Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus Read Online Free PDF Page B

vast fortunes, but by Agrippa’s time, several were impoverished and some plebeians now exceeded them in wealth, while reforms of civil rights had granted them access to the priesthoods, further eroding their élite status.
    The Roman system of government divided its male citizen population – women, freedmen, slaves and foreigners could not participate – into two bodies. The division was encapsulated in the four iconic letters SPQR, which stood for Senatus Populusque Romanus , meaning simply ‘The Senate and Roman People’. There were nearly a million adult male voters when Agrippa was born and to exercise their rights, they had no choice but to come in person to Rome to meet their fellow citizens, hear political speeches ( contiones ) delivered from the Rostra in the Forum , and vote on the Campus Martius .
    The membership of the Senate, referred to deferentially as Patres Conscripti , ‘Conscript Fathers’, comprised of serving and former magistrates whose number had swollen to almost 1,000 when Agrippa was a young man beginning his career. Some were called by the vulgar Orcivi (slaves set free by their master’s will), were wholly unworthy, and had been admitted after Caesar’s death by M. Antonius through favour or bribery. Current magistrates represented a small number of the members, and those who had served as junior magistrates were called senatores pedarii because they were not permitted to speak, but shuffled from one side of the Senate House ( Curia ) to the other to show their support of a speaker. About half of the pedarii were men like Agrippa himself, so-called homines novi , ‘new men’, who had no blood connection with an old family clan. Originally the advisory council of elders (from senex , ‘old man’) to the king, the Senate of the Republic was an advisory body to the magistrates through the passing of decrees ( senatus consulta ). These advisories did not have legal force, but more often than not they were followed: the senatus consultum had its authority based in precedent, not in law. The Senate could not pass laws – only the enfranchised People could do that. On a day-to-day basis, the Senate directed the magistrates, managed the public treasury and administrated the provinces through appointments drawn bylot of members who had served terms in public office. Meetings began at dawn and were held in public. A presiding magistrate opened the session with a speech, proposed a matter for discussion and then permitted members to speak on it in order of their seniority. A vote for a s enatus consultum could be passed with a show of hands, though it could be immediately vetoed by a tribune. Senators were barred from engaging in commercial activities and were required to seek the permission of the Senate if they wished to leave Italy.
    The People were Roman citizens who lived not just in Rome, but in the enfranchised cities of Italy and coloniae across the empire. Power was vested in the People through assemblies, which were protected and regulated by law. The main legislative body was the Comitia Centuriata or Centuriate Assembly. It met to vote on the Campus Martius in an area cordoned off for balloting called the saepta and voters lined up in what the Romans wittily called ‘sheep pens’ ( ovile ). A herald read out the motion and each voter cast a pebble into jars or baskets ( cistae ) marked for or against. The Comitia was divided into 193 voting blocs called centuriae or centuries divided according to property class and may have related to the military centuries which formed the legions of civilians at arms when called to war. Each centuria represented one vote, and as a simple majority determined the outcome of a vote, when the eighty centuries of patricians united with the eighteen centuries of knights they won the majority and could ratify legislation, election results or court verdicts in their favour. In passing statutory law ( lex ) the Comitia Centuriata could, for example,