sion of opinion with regard to the character of
the administration of the individual emperors. The spontaneous deification
or the _damnatio memoriae_ of a deceased princeps was not without weight,
for it expressed the opinion of the most influential class in the state.

While the Senate as a body was thus stripped of its power, the senatorial
order remained a powerful class. Originally embracing the chief
landholders of Italy, it came to include those of the whole empire.
Collectively the senators lost in influence, but individually they gained.
By the end of the second century the senatorial order had acquired an
hereditary title, that of _clarissimus_ (most noble), indicative of their
rank.

II. THE GROWTH OF THE CIVIL SERVICE

*The first steps.* The necessary counterpart to the assumption of
administrative duties by the princeps was the development of an imperial
civil service, the officials of which were nominated by the princeps, and
promoted or removed at his pleasure. In this Augustus had taken the first
steps by the establishment of equestrian procuratorships and prefectures,
and the opening up of an equestrian career, but the number of these posts
greatly increased with the extension of the administrative sphere of the
princeps at the expense of the Senate. The idea of conducting the
government through various departments manned by permanent salaried
officials was absolutely foreign to the Roman republic, which only
employed such servants for clerical positions of minor importance in Rome.
However, the chaotic conditions which had resulted from the republican
system showed the need of a change, and the concentration of a large share
of the administration in the hands of the princeps both required and gave
the opportunity for the development of an organized civil service. This
development was unquestionably stimulated and influenced by the
incorporation in the Roman empire of the kingdom of Egypt, which possessed
a highly organized bureaucratic system that continued to function
unchanged in its essential characteristics.

*The imperial secretaryships.* At first the imperial civil service lacked
system and there was little or no connection between the various
administrative offices in Italy and in the provinces. Augustus and his
immediate successors conducted the administration as part of their private
business, keeping in touch with the imperial officials through the private
secretari