It is doubly appropriate to call V.'s book ‘magisterial’, given both the subject of the study and the authoritative treatment it provides. V. explores, in the Staatsrecht tradition, how the Romans, so committed to principles of aristocratic collegiality, defined the concept of high command (summum imperium auspiciumque), a practical necessity given that unity of command is one of the fundamental principles of successful military operations. The solutions the Romans developed in the Republican period were subsequently adapted to accommodate Late Republican dynasts from Sulla to the triumviri, and ultimately provided constitutional cover for Augustus' de facto monarchy.
The book also represents a counter-salvo in the debate about how the Roman Republic functioned in principle. There is a strong thread in both Anglophone and German scholarship (H. Flower's Roman Republics and K.J. Hölkeskamp's Rekonstruktionen einer Republik both come to mind) that sees the constitutional mechanisms of the Republic as fluid and flexible, grounded in chummy aristocratic consensus rather than strict constructionist constitutional scruple. V. envisions a rigid, if unwritten constitutional framework, the details of which can be parsed through close and careful readings of the source materials.
Chapter 1 disentangles the notions of both ductus and imperium auspiciumque, with the former indicating personal leadership in the field, while the later referred to the right to command, usually in person but also remotely through the ductus of subordinates. Chapter 2 examines the concept of summum imperium auspiciumque, arguing that the term defined the official in command of a specific theatre of operations, especially under circumstances characterised by multiple commanders with some form of imperium auspiciumque, i.e. two consuls operating together, a consul or praetor, or a magistrate and equivalent promagistrate. Chapter 3 discusses the concept of provinces as legally bounded theatres of operations, which V. suggests critically served to define just who had the summum imperium auspiciumque. Thus, for example, while a consul in theory enjoyed superior position compared with a praetor, he could not assert it in a praetor's province without senatorial or popular approval. Each provincial governor therefore could command with his own summum imperium auspiciumque, even if a superior magistrate was operating near him in the province next door. Chapter 4 applies the conclusions of the previous three chapters to the problem of the double triumph, in which two magistrates enjoyed some form of triumphal ritual (ovations included) for the same victory. V. suggests that double triumphs map onto the hierarchy of magistrates, with the magistrate holding the summum imperium auspiciumque triumphing first, while the junior commander still received a secondary triumph/ovation in the event his personal ductus played a role in the victory.
In Chapter 5, V. explores the differential between a consul and proconsul. He strongly contends that the imperium of a consul and proconsul was identical (both enjoyed imperium consulare), and argues that the notion of imperium maius was an invention of the Augustan monarchy. None the less, V. suggests that there was a real difference in the quality of consular and pro-consular authority in instances where a consul and proconsul were both assigned the same province: in this instance the elected magistrate, holding his position from the Roman people, rather than by virtue of prorogation by the senate, was superior, making the consul commander-in-chief of a shared province.
Chapter 6 describes the various permutations of multiple magistrates or promagistrates within a province, suggesting that one was always considered to be in overall command, with the hierarchy running dictator, consul, proconsul, praetor, propraetor. Two commanders of equal status either alternated the fasces (turnus), or one commander voluntarily ceded his claims to the other.
Chapter 7 traces how the traditional notion of high command, adapted to particular provinces, was transformed to empower men like Sulla, Pompey, Caesar and Augustus as the Republic lurched violently towards monarchy. V. sees Pompey as perhaps the most important figure in the constitutional transition. Sulla had simply extended the scope of the traditional dictatorship, but Pompey's command truly broke new ground, in that he was given summum imperium over the entire Mediterranean on two separate occasions in order to accomplish two separate tasks, first to defeat piracy in 66 b.c., and then to alleviate the grain shortage in 56 b.c. With the outbreak of civil war, Pompey was effectively declared commander-in-chief of the entire Roman world.
The book ends with a 50-page postscript on the so-called lex curiata de imperio. V. argues that the purpose of this curious secondary election procedure was originally to endow candidates with auspicia patricorum publica maxima, even though they already enjoyed both imperium and some quality of auspicium on account of their election by the centuriate assembly (thus, notably, magistrates could summon and preside over the curiate assembly that passed their own lex de imperio). V. posits that the special law was necessary to clarify that successful candidates, both patrician and especially plebeian, enjoyed auspicium of the highest and purest sort in order to make their previously voted imperium iustum, and suggests the development of the process likely stems from the admission of plebeians into the highest magistracies in the fourth century b.c.
Reading V.'s cogent and detailed discussion, one can be persuaded that the rules of the Republic were perhaps not so fluid and flexible as some have suggested. True, numerous controversies arose in the jostle of aristocratic politics. But V. in many cases successfully demonstrates that while the particulars varied, the senate's political solutions were rooted in deeply held principles, which for want of a better word might be called ‘constitutional’.
Yet at times, V. takes this case too far. For example, the first consul to hold the rotating fasces enjoyed the important prerogative of proposing legislation in the brief span before both men set off to their commands. What factor, then, should decide which consul would hold the fasces first? The sources diverge, split between the consul elected first and the elder of the two. V. suggests that the de iure constitutional rule was that the consul elected first in the comitia held the fasces first, but that in instances where the first-elected consul was many years junior to his colleague, or if that colleague had been consul before, then through an unwritten aristocratic code the junior man would cede his constitutional right. This is a sensible enough way to reconcile the disagreement in the sources, but at a deeper level, the analytic categories of ‘constitutional’ and ‘aristocratic etiquette’ are utterly impossible to parse; they are so intertwined for much of the Republic as to be virtually monophysite. The Romans had rules, sure enough, but they also had plenty of exceptions to prove them.
The thoroughness of the research and the detail of the argument are impressive throughout the monograph, and the footnotes and surveys of previous literature in each chapter provide a bibliographic treasure trove. This book represents an outstanding contribution to research on the political structures of the Roman Republic.
