Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

50 SENECAa decree of the Senate, the full judicial powersexercised in Rome by the emperor. In RomeClaudius became the minister of his freedmensecretaries, who accumulated vast fortunes bythe sale of honours and commands, pardonsand punishments, and at their pleasure rescindedthe emperor's decisions, tampered with his warrants,and cancelled his donatives. Pallas, themost powerful of them, was his financial secretary,and the paramour of Agrippina. Thosepowers, we are told by Tacitus, for which informer times the rival orders of the State hadso fiercely contended, which had passed fromknights to Senate and from Senate to knights,and which had been the chief subject of the warbetween Marius and Sylla, were by Claudiusgiven over to his nominees of any rank. Theearlier Caesars had indeed givenfull powersto their representatives in provinces such asEgypt, speciallyreserved to them under theconstitution of Augustus, but these had alwaysbeen knights of distinction— it was reserved toClaudius to raise the authority of freedmen ofhis household to a level with his own and thatof the laws.^Claudius himself had a passion for sittingin judgment, which recalls the judge in Racine'scomedy. In the early part of his reign he wouldsit all day in the Forum, or in the portico of oneofthe temples, hearing cases even on feast-days,^Tac. Ann. xii. 60: ' Matios posthac et Vedios et ceteraequitum praevalida nomina, referre nihil attinuerit ; cumClaudius libertos, quos rei familiari praefecerat, sibique etlegibus adaequaverit.' Also Suet., Claudius, 28.