Octavian's defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31BC made him the dominant political force and the sole military power in the Roman Empire. Antony had escaped but his armies had lost and Octavian journeyed to Alexandria to fight a final battle there against Antony and Cleopatra there in 30BC. His victory there also gave him control over Egypt and its vast wealth.

His political position had been legitimised to a degree. He had allowed the triumvirate to lapse on December 31, 33BC in order to deny its powers to Antony (though it might have just rolled on unofficially). In 32BC most of the people of Italy and the West swore an oath of personal loyalty to Octavian, though powerful this had no legal standing, so he sought a more legitimate stance by being elected to the consulship in 31BC (an office he would hold continuously until 23BC). As consul, initially, he claimed precedence over his colleagues on the basis of the personal oath and was accompanied by all twenty four lectors, as dictators had done before the office was abolished by Antony.

Octavian had a difficult task. He had promised to restore the res publica when the war was over but wanted to create a stable Government so that the civil wars over the last century would not be repeated. He needed to retain enough power to maintain his position without alienating the senate, as Julius had done, while reassuring the common people that he was looking after their needs too.

He did have a number of natural advantages.

• Even before his return to Rome they had approved his plans for the East and closed the doors to the temple of Janus, signalling peace on land and sea, for the first time since the end of the First Punic War 200 years earlier.

• He had received visible honours like statues and his birthday was declared a public holiday

• By capturing Egypt he had access to the huge wealth of the Ptolemys

• Through his campaigns he had more prestige then anyone before him

• He had command over the biggest army in the history of Rome

• He had an auctoritas unique in Roman history. His adopted father, Julius Caesar, had been deified allowing Octavian to refer to himself as the son of a god. He was a powerful source of patronage and granted favours to the leaders of various factions.

• He was a popular idol and the man who could claim he bought peace to the Empire

Octavian returned to Rome in August 29BC and celebrated three triumphs on successive days for his victories in Dalmatia, Actium and Alexandria. Three days after this he dedicated two buildings, a temple to the divine Julius and a new senate house, the Curia Julia, to his father Julius Caesar. He then had himself and Agrippa designated as consuls for 28BC and soon after they were given the censorship power.

28BC
Octavian has promised to restore the res publica when the war was over. By 28 BC it was time to make good on this promise, or at least appear to, before he received the same opposition and fate of Julius Caesar. Fortunately for Octavian the res publica did not have a written constitution and was a flexible concept leaving him some room to manoeuvre, he needed to restore the old Republican enough to satisfy those who were attached to it without giving up too much power that he would undermine his supremacy.

On taking the consulship in 28BC, with his closest ally as co-consul, Octavian surrendered twelve of his extraordinary twenty four lictors and handed them to Agrippa to show that equality had been restored with his consular colleague. He then reformed the senate as they were the key body of the republic. Together with Agrippa he used the recently granted power of censorship (they had the power granted to them without actually taking the office, a common trick used by Octavian) to revise the senate which had been depleted during the civil wars. To increase the respect for the senate they reduced the size from 1000 to 800 by purging many of the new men appointed by the triumvirs in reward for political service during the civil wars. They were careful to expel these senators on mass and not to take into consideration if they were enemies or Republicans so not to arouse the anger of the senate. Further reductions were made to the senate in 18BC and 13BC to bring the size of the senate down to 600, the number established by Sulla. Octavian showed his honoured position in the reformed senate by taking the title princeps senatus (first man of the senate).

Octavian ensured that the number of senators would stabilise at 600 by reducing the number of quaestors (a junior politician that gave the holder automatic entry into the senate) to Sulla’s 20. He also tried to ensure the prestige of new senators by restricting the quaestorship to men at least 25 years old, of senatorial family and good moral character, who had served in the military and possessed property worth at least 800,000 sesterces (later increased to 1 million). Men of equestrian rank could also hold the quaestorship if they first held one or more of certain magistracies. Octavian pleased traditionalists by also cutting the number of praetors from sixteen to ten. Finally he lowered the minimum age for the praetorship to thirty-two and the consulship to thirty-five.

 Octavian also made reforms to the equestrian order making admission dependent, as before, on a minimum property valuation of 400,000 sesterces. In order in invigorate both the senate and the equestrian order with new blood he adopted Caesars policy of allowing a few rich and aristocratic residents from the Italian municipia and even the colonies of Gaul and Spain into both orders.

The Actions of 27BC
In 27BC Agrippa and Augustus were again consuls and on January 13 Octavian appeared before the senate and offered to surrender all his powers to the senate and the Roman people (although it must be noted that he was still consul and would retain those powers). This act ,which would restore the res publica, aroused more trepidation then joy from the senate. Octavian would have coached his supporters in the senate to his desired course and the senators bestowed on Octavian a huge provincial command. He received a grant of proconsular imperium for ten years over the large and geographically separated single province of the two Spains, Gaul, Syria and Egypt, where most of the legions were stationed. As Pompey did during the pirate wars Octavian had the right to appoint legates of consular and praetorian rank in his provinces and to make war and peace as he saw fit.

