Introduction: mihi quŏque conlegae fuerunt

1In the logic of the Res Gestae, chapter 34 represents Augustus’ aristeia, his greatest achievement. Augustus tells a story about resigning power: “powerful over all things” ([po]tens re[ru]m om[n]ium) after extinguishing civil wars, he had transferred res publica “from his power” (ex mea potestate) to the discretion of the Roman senate and people, and after this time had “in no degree more power” ([potest]atis au[tem n]ihilo ampliu[s]) than colleagues in a magistracy.1 Augustus carefully situates his power with respect to the Roman senate, people, and magistrates.

2Augustus’ ostensible resignation of power has been seen as the founding gesture in what might be called the recusatio imperii model of the Principate, first articulated by Jean Béranger.2 According to this model, Tiberius began his reign by repeating Augustus’ refusal of power, and the senate begged Tiberius to accept power during the “accession debate”. The ceremonial refusal of power then became the accession ritual of Roman emperors. According the model, recusatio imperii expressed the fundamental ideology of the Principate, as Clifford Ando writes:

[Such language] provided the ideological backdrop for that most characteristic gesture of the would-be princeps: the refusal of power. As J. Béranger astutely pointed out, the theatrical refusal elicited from the people an expression of their consensus – a stylized expression of libertas – and thus forced them to actively consent to his rule.3

3Now A.J. Woodman’s resolution of a notorious crux at RGDA, 34, 3 causes us to look again at ch. 34, to discern connections between the Res Gestae and the accession debate, and to take a radically different perspective on the accession debate itself. Woodman has shown, on grounds of Latinity, that we must read quŏque (adverb: “too”) rather than quōque (adjective: “each”) at RGDA, 34, 3:4

post id tem[pus a]uctoritate [omnibus praestiti, potest]atis au[tem n]ihilo ampliu[s habu]i quam cet[eri, qui m]ihi quŏque in ma[gis]tra[t]u conlegae f[uerunt].

4Woodman translates:

After that time I excelled everyone in influence but I did not have a degree more power than the others whom I too had as magisterial colleagues.

5Woodman’s reading of quŏque instead of quōque does two things. First, the reading shifts Augustus’ emphasis from negative to positive – from having no more power to having colleagues. Second, the reading quŏque introduces a stridently defensive tone, which Woodman conveys in a paraphrase: “he did not have a jot more power than his colleagues in the magistracy, and (let me remind you, as it were) he too actually had colleagues, in this respect also being no different from anyone else”.

6What are we to make of this? Why does Augustus emphasize having colleagues? How do we account for Augustus’ argumentative tone? The answer comes when we connect the Res Gestae to the accession debate. The Res Gestae was recited, along with Augustus’ will and other final papers, during the first meeting of senate after Augustus’ death (4 September AD 14). At the second meeting the accession debate occurred (17 September). Now when we read Tacitus’ paraphrase of Tiberius’ words at the beginning of the debate we notice something new: not just a refusal of power, but also a demand for colleagues:

Versae inde ad Tiberium preces. et ille varie diserebat de magnitudine imperii sua modestia. Solam divi Augusti mentem tantae molis capacem: se in partem curarum ab illo vocatum experiendo didicisse quam arduum, quam subiectum fortunae regendi cuncta onus. Proinde in civitate tot inlustribus viris subnixa non ad unum omnia deferrent: plures facilius munia rei publicae sociatis laboribus exsecuturos.5

7Augustus’ emphasis on having colleagues anticipates Tiberius’ demand for colleagues of his own.

8In this paper I argue that the pattern of RGDA, 34, 3 on Woodman’s reading holds for the Res Gestae as a whole. Augustus goes to unrecognized lengths to defend his exercise of power as collegial, and adopts an argumentative tone that suggests that he anticipated opposition. I also make the methodological point that the Res Gestae itself should be considered a concrete part of the senatorial debates following Augustus’ death, and in that way directly connected to the accession debate. Turning to the accession debate, I argue that it does in fact continue the implicit debate of the Res Gestae. Against Woodman’s own influential interpretation of Tacitus’ account of the accession debate,6 I argue that Tiberius’ demand for colleagues should be taken at face value, and that the issue in the debate was not whether Tiberius would rule, but how: alone or with colleagues. Finally, I examine Velleius Paterculus’ eyewitness account of the accession debate. I argue that Velleius’ account is compatible with my interpretation of the debate – but incompatible with the idea that Augustus founded a new regime called the Principate and that Tiberius’ refusal of principatus was the first iteration of an accession ritual. Velleius saw Tiberius’ debate with loyalist senators as a luctatio civitatis and a continuation of struggles over leadership during the Republic.

