The political traditions of Rome were hostile to monarchy, or to the domination of the state by one man, whatever title he bore. The last of the line of kings of early Rome was driven into exile, and the first and only perpetual dictator, Julius Caesar, was assassinated, both in the name of liberty.

The constitution of the early Principate was created by Augustus and basically retained the shape he gave it; his actions and motives receive special attention here. The Augustan constitution was a disguised monarchy. Augustus, with the malum exemplum of his adoptive father Caesar before him, shaped a constitution that looked like that of the old Republic, and apparently let it be known to Romans that they were witnessing the return of the old Republic. Velleius Paterculus, propagandist and spokesman for the Augustan regime and its successor, said of the events of 28-27 B.C.: ‘the pristine form of the republic was recalled as of old’ (2.89). Augustus’ own claim in the Res Gestae is less extravagant but conveys the same message: ‘I transferred the republic from my power to the dominion of the senate and the people of Rome’ (34.1).

In the years following Actium, Augustus set out to secure for himself a monopoly of military power and glory, establish a legal basis for his control of the legions and direction of foreign policy, and build an army that could undertake a programme of continuous warfare. This last task was a considerable one; apart from the initial hurdle of paying off the thousands of weary and near-mutinous soldiers who had survived the civil wars, it was complicated by the political necessity of curtailing or materially reducing conscription in Italy. The army Augustus bequeathed to his successors was a body of professionals, serving for twenty-five years at the modest pay of 225 denarii a year (raised to 300 by Domitian) and with the prospect of a discharge payment of 3,000 denarii or the equivalent in land. The bulk of the legions, which were stationed in the Northern provinces, were made up of recruits – some conscripts, some volunteers – from the more Romanized West. Local and regional recruitment, for legionaries as well as auxiliaries, became the norm only after our period. The level set by Augustus of 28 legions, or about 168,000 men (plus roughly as many auxiliaries, recruited from non-citizens), was not raised significantly by later emperors.

The primary goals of the imperial administration were the maintenance of law and order and the collection of taxes to meet military costs and to provide public buildings, entertainments, and handouts in the city of Rome. To achieve these ends the emperors of the early empire took the Republican system of senatorial administration and expanded it, employing slaves and freedmen of their own familia, as well as increasing numbers of equestrians. Growth of bureaucracy appears as a dominant theme in historical studies of the early empire, one author representing the development from the beginning to the end of our period as a change from a ‘monarchie personelle’ to a ‘monarchie bureaucratique’. A description of the administrative organization of the state followed by a discussion of the main lines of development will enable us to test the accuracy of this characterization. We will want in particular to ask: how complex did the organization become by the early second century, and how was the personnel for administrative posts chosen?

‘Society’ covers a very broad range of human activity, and the interests of historians of Roman society have differed markedly. The great social historians of imperial Rome writing about a century ago were primarily concerned with a description of what anthropologists call ‘high culture’ (including literature, philosophy, and religion). Since then, the primary interest of social historians has shifted from ‘the inner moral life of the time’ to ‘daily life’ in Rome and, more importantly, the structure of Roman society. This last interest will form the subject of the present chapter.

Which terms and categories are best suited to the analysis of Roman social structure? Rostovtzeff’s monumental Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, exemplary in its integration of the social with the economic and political developments of the Principate, employs a system of economic classes, including an entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, which is more appropriate to a modern capitalist society than the Roman world. A more satisfactory explanation of the course of Roman history has not yet been provided by any Marxist writer, for example in terms of class struggle between propertied exploiters and propertyless exploited. There will remain overt political conflicts, such as that between propertied freedmen and propertied senators, which are difficult to accommodate in the model.

The accession of Augustus inaugurated an era of relatively stable government, the basic condition for economic recovery and expansion. The new regime was dedicated to the cause of civil peace and the pacification of Rome’s enemies. The success of this policy furthered internal economic development and, insofar as it expanded the territory under Roman control, extended.the economic horizons of the empire. The settlement of substantial numbers of Italian soldier colonists in northern Italy or abroad, moreover, promoted the recovery of central and southern Italy, now relieved of intense pressure on the land, and furthered the development of more thinly populated areas of the empire. It is unnecessary to hold that Augustus had a clear and coherent policy of stimulating economic expansion. But he did create the conditions under which economic life could flourish. After his reign the empire suffered no major calamities except for the civil war of 68-69 and the ensuing revolt of Civilis, and it faced only a limited threat from across the frontiers. The Pax Romana was by and large uninterrupted.

The installation of an emperor made possible the evolution of administrative structures and a centrally directed foreign and military policy appropriate to the government of a large empire. These gains were made at a cost of the destruction of the traditional forms of political life and the reordering and control of the social hierarchy at all levels.

In law, the emperor devised new jurisdictions dependent on himself, created law, and empowered select jurisconsults, who were increasingly professionals of non-aristocratic background, to issue authoritative legal judgements and interpretations – with the necessary consequence that the courts, judicial procedures, and legislative organs inherited from the Republic went into a slow decline.