Under this new division the senate resumed control over Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Illyricum, Macedonia, Greece, Asia, Bithynia, Crete and Africa. Octavian would govern his provinces through his legates or deputies, while the senate controlled the senatorial provinces through proconsuls recruited from the ranks of ex-consuls and ex-praetors. Octavian who continued to be elected consul every year probably maintained effective control over the governors of the senatorial provinces through either his auctoritas or through his imperium as consul and proconsul. 

He probably maintained as much real power after this new arrangement as he did before, the crucial point is that his power was legitimate. It had been bestowed on him by a body with the authority to do so. Such legitimacy distinguished the res publica from personal rule, or regnum and in that sense the res publica was restored.

 Three days after this surrender of power, the senate met to honour the restorer of the legitimate government. They granted Octavian the following honours

• A laurel wreath was to be placed above the doorposts of his house.

• A golden shield inscribed with his virtues of valour, clemency, justice and piety was to be hung in the senate. Augustus had practised clemency in relation to his civil war opponents, clemency was not a virtue associated with Augustus in his earlier career. Piety in the Roman sense means more then devotion to the gods. It is also relates to the performance of one’s duty towards both gods and humans.

• He received the name Augustus, which had exalted connotations and religious associations (the name Augustus with sufficiently vague to avoid connotations of kingship, yet it was also associated with the founding of Rome in a famous poem by the 3rd century poet, Ennius

 In return Augustus exalted the senate and augmented its powers. He restored its control over public finance and for a time, the right of coining money in gold and silver. He allowed the senate to issue decrees having the force of law without ratification by the people (but the popular assemblies still remained as lawmaking bodies as well). Officially, the senate became a full partner in the government and had theoretically gained additional powers however Augustus was the dominant force and in real terms the senate had lost power, as it now had to contend with Augustus at the head of affairs permanently.

In late 27 Augustus left Rome to take control of urgent military operations in Gaul and Spain. This was probably done to let the senate get used to the new arrangements. There were some problems as in 26BC, while he was in Spain, he tried to resurrecting the office of prefect of the city. His appointee, Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, held the office for only six days before resigning it as being improper, a sign that the old Republicans were beginning to grumble.

Augustus’s Return in 24BC and the Changes of 23BC
When Augustus returned from Spain in early 24BC his friends continued to propose honours for Augustus, which he refused, this as well as his unprecedented eleventh consulship in 23BC, surely aroused resentment among the old nobility as there was supposed to be 10 year gaps between consulships. There was definitely unhappiness in the senate but unfortunately no specific events from early 23BC are clear. A famous trial at which Augustus’ intervention provoked both criticism and a plot to assassinate him probably belong to 22BC, still rumbling of discontent must have reached his ears. Before he could do anything about it however he fell gravely ill. When he recovered he made political adjustments to appease the senate.  

The major irritant to the old nobles was the continued tenure of the consulship, this reminded them of Marius and it also reduced the number of available consulship, the goal of every senator, by half. So on 1 July 23BC Augustus resigned the consulship. In return he received the full tribunician power, tribunicia potestas which meant that

• He could convene meetings of the senate
• He could present legislation for approval by the tribal assembly
• He could submit motions into writing to the senate, which took precedence over all other business.

 Augustus made this tribunician power the official legal foundation of his position and he numbered the years of his principate by the number of years during which he held the tribunicia potestas. Nevertheless he needed more powers to make up for the loss of the consulship.

• Augustus was allowed to retain the consular right to nominate candidates for office. He still had the same ability of any high ranking official to endorse candidates once their candidacy had been accepted. Once elected however all incoming magistrates were made to swear that they would uphold all past and future public acts of Augustus.
• He received the right to nominate jurors to the various standing courts, giving him additional control over the administration of justice.
• Finally, to make up for his loss of consulship, his proconsular imperium was strengthened. He was allowed to retain it in the city and it was made maius (greater) so that he could override other provincial governors and exercise command all legions if need be. The imperium was renewed at intervals of five or ten years in 18BC, 13BC, 8BC, 3AD and 13AD (there is controversy over imperium maius, some deny that Augustus would have had it as he always made a point of avoiding having more power then his colleagues in any given office).  

There were also a number of other adjustments made in 23BC

• Augustus increased the number of praetors from ten to twelve, the two new ones being placed in charge of the city’s treasury.
• To provide two additional governorship for the increased number of ex-praetors that would result he transferred control of Gallia Narbonensis and Cyprus to the senate.
• If not in 23, then sometime later, the senate acquired the right to try fellow senators accused of political or criminal offences. Suits bought against senatorial governors by provincials for the restitution of allegedly misappropriated property were allowed to be tried by a small ad hoc committee of fellow senators.

