The FIRST SETTLEMENT, January, 27 B.C.


Personal constitutional power:

• In ROME: consul ( imperium ) [43, 33,] 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, [5, 2] B.C.
   
• Outside Rome: proconsul ( imperium proconsulare )
  His province was to include: (See: Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (1939) pp. 325-326.
   

Hispania Tarraconensis
Hispania Baetica
Tres Galliae
Gallia Narbonensis
Syria
Cyprus
Cilicia Campestris

• auctoritas: see Res Gestae Divi Augusti, chapter 34.
• Princeps Senatus: the senior senator in the Roman Senate
• campaigning personally for his choices as magistrates every year
• using his amicitia ('friendship') as well as the threat of the loss of it to keep people cooperative (cf. the case of Cornelius Gallus, the Prefect of Egypt)
  
   

• resignation of the consulship (After 23, Augustus only held the office twice, in 5 B. C. and 2 B.C., to preside over the introduction of his adopted sons into public life.)
• In ROME: the grant of tribunicia potestas (the status and privileges, but not the burdens of the office, of a Tribune of the People). This gave Augustus the right to veto any actions of any magistrate(s), Senate, or Assemblies that did not suit him.
• Special grants (to compensate for the powers lost with the renunciation of the annual consulship):

-the right to a seat on the Consuls' platform at the front of the Senate House
-the right of speaking first at a Senate Meeting ( ius primae relationis )
-the right to summon a meeting of the Senate
-the cura annonae, care of Rome's grain supply (which brought patronage over the Plebs)

• In the Provinces: imperium maius proconsulare

-the right to govern his own provinces and armies
-the right to interfere in any other governor's province when Augustus deemed it necessary (cf. the Cyrene Edicts)

(with thanks to J.P.Adams at Cal.State, Northridge)