The annals of Tacitus

INTRODUCTION xxi
(written 49 B.C.), where Caesar is said to wisli for nothing
l)etter than principe Pompeio sine metu uiuere.
Pelhara infers from these and similar passages that tlie
notion of a First Citizen at the head of affairs, of a princeps
or princeps ciuitatis, was ah'cady fainihar to the Roman
pubhc, when Augustus set to work to re-f)rganise the state.
Pelham adds that by imperial writers the term principatus
is carefully distinguished from dominatio, regnum, and dictatura
as a constitutional authority. Compare Ann. i 9 non
regno tamen neque dictatura sed principis nomine constitutam
rem publicam.
The Emperor was imperator, consul, etc. But to describe
his relation to the whole citizen body—as merely the first of
themselves—no term was so suitable as princeps.
VI. THE SENATE UNDER THE EARLY EMPIRE
Boissier^ is justly surprised at modern historians, who,
(i) because Tiberius one day remarked that the Emperor
must be the servant of the Senate, and (ii) because Nero
invited the Senate to resume its ancient functions, imagine
that they really restored them. They have, he says, even
invented a new word— 'dyarchy'— to designate this joint
government^.
1 Tacitus and other Roman Studies, p. 139.
^ Compare Stobart, ' The Senate under Augustus,' Classical
Quarterly, vol. ii, p. 298:— 'If we choose our term according to
the spirit, then undoubtedly Monarchy is the only appropriate
definition. Not only had the Princeps gathered into his hand all
the functions of the executive, but the deliberative was de facto
subordinate to him. When the deliberative organ becomes an
advisory council selected by one man, and when the electing body
merely registers the choice of that single person, then it is Monarchy,
however temperately conducted. In every sense Dyarchy
is an unsatisfactory term.'
.