Ceremony and the Emergence of Court Society in the Augustan Principate

Abstract

Court ceremony in the Augustan Principate served to ease the underlying tension that existed between the new form of government and Republican tradition by creating a place for consuls and ex-consuls in the imperial court. In particular, Augustus seems to have established a hierarchy of military honors, reserving the ovatio and triumph proper for members of his own family, but allowing ex-consuls to earn triumphal honors. Ultimately, court ceremony, as manifested in this hierarchy of honors, showed the proximity of members of the imperial court to the center of power and thus was a dramatization of the new political culture of the Principate.