Matheson Collection > Cornelli Taciti annalium

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
Tacitus is full of its debates and decisions. As of old, it awards
triumphal honours and other recognition of victories^, and sends
its thanks or rewards to allied kings as representative of the state ;
it decrees public funerals ^ and other honours to the dead ' ; it
makes regulations to repress disorder*, and curb extravagance^
and immorality, and to deal stringently with the abuses of religious
or superstitious practices ; while, abroad, all important questions
appertaining to the administration of its own provinces are referred
to it. Besides all this, the senate has supplanted the praetor's
tribunal as the great high court of criminal justice, before which
culprits of rank are almost always arraigned, especially on the
constantly recurring charge of ' maiestas".'
§ 9. Those, however, who could look below the surface knew
well that, not the senate, but the emperor through the senate,
governed ; and that it acted rather as representative of him than
of the state. Every magistrate was really so far his nominee that
only such candidates as had his recommendation, or at least his
approval ''. could be chosen ; and as the entry to the senate itself
was through magistracy " or by the direct nomination of the princeps',
every senator must have felt that he owed his position to the
emperor ; who, besides the powers formally conferred on him, had
all the advantage arising from the general recognition that, who-
ever was master of the legions, was master of as much else as he
thought fit to claim.
§ 10. If we look to the practical working of the imperial ad-
ministration, the chief difference felt by the inhabitants of Rome
must have consisted in the greater maintenance of order. Seven
thousand ' vigiles ' were distributed over the city ; a more distinctly
^ xiii 8 ; xiii 41 ; xv 18, i. ^ xiii 2, 6. ' xv 23, 4. * xiv 17, 4.
' xiii 5, I. ^ xiii 42, 43 ; xvi 22, 9.
' The princeps ' commended ' two out of the twenty quaestors annually
elecled, four out of the twelve praetors, and ' nominated ' the consuls. The
consulship was rarely held for a full year : the two consuls who gave their
name to the year retired after a few months, and were succeeded by
' consules suffecti.' Two months eventually became the ordinary length of
tenure of this office, so that there were twelve consuls per annum.
' i. e. by the quaestorship (see above, § 8).
' Some senators are styled 'adlecti a principe,'
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