F. Thomas Wiedemann (born 19? )
Life and context
1. Studied at Oxford and Tubingen Universities
2. Professor of Latin at the University of Nottingham
3. Has researched the work of Theodore Mommsen
4. Published several books on Roman political history and society
5. Is a contributor to the prestigious Cambridge Ancient History on the Julio-Claudian period
6. This and his general academic background makes him a reasonably representative current viewpoint on the Principate
7. Wiedeman is particularly interested in the role of the Domus Caesaris, and the part played in the Julio-Claudian principate by Roman inheritance laws: how these affected the succession, and their effect on internal Julio-Claudian power struggles, which found expression, amongst other things, in treason trials.
View of Principate
1. “…we should not overestimate the continuity between the ‘republic’ and the ‘principate’” (Thomas Wiedemann The Julio-Claudian Emperors 1989)
2. In the late Republic “there was a genuine, if limited, pluralism in the competition for office and power in Rome”
3. Augustus “concentrated the ultimate authority to take all decisions into his own hands. Of course, individual magistrates and officials continued to take decisions on the spot; but they were now answerable to one man”
4. “The fact that Augustus claimed to have restored the republican constitution, that the republican magistrates such as consuls, praetors, aediles and quaestors continued to be elected and exercise the functions of their office, and that the emperor himself received his power to exercise command (imperium) by virtue of a law passed by the people, shows that formal constitutions do not always reflect the realities of the political system”
5. “Those who were chosen as magistrates could now only exercise as much power as the emperor allowed”
6. “The concentration of authority in the hands of one man means that we cannot understand the politics of the principate by reference to formal constitutional rules and procedures”
7. “[Under the Republic] politics had been ‘open’: where power was shared between a group of men they had to justify their proposals and decisions in public…. [under the principate] many important decisions were taken after discussion in the emperor’s household consilium; and, as Cassius Dio points out, this meant that the reasons for particular decisions were foten never made public, and speculation and rumour took the place of fact as they had not done when politics was ‘open’ under the republic”
8. “Political life was in fact no longer centred on the Senate or the popular assemblies, but on the Household of Caesar, the domus Caesaris”
