honores

HONO´RESThe word may be used in a general sense for any compliment or dignity conferred by a public body. We find it of the thanksgivings decreed by the senate for Caesar's victories in Gaul, Caesar . . . singularibus ornatus et novis honoribus ac judiciis senatus (Cic. ad Fam. 1.9, 14), and of the compliments showered on Cicero in his provincial quaestorship, excogitati quidam erant a Siculis honores inauditi (pro Plancio, 26, 64). In a similar loose sense the word is occasionally used for a commission in the army: e. g. Caesar (B.C. 1.77) says that he restored certain deserters in tribunicium honorem. But the more strict and technical use of the term confines it to the actual magistracies, whether of the Populus Romanus, of the Plebs, or of a municipium. The position of a judex or a senator does not come within this category, nor does the office of a priest (see Mommsen, Staatsr. i.3 p. 8). From the words of Suetonius (Suet. Cl. 14), jus et consul et extra honorem laboriosissime dixit, we might infer that even the principate, as not being one of the ordinary magistracies, was likewise excluded. It is in this sense that we hear of the jus honorum as a part of the qualities of a full citizen, which might be withheld when the other rights were granted. Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 11.23) tells us of certain Gauls who civitatem Romanam jam pridem assecuti, jus adipiscendorum in urbe honorum expetebant.

The most interesting questions relating to honores occur in connexion with the municipal institutions of the later empire. The Digest contains a title (50, 4) de muneribus et honoribus, in which the distinction between the honours and the burdens of the community is illustrated by numerous examples. We might expect to find adduced the obvious contrast that an office is sued for voluntarily, and that the burden is compulsorily imposed. It seems not unlikely that this distinction is valid for the offices of the Roman Republic. The chief difficulty is in the case of T. Manlius Torquatus, whom we find pleading with the people (Liv. 26.22) not to elect him consul in a tone which seems to imply that he could not absolutely refuse the office. It is possible, however, to take his words as merely begging them to spare him the necessity of an arrogant rejection of the people's wish. Mommsen (Staatsr. i.3 p. 470) points out that there is no clear instance of a man being compelled to hold a magistracy against his will; and in the frequent cases of abdication, we never hear of leave to retire being asked. The duties, on the other hand, of a priest (Liv. 27.8) and of a judex (Cic. pro Rab. Post. 7, 17) were certainly imposed even against the will of the person; it does not appear that the station of a senator could (apart from special agreements, as in Suet. Aug. 40) be declined by any man who had held a qualifying office, and certainly a man once in the senate required the venia ordinis (Tac. Ann. 1.75) before he could retire. This distinction, however, between honores and munera will certainly not hold for the municipal magistracies, which under the empire were not avoidable by the properly qualified persons. Such persons might not even refuse to be put over the heads of their seniors in the local senate, if they were better able to provide for the expenses of magistracy: Sciant igitur locupletiores, says a rescript of Caracalla and Geta (Dig. 50, 4.6), non debere se hoc praetextu legis uti, et de tempore quo quisque in curiam allectus sit, inter eos demum quaerendum, qui pro substantia sua capiant honoris dignitatem. It is even laid down (ib. § 12) that a vacatio muneris publici does not excuse a man from serving a magistracy, quia id ad honorem magis quam ad munera pertinet.

Of the two subdivisions of munera, those quae patrimoniis injunguntur (ib. § 6) are easily distinguished from honores. We find in this category such services as transport by land and water, rei vehicularis, item navicularis (ib. § 1). Under this head, notwithstanding a contradiction between two authorities quoted in the Digest (compare § 1 and § 14), we should probably place that species of task work from which the word munus seems to be etymologically derived, the operae ad munitiones, or labour requisitioned for the repair of the walls or streets of the town, since in the Lex Ursonensis (ch. 29) this burden falls on all who own land within the limits of the colony, though they may not be its burgesses. The munera civilia personalia (Dig. ib. § 1), such as the charge of acting as counsel for the corporation in legal proceedings ( defensio civitatis, id est ut Syndicus fiat), the duty of registering the assessments ( legatio ad census accipiendos), and the superintendence of the provision of corn, of water, or of horses for the public games, are assimilated on the one hand to the privata munera of the guardian or trustee, and on the other hand to the offices of the community. These munera personalia require sollicitudinem animi et vigilantiam, whereas the other category is of matters in quo sumptus maxime postulatur. The duty of sitting in the local senate is not mentioned among the munera, but it seems to be accurately distinguished from the honores (see Mommsen's explanation, Staatsr. 3.640, of the fragmentary passage of Gaius, 1.96), and it would probably fall in the category of munera, as that of serving among the decemprimi or select men of the decuriones is expressly said to do (Dig. ib. § 1). In the Roman senate in like manner the duty of giving advice in answer to the magistrate's question is spoken of by Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 3.17) as a munus. The personalia munera most nearly approach the honores in the case of the Irenarchae, qui disciplinae publicae et corrigendis moribus praeficiuntur (Dig. ib. § 18), and of the quaestors. This latter post belongs to the charges or to the offices according to the custom of the particular community; it is undoubtedly a magistracy according to the Law of Salpensa (ch. 26, 27), yet in the Digest (ib. § 18) we have et quaestura in aliqua civitate inter honores non habetur sed personale munus est.

