whole, however, we may well believe that the senate’s decline into impotence was largely its own fault. So far as the records show, the Augustan senate never displayed the least trace of spirit or, if that is too much to expect, even of initiative or efficiency. There was grumbling and a little feeble plotting, but if the senate had chosen to take Augustus at his word whenever he spoke of abdication, they might easily have recovered real power, though indeed they could not have done without a princeps. For one thing the mob would not have suffered it. Cæsar was, and remained, the patron of the inarticulate commons, and that was not only the origin of the principate but the main support of its power throughout. When we speak of unpopular emperors such as Nero or Domitian we generally mean only that they were unpopular with the notables of the senate. If they failed to retain the regard of the common people and the common soldiers their reigns speedily came to an end. Cæsar’s pretended abdication in 23 B.C. was shortly afterwards followed by a famine at Rome and the populace besieged the senate-house, threatening it with fire unless fresh powers were conferred upon their champion. German historians have invented the term Dyarchy to describe the balance of power between Cæsar and senate. The government of Rome had always been to some extent a Dyarchy of senate and people as its title shows--“Senatus Populusque Romanus.” In many respects the princeps had taken the place of the people. But such a description loses sight of reality. You cannot in this whole period show an army set in motion by a senatorial governor without authority from Augustus, save in the single case of M. Primus when it was instantly followed by a prosecution; nor a single tax imposed, nor a law so much as proposed without Cæsar’s authority, nor a candidate elected without his concurrence, nor a treaty made otherwise than in accordance with his suggestion. The true relation between them is practically that of a monarch and his council. Three times Cæsar revised the roll of the senate, reducing it from over one thousand members to six hundred, and for all his tact and ingenuity arousing the fiercest resentment. There were violent scenes in the house, Augustus wore a shirt of mail, and went accompanied by ten stalwart senators. It is clear that he was purging the house of his opponents just as Cromwell did. On other occasions he would present his friends with the amount of property needed to complete their qualification for the senate. Thus it is no exaggeration to call the senate his council of state. If it is objected that the senate still governed rich and important provinces, that is more apparent than true. No longer did the governor of a senatorial province go out girt with the sword that signifies _imperium_ or wearing the military cloak. Now he goes in his toga as a mere civilian functionary. That little change must have been bitterly galling to the proud aristocracy.