Matheson Collection > Cornelli Taciti annalium

INTRODUCTION
their original idea. Not unfrequently the princeps also filled one
of the consulships^, rather as a recognition of the dignity of the
office than as deriving any additional power from it. Otherwise,
the annual magistracies existed on their ancient footing, and dis-
charged their usual duties of routine ; the most important being
those of the consuls, as the regular presidents of the senate, and of
the praetors, as presiding over and regulating the ' iudicia publica.'
Side by side with them were important new officers directly ap-
pointed by the princeps ; of whom the ' praefectus praetorlo ' and
'praefectus vigilum' were his military and police vicegerents in
Rome, while the ' praefectus urbi ' and ' praefectus annonae ' must
have encroached on some functions of the republican magistrates ^
§ 7. Passing from the magistrates to the senate and the comitia,
we find that one of the first acts of Tiberius was practically to
annihilate the latter body, by transferring the election of magis-
trates to the senate ^ The people may probably have felt that
the substance of power had long since departed from them, and
that only the shadow had now followed it : at any rate, the
change took place without serious opposition, and the populace
were left with nothing henceforth to care for but their bread and
their amusements *.
§ 8. With the senate ii was outwardly far otherwise. In place
of the ' senatus populusque Romanus,' in whose name the acts of
Rome used to run, this august body alone remained, with ap-
parently still more than its ancient majesty. ' Affairs that con-
cerned the state, and the most important affairs which concerned
individuals^,' were still handled by it with apparent freedom; its
decrees come to differ only in form from laws ; in choosing magis-
trates, who by virtue of such magistracy tecome senators ^ it is
formally a self-elective body ; in form even the right of choosing
the princeps himself devolves upon it ^ ; the whole narrative of
' xiii 1 1 ; xiii 31 ; xiii 34.
^ An attempt to bring a criminal before a praetor rather than the
praefectus urbi is noticed in xiv 41, 2.
^ xiv 28. * ' Panem et circenses,' Juv. 10, 81. ' iv 6, 2.
* As a rule, the senate was entered through the quacstorship.
' Thus afier the death of Claudius the senate confiimed the soldiers'
choice of Nero, xii 69, 3.
xxviii