Res Gestae: conlegam et ipse ultro depoposci

9Another look at the Res Gestae confirms and extends Woodman’s reading. Collegiality emerges as a central feature of Augustus’ self-presentation, and Augustus shows the same defensiveness around the subject. The importance of collegiality was already recognized by Edwin Judge, who also saw the defensiveness where no one else did. It is possible to go a bit further.

10Since Béranger, we have highlighted the motif of refusal of power in the Res Gestae: Augustus transferring res publica from his power;7 rejecting the dictatorship, annual and perpetual consulship, and post of curator of laws and morals when offered by senate and people;8 and resisting being made pontifex maximus while Lepidus was still alive.9 We have tied these refusals of power to Augustus’ declining honours and other poses of modesty. We call these recusationes, though Augustus uses the verb recusare only in connection with pontifex maximus.

11We are right to link Augustus’ rejection of autocratic offices at RGDA, 5-6 with his resigning autocratic power at RGDA, 34, and to see refusal of power as a conscious theme in the Res Gestae. Augustus makes the link himself in his rationale for rejecting offices at RGDA, 6, 1, which is an inverse equivalent to his claim about resigning power at RGDA, 34, 3. But the link between the twinned programmatic passages is not refusal of power; it is collegiality and equipotency (summa potestate/potestatis nihilo amplius, solus/conlegae, magistratus/magistratus)10.

12Now, thanks to Woodman’s reading, we can see a further link between RGDA, 5-6 and RGDA, 34. For as at RGDA, 34, Augustus concludes his catalogue of refusals at RGDA, 5-6 with a positive claim. Though Augustus refused the autocratic offices offered and people, he accomplished the senate’s will with the tribunician power – which was collegial:

quae] [tum per me geri senatus] v[o]luit per trib[un]ici[a]m p[otestatem perfeci, cuius] [potes]tatis conlegam et [ips]e ultro [quinquiens a sena]tu [de]poposci et accepi.11

13As at RGDA, 34 (on Woodman’s reading quŏque), Augustus’ final emphasis here is on having colleagues. As at RGDA, 34, Augustus’ tone is notably defensive. Augustus might have said simply, cuius potestatis conlegam quinquiens a senatu accepi. Instead, as Judge saw, Augustus “build[s] in no fewer than five distinct verbal elements all of which are strictly superfluous to the plain statement of fact […] the law of the gratuitous extra applies: what matters most is what has been introduced above the bare minimum.”12 Thus: et opens an emphatic parenthesis; ipse underlines Augustus’ agency; ultro underlines his independent initiative; depoposci et attests to his deference to the senate.13 Judge continues: “The message comes through loud and clear, summing up his handling of the difficult material embraced by 5 and 6: ‘I was doing my best to avoid the creation of extraordinary powers which went beyond the principle of collegiality upon which the magistracies rest’”. Augustus is at the greatest pains to defend his exercise of power as collegial. In the logic of the Res Gestae the negative motif of recusatio functions as a foil for the positive motif of collegiality.

14There is more. First, throughout the Res Gestae Augustus takes every opportunity to mention his colleagues and to use the words collega/conlega and collegium/conlegium.14 He records that Agrippa was his conlega for the census of 29-28 BC and Tiberius was his conlega for the census of AD 13-14;15 that he defied popular will and refused to replace his still-living conlega (Lepidus) as pontifex maximus;16 and that Agrippa was his collega when he produced the Ludi Saeculares in 17 BC. Here Augustus uses the words collegium and collega three times in the space of five words:

[pr]o conlegio XVvirorum magi[s]ter [con]legii collega M(arco) Agrippa lu[dos s]aec(u)lares C(aio) Furnio C(aio) Silano co(n)s(ulibus) [feci].17