• Some time after 23BC the senate became the Supreme Court to judge extortion cases on the senatorial provinces and to hear appeals from Italy and the provinces.

Although the nobility approved of these changes the populace of Rome did not. This dissatisfaction was exacerbated when there was both a flood and famine in Rome in 22BC with badly affected the ordinary citizens of Rome. The senate did not handle this in a manner the people liked and they rioted demanding Augustus be given perpetual consulship or dictatorship, that he take up the censorship and control of the grain supply. He refused all the honours but with his vast resources he was able to alleviate the grain shortage in a few days. In 22BC Augustus did accept the consular right to summon the senate because the senate felt the tribunician right was less dignified.

Augustus spent from Spring 22BC to 19CB in the provinces, leaving the senate in charge of Rome. In the elections for the consuls of 21BC the people refused to elect more then one consul and Augustus had to intervene, he refused the second consulship, but persuaded the people to accept his own personal nominee. Much the same happened in 21, 20 and 19. In 19BC candidates whom Augustus rejected for the quaestorship refused to withdraw and Egnatius Rufus, who had become very popular by organising a fire department for Rome at his own expense and sponsoring splendid games as an aedile, illegally ran for the consulship right after his praetorship. A majority of senators passed the Senatus Consultum Ultimum (literally the final decree of the senate, it was devised in the late republic as a measure urging the consuls to take action in a crisis, this decree did not have the force of law) and begged Augustus to return to restore order.

The Adjustments of 19BC
Augustus’ return on October 12, 19BC was declared a national holiday. He was voted further consular powers; the right to appoint a prefect of the city, the use of 12 fasces and the right to sit on a curule chair between the two annual consuls. Augustus had given up too much in 23BC but after these changes he had regained everything of importance he had lost in giving up the consulship. Although he did not have the title of consul he was in effect a permanent third consul. The nobles could now happily vie for the two consulships while the common people could be reassured that their hero was in control when they saw him acting with the power of a consul. Augustus’ ability to disguise his real power (as with the consulship here) through vague positions that were difficult to pin down is thought to have helped him to survive.

 Minor Alterations After 19BC
The settlement of 19BC was the last major constitutional adjustments and changes to Augustus’ power. Occasional changes were made over the years

• In 15BC he acquired the sole right to coin gold and silver

• In 12BC after his old triumviral partner Lepidus died (this was a posting for life which Lepidus had gone on the death of Caesar) Augustus was elected pontifex maximus in his place. This office gave him great prestige as the chief priest of Jupiter  and head of the state religion and it was kept by the later emperors until Gratian in AD375

• In 5BC Augustus introduced the suffect consulship to allow more senators to hold consulships to allow more senators to hold proconsular posts.

• In 2AD the senate voted him the title pater patriae (father of his country) an honour formerly voted Cicero after his suppression of the Catiline conspiracy

After 18BC the form of the Augustan Principate was fairly fixed and the stability of the state ensured. Augustus was confident enough to celebrate the beginning of a new era with the holding of the secular games in 17BC. The celebration of magnificent festival games in honour of the event would give Augustus the chance to advertise the end of the period of political chaos and civil war and the dawn of an era of peace and prosperity under the newly ‘restored’ Republic. The message was clear the wounds from the civil war were healed and health had returned to the roman Republic. As a symbol of this the most important religious element, the joyous hymn to Apollo, was composed to Horace, a man who had once fought against Augustus at Philippi.

 The Nature of the Principate
Augustus succeeded in creating a stable form of Government. Its origins were in the old res publica and the senate and various magistrates continued to perform a number of their functions but Augustus’s continuous position of them that gave him more power then anyone in the Republic. Augustus disguised his power by not holding any extraordinary offices and turning down titles and overly powerful positions. He claimed that he never held any more power then any other official in Rome, which was true but as he held all the powers continuously he was far more powerful then anyone else. His power was maintained through his auctoritas but no matter how he disguised it Augustus was the dominant force in Rome. The historian Cassius Dio, a Greek so not as squeamish as a Roman about such things, called the principate a monarchy.

It should be noted that this wasn’t a monarchy like the Persian, Hellenistic or Parthian kings, who were the standard models of monarchy at that time. Augustus and his successors did not hold their position through right of dynastic succession and their powers were not based on any absolute sovereignty of the ruler. Their power was based on the laws and decrees passed by the legitimate authority at Rome – the senate and the people. The choice of successor by the previous emperor had to be ratified by the senate and his powers were voted anew. The senators could be compelled under the threat of military force to give their vote but this shows that their vote still meant something. Also if the emperor acted in a despotic fashion the traditions of the Republic were strong enough to foster dangerous conspiracies against him or even, as in the case of Nero, result in the condemnation as a public enemy.

Gradually as the traditions of the Republic faded into the past and the restraint weakened. The Emperor’s constitutional powers, financial resources and raw military force the later emperors were monarchs in every way.