Lex de Imperio Vespasiani

Abstract

Few Roman documents have been more discussed than the great bronze tablet which Cola di Rienzo discovered and erected in the Church of St. John Lateran, and which preserves the latter part of a grant of powers made to Vespasian by senate and people. Does it relate to his tribunician power or to his imperium, or does it merely confer on him supplementary rights? Is the grant tralatician in character, or is it specifically designed to enlarge, or to limit, the imperial power of Vespasian? Does it explain the later juristic doctrines that the emperor could himself make law and was not bound to obey the existing laws? I shall argue that the document preserves part of the senatus consultum passed when Vespasian was first recognized at Rome in December 69; that with one possible exception in the final clause it is tralatician, probably going back to A.D. 37 but incorporating additional prerogatives conferred on Claudius and emperors between Claudius and Vespasian (Part I); and that it is indeed the basis of the juristic doctrines mentioned (Part II). A few remarks are appended on its relevance to the political theory by which imperial autocracy could be justified (Part III).