15Second, in a way that has not been sufficiently recognized, Augustus portrays his whole public career as collegial, except for temporary emergencies.18 Augustus acknowledges four instances when he assumed emergency powers in order to save the republic: in 44 BC, when he raised a private army and liberated the res publica;19 in 32 BC, during the gap between the expiration of his triumviral powers at the end of 33 BC and his third consulship in 31 BC, when he answered the demand of tota Italia and served as dux – for an express purpose, which he accomplished (be[lli] quo vici ad Actium);20 in 30-29 BC, when he was powerful over all things after extinguishing civil wars;21 and in 23 BC, when he did not refuse the curatio annonae and at his own expense freed the whole community from famine in a few days.22

16But Augustus claims that throughout his career his formal exercise of power had always been collegial. Thus, in his first public commission, the senate ordered him to defend the res publica “in company with the consuls” (simul cum consulibus).23 When both consuls fell, the people elected him first consul, then triumvir – a collegial office, with an express purpose, which Augustus implies that he held for a limited term ([tri]umv[i]rum rei pu[blicae c]on[s]ti[tuendae fui per continuos an]nos [decem])24. Afterward, as we have seen, Augustus was consul again and holder of the tribunician power.25 In this way Augustus stresses collegiality in every aspect of his public career: offices (consul, triumvir), formal powers (censorial power, tribunician power), priesthoods (pontifex maximus, XVvir).

17In sum, Augustus’ portrayal of his exercise of power has three parts. Augustus acknowledges exercising private power for the sake of the res publica; but he stresses that he rejected formal, ongoing autocratic offices; and he claims that his formal exercise of power was always collegial. The link between the Res Gestae and the accession debate is not recusatio; it is collegiality.

Meetings of the senate: studio certatim progressus est

18One reason to connect the Res Gestae and the accession debate is that all of Augustus’ other final papers figured in debates where senators and Tiberius clashed. Too often the Res Gestae has been studied in isolation from the accession debate, and the accession debate in isolation from the other senatorial debates. Our sources record four debates during the senatorial meetings on 4 and 17 September, all having a similar genesis and form:

19. Augustus’ instructions for his funeral and the debate about his honours: senators competed to augment Augustus’ funeral honours; Tiberius vetoed proposals “with arrogant restraint”.26

20. Breviarium totius imperii and accession debate: Tiberius ordered a recital of Augustus’ summary of the empire’s resources in order to show that the empire was too great to be governed by a single man; senators instead insisted that the empire required a single head.27

21. Augustus’ will and honours for Livia: Augustus named Livia his heir on condition she take his name, apparently the same procedure of “testamentary adoption” that had allowed him to call himself Divi filius.28 Senators debated whether to call the new Iulia Augusta parens or mater patriae; . Tiberius advised restraint in honouring women and again vetoed proposed honours.29

22. Ordinatio comitiorum and praetorian elections: Augustus commended twelve candidates for praetorships; senators pressed Tiberius to add more names; Tiberius swore an oath never to do so.30

23Three points should be stressed. First, each debate concerned Augustus’ legacy – and Tiberius’ future. Repeatedly Tiberius was implicated in the debates, as when Valerius Messalla interrupted the debate over Augustus’ funeral honours to propose annual renewal of the oath to Tiberius, or when, during the debate over Livia’s honours, a majority of senators proposed calling Tiberius Iuliae filius. Second, the debates were interconnected. Thus the two senators whom Tacitus singles out by name for the extravagance of their proposals during the funeral honours debate, L. Arruntius and Asinius Gallus, would reappear as Tiberius’ first two interlocutors in the accession debate.31 Third, the Res Gestae itself was part of senatorial debates. Not only was the text read aloud and acted on (by being inscribed and displayed, per Augustus’ wishes, at his Mausoleum), but the inscriptions of the Res Gestae preserve part of the senate’s response, in the third-person Heading and Appendix framing Augustus’ first-person text. The Heading registers Augustus’ deification, while the Appendix summarizes Augustus’ benefactions and adds the item that Augustus “made up the census requirements of individual friends and senators.”32 All this provides a basis for linking the Res Gestae to the accession debate.33

Accession debate: quaecumque pars sibi mandaretur

24My argument is that the implicit debate of the Res Gestae anticipated the accession debate. Tiberius demanded colleagues, but senators said that the empire required a single princeps and refused to apportion responsibilities.