The nearest approach to a definition of the two terms is that of Callistratus (Dig. ib. § 14): Honor municipalis est administratio reipublicae cum dignitatis gradu, sive cum sumptu sive sine erogatione contigens . . . . Publicum munus dicitur, quod in administranda republica cum sumptu sine titulo dignitatis subimus. This is, roughly speaking, a continuation in the municipalities of the Roman practice of ranking only actual magistracies among the honores.

(1) A term used of any compliment or honour conferred by the Roman Senate or any public body ( Pro Planc. 26, 64; Ad Fam. i. 9, 14).

(2) A commission or rank in the army ( B. C. i. 77).

(3) Technically the name denotes actual magistrates whether of the Populus Romanus, the Plebs, or of a municipality, excluding, however, the office of iudex, senator, and priest (Mommsen, Staatsrecht, i. p. 8), and possibly the principatus (q. v.). The ius honorum was a part of the rights of one who was a free citizen and might be withheld when all the other rights were granted (Tac. Ann. xi. 23). (See munus.)

(4) Cursus honorum is an expression of Roman official life which may be defined as the career of public service through which a citizen must pass before attaining to the position of the highest rank. In the early Roman Republic there existed in an informal way a principle of official promotion by which those who had held inferior magistracies were understood to be eligible for higher positions after the lapse of a certain interval of time (Callist. Dig. 50, 4, 14, 5). The order, certus ordo magistratuum, in which the various magistracies should be held, was, however, formally defined in B.C. 180 by the Lex Villia Annalis. The cursus honorum thus legally determined consisted of the quaestorship, curule aedileship, praetorship, consulship. A preliminary military service of ten years was required before the career of magistracies could be begun. Since enrollment by the censors took place at the census next following the attainment of the age of seventeen years, allowing for the ten years of military service, we may place the earliest age at which the quaestorship could be held as twenty-eight years. An interval of at least two years was required between the holding one office and the following, so that the aedileship could be held at thirty-one years, the praetorship at thirty-four, and the consulship at thirty-seven. Since the holding of the curule aedileship was optional, the praetorship might directly follow the quaestorship, and the consulship might thus be reached at thirty-four years.

The principle of an ordo honorum found, however, its most important application in the development of the imperial government under Augustus and his successors.

In the imperial period there were three careers of official service. The republican magistracies formed the cursus honorum for those of senatorial rank—i. e. senators, sons of senators, or those raised to senatorial rank by the emperor, all possessing the requisite property of one million sesterces.

To a select body of the knights invested by the emperor with membership in the equestrian troop through the conferring of the knight's horse, were assigned the offices of administration, the various procuratorships and praefecturae which formed the equestrian cursus honorum.

To the commonalty were assigned the subordinate offices, civil and military. senatorial cursus honorum.

I. Preliminary service. (a) Annual tenure of one of a group of minor offices, known as vigintiviri: triumvir capitalis, triumvir monetalis, quattuorvir viarum curandarum, decemvir stlitibus iudicandis. (b) A year's service as tribunus militum laticlavius.

II. Quaestorship—at twenty-five years. Interval of at least one year.

III. Aedileship or tribunate of the plebs. Interval of at least one year.

IV. Praetorship—at thirty years. Interval of at least two years.

V. Consulship. A patrician being ineligible for the tribunate of the plebs or the plebeian aedileship could pass directly from the quaestorship to the praetorship. equestrian cursus honorum.

I. Preliminary service. (a) Military service. No special military service appears to have been regularly required, although Claudius determined upon three positions—(1) praefectura cohortis;

(2) praefectura alae;

(3) tribunatus legionis; and these tres militiae equestres became the usual preliminary service in the second century. In the inscriptions the tribunatus regularly holds the second place. (b) Civil service. Through the reforms of Hadrian, training in state affairs was recognized as equivalent to service in the army—e. g. those who had served as advocati fisci or ab commentariis praefecti praetorio were eligible for the procuratorships and praefectures.

II. Procuratorships of various kinds and grades.

III. Praefecturae. The highest offices open to those of the equestrian order given in ascending order were: praefectura classis, praefectura vigilum, praefectura annonae, praefectura Aegypti, praefectura praetorio. officials of the third class.

These were of great number and variety, being made up mainly of subordinate officers of administration in Rome and the provinces, attendants of public officials, officers of the army and the fleets, magistrates of the coloniae and municipia, and the officers of the collegia. The inscriptions show that these subordinate offices were arranged in a cursus honorum on the same principle prevailing in the senatorial and equestrian cursus.

See T. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, vol. i. 523-577; and O. Hirschfeld, Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der römischen Verwaltungsgeschichte, vol. i. 240.