Ceremony and Power: Performing Politics in Rome between Republic and Empire

9. The Princeps as Performer

9 The Princeps as Performer Creating Court Ceremony
W hen Augustus on his deathbed compared his life and career to the performance of a mime, even extending the metaphor with a request for applause as he left the stage,1 he acknowledged that his actions as princeps were highly performative—that is, self-conscious, represented actions that took place in the gaze of the Roman people. This metaphor also demonstrates an awareness of the highly visible and ceremonial nature of the exercise of political power in Rome. This idea of princeps as performer seems to have grown out of the notion that in dealing with the plebs urbana it was not so much what one gave to them but rather how it was given.2 Thus, showmanship, performance, and ceremony became the cornerstones of the Augustan Principate. The context of the princeps’ performance is best understood in the larger scheme of Roman history between the Triumviral period and the consolidation of the power of the princeps. As a way of marking the end of the Second Triumvirate, and thus distancing himself from the proscriptions, debilitating exactions, and civil war that had become common in this period, Augustus claimed to have restored public affairs to the senate and people of Rome in 28 and 27 BC.3 In order to signal this change further in the eyes of the Roman populace, the princeps made a great show of handing the fasces over to his colleague in the consulship of 28, M. Agrippa—an indication that the traditional powers of the consuls would be shared between the two colleagues.4 Whatever extraordinary powers Augustus received in the period of his great consolidation (27–23 BC) ostensibly remained within the framework of the traditional institutions of the 220 Roman Republic. Nevertheless, the evidence is clear that to those living at the time there was no doubt about who would settle disputes that arose in the provinces or grant favors to loyal allies; in other words, there was no doubt in whose hands power resided in the Roman world.5 Augustus adapted the requirements of Roman Republican traditions and values to his own needs for political self-preservation and dynamic displays of power, thus creating the novel form of government that we call the Principate. Roman Republican ceremonial remained important to Augustus, yet it, too, had to be modi‹ed to ‹t the requirements of the new princeps. In effect, these traditional Republican institutions, through which the people had long expressed their will and exercised their power, were reshaped to form one element of the court ceremony of the Principate. This transformation took time—it was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Part of the process (as we have seen) was initiated by Caesar and continued under the triumvirate. In this chapter, we will discuss the completion of this process of transformation by examining public ceremonial under Augustus. The length of the chronological period under discussion renders impossible a complete narrative of events and the role of all ceremonies in them. Our approach, therefore , will be to apply the typology of Roman Republican ceremonial, as established in the ‹rst chapter, to the Augustan Principate—to overlay the framework from chapter 1 onto the ceremonies of the Principate in order to identify more effectively the areas where change was most dramatic and also to see where the tensions were: where Augustus had to modify the existing ceremonies for his own purposes. Four main themes will emerge from this discussion: ‹rst, the theme (or opposing themes) of continuity with and change from the Republic; second, the effect that the changing topography of the city had on ceremony and politics; third, Augustus’ use of public ceremonial to celebrate his family, introduce its members into public life and eventually designate a successor; fourth, the use of ceremony to retell history . Finally, Augustus understood the necessity of controlling these ceremonies of popular politics, demonstrating that the support of the Roman people formed one cornerstone of his Principate. This discussion, within the limits of a single chapter, cannot be exhaustive, and there will inevitably be gaps. It is my hope, however, that it will point the way to further research. Oratory before the People Public oratory was one of the de‹ning aspects of the politics of the Roman Republic, and we have seen that it remained the principal means of communication between the political elite and the Roman people in the months The Princeps as Performer 221 [3.138.102.178...