25The accession debate has been seen as a response to Tiberius’ refusal of power. It is true, when we look at our two contemporary sources for Tiberius’ accession, that Ovid speaks only of Tiberius’ refusal, then acceptance, of the “reins of power”,34 while Velleius Paterculus, who was present at the debate, says that Tiberius preferred to act as aequalis civis rather than preeminent princeps and refused principatus almost longer than others had fought for it.35 Neither Ovid nor Velleius says anything about colleagues. But our three retrospective sources, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio, all say that Tiberius also advanced a positive proposal and asked the senate to divide responsibilities and appoint colleagues. Tacitus’ paraphrase of Tiberius’ initial speech is quoted above. Tacitus continues:

Inter quae senatu ad infimas obtestationes procumbente, dixit forte Tiberius se ut non toti rei publicae parem, ita quaecumque pars sibi mandaretur eius tutelam suscepturum.36

26Suetonius also records that Tiberius asked the senate to assign collegial responsibilities:

[…] partes sibi quas senatui liberet, tuendas in re p. depoposcit, quando universae sufficere solus nemo posset nisi cum altero vel etiam cum pluribus.37

27As does Cassius Dio:

ἔπειτα δὲ κοινωνούς τέ τινας καὶ συνάρχοντας, οὔτι γε καὶ πάντων καθάπαξ ὥσπερ ἐν ὀλιγαρχίᾳ, ἀλλ ἐς τρία μέρη νέμων αὐτήν, ᾔτει, καὶ τὸ μὲν αὐτὸς ἔχειν ἠξίου, τῶν δὲ ἑτέρων ἄλλοις παρεχώρει.38

28How do we reconcile these? In the following I frame my argument around Woodman’s reading of Tacitus’ account of the accession debate, for two reasons.39 First, because it represents the closest reading of the principal account of the accession debate. Second, because Woodman has the merit of confronting the question of colleagues directly. Woodman argues that Tiberius’ demand for colleagues itself amounted to a refusal of power, and that the accession debate was about whether or not Tiberius would rule. The position I am arguing for is most directly anticipated by Miriam Griffin, who wrote in 1974: “The issue that emerges from Tacitus’ report of the debate is that of sole v. shared power (the situation that obtained from AD 13) and, from Suetonius’ account, that of duration.”40 I differ from Griffin in using the evidence of the Res Gestae and in answering Woodman’s counter-arguments.41

29Woodman argues that Tiberius’ initial call for collegial rule was ambiguous, because he did not explicitly say that he would play a part; that he had not done so is demonstrated when Tiberius introduces a new idea and says he will play a part and Asinius Gallus asks him what part he wishes to play; Tiberius then returns to his initial position of retirement, and the debate comes to an ambiguous end:

301) At Ann., 1, 11, 1, because Tiberius does not explicitly include himself when he proposes sharing labours, “his words are nevertheless not inconsistent with a much more drastic proposal: that he wished to withdraw entirely from public affairs and to let the senators get on with the job themselves”.42

312) At Ann., 1, 12, 1, the words dixit forte indicate that Tiberius is introducing a new idea and “state[s] plainly that he is prepared to play some part”.43

323) At Ann., 1, 12, 2, the senator “Asinius Gallus asks him what part he is willing to play”.44

334) And at Ann., 1, 12, 2, Tiberius withdraws his offer and reverts to his initial preference for retirement.45

345) After this, nothing more is said about Tiberius’ offer to play a role, and debate peters out. At Ann., 1, 12, 3-13, 1, a second intervention by Asinius Gallus and one by L. Arruntius “seem to have caused [Tiberius] to withdraw his offer, of which nothing more is heard”; at Ann., 1, 13, 4, subsequent interventions “appear to be based on the premise of complete withdrawal”; and at Ann., 1, 13, 5, “this seems not to be contradicted by the sentence with which Tacitus brings the debate to its ambiguous conclusion”.46

35So for Woodman Tiberius’ call for collegial rule, despite initial ambiguity, amounted to a recusatio imperii.47

36Against Woodman, I argue that Tiberius’ demand for colleagues should be taken at face value. The immediate issue in the exchange with Asinius Gallus was whether the senate would take the initiative and assign collegial responsibilities; the underlying question was not whether Tiberius would exercise power, but whether Tiberius would do so alone or with colleagues.

