Four notes on Tacitus

Abstract

This passage is usually taken to be a description, in however informal terms, of the constitutional position which Augustus (Octavian) held in the years immediately after the end of the Triumvirate. I propose to argue that in reality it has a different meaning. The facts are fairly simple. The second period of the Triumvirate ended with the end of 33 B.C. After that date, it seems that Octavian did not use the title Triumvir, though he probably considered his extraordinary triumviral powers as still running till he formally laid them down in 28–27 B.C. The consulship began in 33 when Octavian was consul for a few hours on 1st January. He was consul again for the whole of 31 and for all the following years continuously till midsummer, 23 ; then he finally resigned the office. The question of the tribunicia potestas is more difficult. According to Appian, Octavian received the tribunicia potestas in 36 B.C. According to Dio, a vote was then passed “that neither in act or word should any violence be offered him, and that in the contrary case (that is, if he were assaulted) the assailant should be liable as in the case of assaulting a tribune.” The Monumentum Ancyranum adds what may be a third statement to the same effect. In a mutilated passage in chapter x it records, without giving a date, that Augustus was made sacrosanct, and that he received the tribunicia potestas for life. A further statement appears in Dio (li, 19, 6) to the effect that in 30 B.C., just after Actium, Octavian received the tribunician power for life, and that this power extended even a little way beyond the pomerium . Otherwise there is no mention of the tribunician power as used by Octavian (Augustus), till he began to reckon the dates of his reign by it in 23 B.C. (Dio, liii, 17 and 32).