The facts in the case are these: In 711 the Titian law gave the triumvirs a five years’ lease of power. In 716 this was renewed not by formal legislation, but “by universal consent.” Cf. App., _B. C._ V, 95. This triumviral power Augustus wielded till his sixth consulship, 726, though there was a pretence of its cessation in 721. Cf. c. 7, N, 1, and Mommsen, _Röm. St._, II, 698. In this and the following years he divested himself gradually of one extraordinary power after another. He could not at once fall back to the position of an ordinary magistrate. The armies, the laws, the provinces, the revenues had all been in his control. These he must gradually restore Cf. Dio, LII, 13; LIII, 4, 9, 10. In 726 he began his return to older customs by alternating with Agrippa, his colleague, in the consulship, in having the fasces borne before him by the lictors for a month. Cf. Dio, LIII, 1. The restoration of the censorship was part of the same programme. Dio, LIII, 2, says that by an edict he declared all the revolutionary and extraordinary acts of the triumviral period should cease to be effective with the expiration of his sixth consulship (726). The inscription of Jan. 13, 727, above alluded to, C. I. L. I, p. 384, marks that date as that on which the business of restoring the provinces was finally given over to the senate. From this time on the senate divided the control of the provinces with him. Augustus took the troublesome provinces and the frontier ones, leaving to the senate the older and more peaceable. Over these provinces he received a proconsular imperium for ten years, which was renewed at the expiration of that term. In c. 7 he says that he found the tribunitial power a sufficient basis for all the measures which he wished to put through. Now the proconsulship and tribuneship were both ordinary and constitutional offices. Augustus’ occupancy of each affords an illustration of the way in which he held ordinary offices in an extraordinary way. For by the old customs a proconsul must exercise his _imperium_ in his province, and never at Rome. Augustus could not be in ten provinces at once, and must be at Rome most of the time. Hence a violation of the constitution was necessary. The tribuneship, instituted for the protection of plebeians could be held only by a plebeian. But Augustus was a patrician. For this reason he did not take the tribuneship in the ordinary way, nor by the ordinary title, but designated himself as _tribunicia potestate_, “of tribunitial authority.” The title _princeps_, “prince” is never used by Augustus as an official designation in laws and inscriptions, but indicates simply his primacy of rank and is so used throughout the _Res Gestæ_. Cf. cc. 13, 30, 32. [152] Cf. C. I. L. 1, p. 384; X. 8375; Livy, _Ep._, 134; Cass. ad. an. 727; Oros. VI, 20, 8; Vell. II, 91; Suet. _Aug._ 7; Dio, LIII, 16.