371) Tiberius’ participation could be taken for granted. At the time of the debate Tiberius possessed supreme military and civil powers (collega imperii, consors tribuniciae potestatis),48 had exercised both, and never moved to resign either. Instead during the debate the senator Mamercus Scaurus refers to Tiberius’ potentially exercising his tribunician power.49

382) At Ann., 1, 12, 1, Tiberius’ new idea (dixit forte) is not that he might play a part, but that his part would be mandated to him by the senate (quaecumque pars sibi mandarateur eius tutelam suscepturum).

393) At Ann., 1, 12, 2, Asinius Gallus’ question is not what part Tiberius wants to play, but what part he wants to have mandated to him (quam partem rei publicae mandari tibi velis).

404) At Ann., 1, 12, 2, when Tiberius floats the idea of not participating, he does not refuse (recusare) power; he talks about “being excused”, presumably by the senate (excusari mallet).

415) At Ann., 1, 12, 3, when Asinius Gallus explains himself, he ignores Tiberius’ remark about being excused, and talks only about the indivisibility of the res publica and the need for one-man rule:

rursum Gallus (etenim vultu offensionem coniectaverat) non idcirco interrogatum ait, ut divideret quae separari nequirent sed ut sua confessione argueretur unum esse rei publicae corpus atque unius animo regendum.50

42For, surely, that is what the accession debate was about: sole v. shared power. In Cassius Dio’s account of the exchange between Tiberius and Asinius Gallus, the question is again the divisibility of empire and Gallus again flips Tiberius’ question and reverses the initiative:

ὡς οὖν πολὺς ἐνέκειτο, οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι καὶ ὣς ἀντέλεγον δῆθεν καὶ ἐδέοντο αὐτοῦ ἄρχειν πάντων, Ἀσίνιος δὲ δὴ Γάλλος παρρησίᾳ ἀεί ποτε πατρῴᾳ καὶ ὑπὲρ τὸ συμφέρον αὐτῷ χρώμενος “ἑλοῦ” ἔφη “ἣν ἂν ἐθελήσῃς μοῖραν.” καὶ Τιβέριος “καὶ πῶς οἷόν τέ ἐστιν” εἶπεν “τὸν αὐτὸν καὶ νέμειν τι καὶ αἱρεῖσθαι;” συνεὶς οὖν ὁ Γάλλος ἐν ᾧ κακοῦ ἐγεγόνει, τῷ μὲν λόγῳ ἐθεράπευσεν αὐτόν, ὑπολαβὼν ὅτι “οὐχ ὡς καὶ τὸ τρίτον ἕξοντός σου, ἀλλ ὡς ἀδύνατον ὂν τὴν ἀρχὴν διαιρεθῆναι, τοῦτό σοι προέτεινα.”51

43The issue in the accession debate was not Tiberius’ refusal of power, but the senate’s refusal to grant Tiberius colleagues.

Accession debate: ut stationi paternae succederet

44My first point is that the debate is not over whether Tiberius will rule or not, but whether he will do so alone or with partners, autocratically or collegially. The second point I want to bring out is that the debate turns on contrasting interpretations of Augustus’ legacy. To fully appreciate what was going on, we need to examine the procedure of the accession debate. For as Syme said, it was “not so much a debate as a ceremony”.52

45First, the consuls’ motion. All Tacitus tells us is that the consuls’ motion consisted of “prayers” (preces), though he tells us twice.53 For a long time scholars speculated about what constitutional power or charge the consuls might have been offering (imperium, a provincia), on the assumption that Tiberius then tried to reject it.54 But since the publication of the Senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre, the consensus has been that the content of the consuls’ motion is reflected in the account of the eyewitness Velleius. Velleius said that the Roman senate and people urged “that Tiberius succeed to his father’s position” (ut stationi paternae succederet).55 Six years later, in the SC de Pisone, the senate would use the same phrase statio paterna when telling Tiberius that, with Germanicus dead, he should direct his care toward the younger Drusus:

ut omnem curam, quam | in duos quondam filios suos partitus erat, ad eum, quem haberet, conuerteret,| sperareq(ue) senatum eum qu{p}i [su]persit tanto maiori curae dis immortalibus | fore, quanto magis intellegerent omnem spem futuram paternae pro | r(e) p(ublica) stationis in uno repos[i]ta<m>.56

