Emperor, only senators were qualified alike by the prestige of rank and by an ingrained familiarity with State affairs. Not only the provinces of the Senate but those of the Emperor as well, were governed by Senators, and if we are asked to admit the existence of a Dyarchy, or division of sovereignty between Senate and Emperor, under the rule of Augustus and his immediate successors, it must be on the ground of the official positions monopolised by individual senators rather than on that of the powers possessed by the Senate as a whole.

But the position of the Senate in the Augustan constitution is too important a matter not to be considered by itself.

THE SENATE.

CHAPTER II.

The Senate.

The powers and functions of the Senate under the Empire differed greatly from its powers and functions under the Republic. It had been, to all intents and purposes, the Executive; under Augustus it became the Legislature and High Court of Justice, and under Tiberius, the electoral body. Foreign affairs, diplomacy, the supreme direction of military operations, the decision as to war or peace, all these became the exclusive business of the Emperor. The functions of the Senate under the Republic had never in theory been more than consultative, though in practice they had been executive. Practice and theory were now united, with this further development that the consultative body was not-except on certain rare occasions and as a matter of form,-consulted. The Emperor's provinces were absolutely his own affair, and with the single and short-lived exception of Africa, it was only in those provinces that there could be any question of wars or treaties. In losing those provinces the Senate also lost its exclusive hold upon the purse-strings. Who holds the purse-strings rules, and under the Republic the Treasury (aerarium) was little more than a department of the Senate. But with the Empire came in a separate imperial treasury (fiscus) into which all the taxation of the Imperial provinces was paid, as well as the proceeds of some special sources of revenue in all provinces, senatorial as well as imperial, alike. The Emperor therefore had his own independent revenues, and could pay his soldiers or make a great war without having to ask the Senate for 1. For the sake of convenience I shall in future use the term Exchequer for the fiscus, and reserve the term Treasury for the aerarium.