Dio in English. He served a number of emperors, holding the highest offices of state, being a senator, provincial governor, and consul. He wrote a Roman History of which much survives, covering the period from c. 1200 B.C. to his own time of 229 A.D. During his career, he was a first person observer of, or acquainted with the people involved in, many of the Empire's significant events. This is how he summed up Augustus' formal assumption of power in 27 B.C.:

In this way the power of both people and senate passed entirely into the hands of Augustus, and from his time there was, strictly speaking, a monarch; for monarchy would be the truest name for it, no matter if two or three men did later hold the power at the same time. The name of monarchy, to be sure, the Romans so detested that they called their emperors neither dictators nor kings nor anything of the sort; yet since the final authority for the government devolves upon them, they must needs be kings.

(Roman History, Book 53, Chapter 17.)

Here we have a prominent Roman, two and a half centuries after Augustus assumed power, admitting openly that a monarchy had then been set up.

 

Eh, don't forget that the popular image of 'Nero' is the one we got mostly from his political opponents. A good comparison might be reconstructing the Obama presidency 2000 years from now based on surviving broadcasts by FOX News.

 

Owrite i admit i just know some basic facts about him and Qou Vadis was one of my favorite books.

 

And "Lives of the Later Caesars", just for instance, is a forgery.

 

How do you explain the death of all of the Julio-Cluadian line without the idea of assasination entering your head? Marcellus,Lucius,Gaius,Agrippa Postumus,Germanicus,Drusus, plus their adoptees. Seems like an awful lot of untimely demise happened to seat Tiberius on the Throne.
-Darth Turambar

 

I think from our perspective, the more important question would not be if these people were assassinated, but "for what"?

Assuming assassination was at play, was the reign of Tiberius versus what would otherwise have likely happened worth it?

The unfortunate thing about power that people then and now often do not understand, I feel, is the importance of trusting other people to take over from you and do the right thing. It's something that as a non-American I've still come to recognize that, Washington, Adams and Jefferson at least understood. The Romans clearly could never cohesively grasp it, and quite possibly many leaders of both America and most nations might not understand it and obey the law out of custom rather than a personal test of character as it might have been in those first few years of America. Whether the ideal/myth of Cinncinatus is overly-simplistic or not (Jello has stated he believes it is, I think), if it's what led to this sort of thing we're all the better for it.

I've come to think that even the greatest leader is nothing more than a tyrant until the day he or she reliquishes power. Until then all thier accomplishments are merely potential until that day comes.

 

Augustus wasn't above assassination himself: vide the fate of Julius' son with Cleopatra.

 

Not to dig up dead topics or anything, but the modern name of Alexander's empire as we know it is the Hellenistic Empire ('course, to call it that is like calling the Roman Empire of Constantinople the Byzantine Empire)