46The SC de Pisone confirms the content of the consuls’ motion, but there is more to be said about its form. For, under Augustus, prayers and other speech-forms invoking the gods (thanks, vows, oaths) had become a vehicle, used by both the emperor and senators, for expressing wishes for the future, and especially the imperial succession. Among several Augustan and Tiberian examples we may cite Augustus’ prayer that he be remembered as auctor of the optimus status;57 Augustus’ prayer for the res publica as Gaius and Lucius became men and succeeded to Augustus’ statio;58 and the vow with which Velleius closes his history, that Tiberius long occupy his statio and have successors.59

47Such prayers served various functions. Prayers of course solemnized the speakers’ words and gave them divine sanction. Prayers also asserted consensus and equated the peace and prosperity of the res publica with that of the emperor and his successors. But discursively the most important feature of prayers was that they could not be contradicted, for two reasons: a) because prayers were addressed to gods, not human interlocutors; b) because prayers neither offered something that could be rejected nor advanced a proposition that could be invalidated. You can’t argue with a prayer. Thus during the same session of the senate as the accession debate we find two instances in which oaths effectively closed down debate, when a senator swore that he had witnessed Augustus ascend to heaven from his pyre,60 and when Tiberius swore an oath that he would never commend more than the twelve candidates for the praetorship.61

48How then was one expected to respond to a prayer such as the consuls’ motion? Probably with another prayer. At least that was how Augustus had responded in 2 BC when Valerius Messalla senior saluted him as pater patriae:

Is mandantibus cunctis: “Quod bonum,” inquit, “faustumque sit tibi domuique tuae, Caesar Auguste! Sic enim nos perpetuam felicitatem rei p. et laeta huic <imperio> precari existimamus: senatus te consentiens cum populo R. consalutat patriae patrem”. Cui lacrimans respondit Augustus his verbis – ipsa enim, sicut Messalae, posui –: “Compos factus votorum meorum, p. c., quid habeo aliud deos immortales precari, quam ut hunc consensum vestrum ad ultimum finem vitae mihi perferre liceat?”62

49But Tiberius did not respond to the consuls’ motion with a prayer. Instead Tiberius responded with his own definition of statio paterna, first characterizing Augustus’ rôle, then announcing his intention to follow Augustus.63 Tiberius characterizes Augustus’ rôle precisely as Augustus had done in the Res Gestae: capable of sole rule, but had summoned Tiberius as his partner. Now Tiberius intends to follow Augustus: in possession of sole power after Augustus’ death, Tiberius expects senators to grant him colleagues.64

50For our retrospective sources, Tiberius’ possession and exercise of these powers was the core of his hypocrisy. Tiberius had given the watchword to the guard ut imperator and addressed the legions tamquam adepto principatu (“as thought the principate were acquired”)65. He had exercised tribunician power when he summoned the senate to its first meeting.66 Yet Tiberius’ implicit idea now seems perfectly legitimate, in light of our reading of the Res Gestae. Tiberius’ exercise of sole power was temporary. Once the senate met, he could expect to receive colleagues. Tiberius was following Augustus’ example by demanding colleagues from the senate.67 But senators insisted that Tiberius rule alone. From Tiberius’ perspective, it was the senate, not he, that refused to act.

