Imperivm Maivs: A Note

Abstract

Twenty years ago the publication of the Augustan edicts from Cyrene (now SEG 9, 8) was widely believed to have brought final proof that, as Dio asserts (53, 32, 5), Augustus held an imperium which was maius than that of other proconsuls and so enabled him with constitutional propriety to intervene in a senatorial province like Crete and Cyrene. But it may still be thought that the debates which led to this conclusion left certain unnecessary obscurities. If so, the present may perhaps be an appropriate time for an attempt to remove them, because the whole issue has lately been reopened by Mr. Michael Grant in his notable study of the base-metal coinages of the Roman world from 49 B.C. to A.D. 14.As his is the most recent treatment of the matter, and one which will call for close consideration, it may be well to begin by noticing his conclusions, although the purpose of what is said below does not include any general discussion of the imperium conferred on Augustus. He writes (p. 412) that ‘Caesar's dictatorial imperium which began in 49 B.C. was an imperium maius’, and that ‘an imperium maius … controlled the provinciae of others, and subordinated imperia to an imperium’; and consistently with this he goes on to describe an imperium maius as ‘the revolutionary element which permitted the un-Republican subordination of imperia to an imperium’ (p. 422).