| LAW
ON VESPASIAN'S IMPERIUM Law conferring constitutional powers and privileges on Emperor Vespasian ( AD 69-70 ) |
( M. H. Crawford et al., Roman Statutes, I, London, 1996, pp. 549-553, n. 39 ). |
II. 1-2 [---]
or that it be lawful (for him) to make a treaty with whomever he shall
wish, just as it was lawful for thé divine Augustus, Ti. Iulius
Caesar Augustus, and Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ; |
II. 3-6 and
that it be lawful for him to convene the senate, to report business,
to transmit (business), to pass decrees of the senate by report and
by division, just as it was lawful for the divine Augustus, Ti. Iulius
Caesar Augustus, Ti. Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ; |
II. 7-9 and
that when the senate shall be convened according to his wish or authority,
by his order or mandate or in his presence, the law in all matters should
be maintained and observed, as if the senate had been summoned and was
being convened according to statute ; |
II. 10-13 and
that whomever, when they seek a magistracy, power, imperium,
or care of anything, he shall have commended to the senate and people
of Rome, or to whomever he shall have granted or promised his support
in canvassing, account be taken of them at any elections extra ordinem ; |
II. 14-16 and
that it be lawful for him to advance and extend the line of the pomerium
when he shall deem it to be according to the public interest, just as
it was lawful for Ti. Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ; |
II. 17-21 and
that whatever he shall deem to be according to the custom of the res publica
and the ‘greaterness’ of divine and human, public and private
matters, there be right and power for him to undertake and to do, just
as there was for the divine Augustus, Tiberius Iulius Caesar Augustus,
and Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ; |
II. 22-8 and
that in whatever statutes or plebiscites it is written down, that the
divine Augustus, or Tiberius Iulius Caesar Augustus, and Tiberius Claudius
Caesar Augustus Germanicus should not be bound, the emperor Caesar Vespasian
should be released from those statutes and plebiscites ; and that
whatever it was appropriate for the divine Augustus, or Tiberius Iulius
Caesar Augustus, or Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus to
do according to any statute or rogatio, it be lawful for the
emperor Caesar Vespasian Augustus to do all those things ; |
II. 29-32 and
that whatever before the proposal of this statute has been undertaken,
carried out, decreed or ordered by the emperor Caesar Vespasian Augustus
or by anyone according to his order or mandate, they be lawful and binding,
just as if they had been undertaken according to the order of the people
or plebs. |
| Sanction |
II. 34-9 If
anyone in implementation of this statute has acted or shall have acted
contrary to statutes, rogationes, or plebiscites, or decrees
of the senate, or if in implementation of this statute he shall not
have done what it shall be appropriate for him to do according to a
statute, rogatio, or plebiscite or decree of the senate, that
is not to be a matter of liability for him, nor is he to be obliged
to give anything to the people on account of that matter, nor is anyone
to have action or right of judication concerning that matter, nor is
anyone to allow there to be action before him concerning that matter. |
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