51The consuls offered prayers; Tiberius asked for colleagues: what happened next? There is a second reason that we should think of the accession debate as a ceremony rather than a substantive debate. This has to do with the form of the ensuing exchange between Tiberius and senators. For the exchange was not a formal debate, but a series of interrogations. In a senatorial debate, the presiding magistrate asked a question and senators offered their opinions (sententiae) in order. During the exchange at the meeting on 17 September, only Tiberius offers a sententia, senators intervene outside order of seniority to ask questions or make brief statements,68 and Tiberius repeatedly takes the floor to answer senators’ questions. The same interrogatio procedure had been seen at the previous meeting, when Valerius Messalla proposed annual renewal of Tiberius’ oath. Tiberius immediately intervened to ask a question: whether he (Tiberius) had mandated Messalla to make the proposal (interrogatusque a Tiberio num se mandante eam sententiam prompsisset).69

52This has two consequences. First, it strongly suggests that Tacitus’ account of the “accession debate” is essentially complete. On the assumption that Tacitus narrates a typical senatorial debate, it has often been said that Tacitus provides only an abbreviated account of what must have been a protracted proceeding, perhaps lasting days. The opposite is true, and a closer examination of Tacitus’ account reveals a quick succession of overlapping interventions.70 We do not know how long senators’ collective protests and the reading of Augustus’ libellus may have lasted. But we do not need to posit additional interventions, or longer ones, because senators’ interventions were questions, not speeches. Second, the procedure explains why Tacitus does not register a decision at the end of the debate. The form allowed senators to probe and challenge Tiberius’ interpretation of Augustus’ legacy, and to try to make Tiberius say what they wanted to hear, while they ignored his request for colleagues. On this reading Tacitus’ concluding sentence simply summarizes the preceding narrative, without indicating further activity.71

Tiberius’ colleagues: adipisci principem locum

53The accession debate was an awkward ceremony in which Tiberius and senators differed about the nature of Augustus’ legacy, and in which Tiberius tried and failed to get senators to take substantive action and appoint colleagues. Who might Tiberius’ colleagues have been? We can only speculate, but Tiberius’ potential colleagues might have been the very senators who spoke against collegiality and in favour of one-man rule. This is suggested by Tacitus’ report of Augustus’ rumoured final conversations:

quippe Augustus supremis sermonibus cum tractaret quinam adipisci principem locum suffecturi abnuerent aut inpares vellent vel idem possent cuperentque, M. Lepidum dixerat capacem sed aspernantem, Gallum Asinium avidum et minorem, L. Arruntium non indignum et si casus daretur ausurum. De prioribus consentitur, pro Arruntio quidam Cn. Pisonem tradidere; omnesque praeter Lepidum variis mox criminibus struente Tiberio circumventi sunt.72

54Conventionally the subjects of Augustus’ supremi sermones have been understood as Tiberius’ potential rivals: men capable of attaining princeps locus, which is translated as “the position of princeps” or “the Principate”. But we may equally translate princeps locus with an indefinite article and understand the senators as potential colleagues rather than rivals: capable of “a leading position” alongside Tiberius. Certainly a report of conflicting rumours of private conversations cannot have the same evidentiary status as Tacitus’ paraphrases of speeches in the senate. But we can use the item to follow the logic of Tacitus’ narrative. Asinius Gallus and L. Arruntius appear three times in the space of six chapters: first as proponents of extravagant funeral honours for Augustus; second as Tiberius’ opponents during the accession debate; and third (if I am right about princeps locus) as Tiberius’ potential colleagues.

55Extending the speculation, we might imagine that these senators were exactly the sort of loyalists and monarchists that Augustus had in mind when he defended his rule as collegial in the Res Gestae, or that Tacitus says Tiberius had in mind and the time of the first meeting of the senate, when he was “examining the will of the nobles”.73

56If we can only speculate about what might have happened, we know what did happen. Tiberius petitioned for imperium for Germanicus,74 thereby taking Germanicus as colleague, as he would later take the younger Drusus and Seianus as colleagues.75 What is notable is that, in the words that Tacitus attributes to Tiberius, Tiberius explicitly cites himself as precedent when he petitions the senate for tribunician power for Drusus in AD 22.76 Tiberius calls Drusus laboris particeps and Seianus socius laborum.77 In Tacitus’ account, the Germanicus, Drusus, and Seianus fulfil the role for colleagues that Tiberius had presented during the accession debate.

Conclusion: luctatio civitatis fuit

57I have argued that the senatorial debate over Tiberius’ accession continued the implicit debate of the Augustus’ Res Gestae, and that the issue was not whether Tiberius would rule, but how: alone or with colleagues. To sketch some implications of this argument, it will be helpful to return to Velleius Paterculus, who was an eyewitness to the accession debate. First, though, we must establish that Velleius’ testimony is compatible with my reading of the accession debate. For as we saw Velleius says only that Tiberius preferred to act as aequalis civis rather than eminens princeps and refused principatus almost longer than others had fought for it, while saying nothing explicit about colleagues:

Una tamen veluti luctatio civitatis fuit, pugnantis cum Caesare senatus populique Romani, ut stationi paternae succederet, illius, ut potius aequalem civem quam eminentem liceret agere principem. Tandem magis ratione quam honore victus est, cum quidquid tuendum non suscepisset, periturum videret, solique huic contigit paene diutius recusare principatum, quam, ut occuparent eum, alii armis pugnaverant.78

58First, aequalis civis does not imply retirement, and might mean sharing power equally. Civis means “fellow citizen”, not “private citizen” (which would be privatus). In Velleius’ usage Tiberius could be both civis and eminens, as Velleius says he was after receiving tribunician power in 6 BC, when he was civium post unum […] eminentissimus.79 But in AD 14 Tiberius refused to be single unequal citizen, eminens princeps. He refused principatus. Second, quidquid tuendum non suscepisset must refer to a share of divided responsibility; the choice facing Tiberius was whether to undertake the protection of all or some, not all or none. Velleius’ account is all the more valuable because Velleius speaks as a Tiberian loyalist, who himself held the view that succeeding to statio paterna did mean acting as eminens princeps. In this way Velleius’ perspective matches that of Asinius Gallus and the other senior senators who spoke during the accession debate.

59Velleius’ account is however incompatible with two key tenets of the recusatio model. The first is that, at the senate meeting on 17 September, Tiberius performed a recusatio imperii. In Velleius, Tiberius’ recusatio was not a refusal of power, but his refusal to discuss his position until final honours had been paid to Augustus, especially at the first meeting of the senate on 4 September. Velleius says that Tiberius “refused principatus almost longer than others sought it with arms”: recusatio refers to the nearly month-long period going back to Augustus’ death on 19 August. Similarly, Ovid says that Tiberius’ refusal was repeated, while our other sources talk about a prolonged delay.80

60None of this can be squared with the idea that Tiberius’ refusal was a matter of a single debate in the senate. But it can be squared with Augustus’ single use of recusare in the Res Gestae: refusing pontifex maximus until it was proper to accept the priesthood.81 As Augustus delayed becoming pontifex maximus until his colleague Lepidus had died, so Tiberius delayed acknowledging principatus until Augustus had been interred and deified. In his reading of Tacitus’ account of the accession debate, Woodman seeks to distinguish Tiberius’ cunctatio from his recusatio: his refusal to discuss his position at the first meeting of the senate and consequent delay, from his refusal of power at the second meeting.82 I argue that the sum total of Tiberius’ recusatio was his cunctatio.

61The second tenet of the recusatio model that is incompatible with Velleius’ account is the idea that principatus designated a new regime created by Augustus, and that recusare principatum means “rejected the Principate”. In Velleius’ usage, principatus means small-l “leadership”, not capital-p “Principate”.83 Velleius places Augustus and Tiberius in a succession of leaders going back into the past, when men like Sulla or Caesar fought for principatus with arms. In fact Velleius says specifically that Caesar had won principatus by arms,84 and muses about what might have happened had Antony, Brutus, or Cassius become princeps rather than Caesar.85

62From Velleius’ perspective, Tiberius’ accession and the senatorial debate were neither a re-enactment of Augustus’ resigning powers after defeating M. Antonius, nor the beginning of an accession ritual. Velleius saw Tiberius’ accession as the continuation of struggles over principatus during the period that we call the Republic. This is consistent with Velleius’ overall view of Augustus and Tiberius as saviours rather than destroyers of the res publica. Note Velleius’ vocabulary: luctatio, pugnantis, pugnaverant. With Velleius, we might say that there was a luctatio civitatis, a struggle of the community.86 After Augustus’ death senators and Tiberius agreed that the res publica required principatus but disagreed about what form it should take, autocratic or collegial. They disagreed about what Augustus’ principatus had been and what Tiberius’ principatus would be.