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Emperor Octavian Augustus (Latin: IMP-CAESAR-DIVI-F-AVGVSTVS) (23 September 63 BC - 19 August AD 14) had ruled the Empire for a very long time, and the longevity of his rule had lent stability to his regime. There would be many people who had known nothing else except the rule of the Princeps; some people had been born and died while he was still in power, and all the generations born in and after 30 BC would know nothing of the Republic and the turmoil that heralded its end, except for hearsay and their history books. Velleius speaks of the narrow margin between stability and chaos until the accession of Tiberius was assured. One of Tiberius' first acts was to write to the armies spread over the Empire, and to secure the loyalty of the troops in Italy by means of the oath established by Augustus. The secret of Empire, fully revealed after the death of Nero and the civil wars that followed, was already known quite distinctly to Augustus and Tiberius. In his will Augustus had left 300 sesterces to each of the legionaries, with the stipulation that it should be paid out immediately. He knew his men, and the value of money in maintaining loyalty. Even so, the ancient sources record military discontent among the northern legions, quelled by Tiberius' son Drusus and Junius Blaesus. Some of the legions expressed their support of Germanicus, thus compromising his position vis-a-vis Tiberius. The soldiers had no high-minded desires to restore the Republic, nor to elevate anyone except a member of Augustus' family; the main thing on their minds was more likely a possible rise in pay and the extraction of privileges from whoever was to be their new paymaster.

After the army, the next hurdle was the Senate. There was little resistance. The consuls, the prefects of the Praetorian Guard and the praefectus annonae swore the oath of loyalty to Tiberius, followed by the Senate, the people of Rome, then the soldiers and the people of the provinces. This cannot have happened overnight, but the intention to administer the oath all over the Empire was what counted for immediate purposes. Tiberius summoned the senators by means of his tribunician power, a factor which lends support to the theory that he did not hold consular power in Italy. The context does not necessarily bear this out. The source for the episode is Tacitus, and the passage describing Tiberius' actions should be taken as a whole, since its main point is that Tiberius was anxious not to overstep the mark by too blatant a display of power. He insisted that each first step should be taken by the consuls, as though the Republic still existed, and to indicate that he was not yet certain that he wished to take on the Empire. He wanted to keep a low profile, and so the use of tribunician power to summon the Senate was one of the least provocative ways of doing so. Tacitus accuses him of hypocrisy, because he had already assumed command of the troops and the Praetorian Guard. It could be argued that taking control of the military forces was a prudent step; somebody had to do it to prevent a descent into chaos. Thereafter Tiberius was merely playing Augustus' old game of reluctantly taking on the burden of Empire only after he had been asked to do so, but the main trouble was that Augustus did it better and was more plausible.

Augustus left a will and three other documents which were read out in the Senate after his death. There were written instructions regarding his funeral, the text which is now known as the Res Gestae, which he wished to be placed at the entrance to his tomb, and the account of the Empire's resources which Suetonius calls the breviarium totius imperii. The will was in two parts, one written in his own hand and one by his freedmen Polybius and Hilarion. His chief heirs were Tiberius and Livia, then Germanicus and Drusus, then members of his extended family. He left a total of 43,000,000 sesterces to the people, 1,000 sesterces apiece to the Praetorians, 500 to the urban troops, and 300 to the legionaries. The account of the Empire contained an enumeration of the soldiers in active service, the money in the public treasuries, and the revenue in arrears. Appended to the document was a list of names of those freedmen and slaves of his household and official staff who could render account of the state finances. Dio adds that there was a fourth document, containing instructions to the people and to Tiberius, to the effect that they should not free too many slaves and thereby risk releasing upon the city an indolent rabble; that they should not enfranchise too many people because to do so would blur the distinctions between the Romans and the rest of the world; that they should entrust public business to those best qualified to understand it, and never allow the whole to fall into the hands of one man, to avoid tyranny or collapse if one man died or was killed; and that they should be content with their gains so far and not try to expand the Empire because it would be too difficult to guard it. Whether this document did once exist is not known, but Dio was on safe ground since all these alleged instructions are in keeping with Augustus' policies as evidenced by his legislation, his use of various members of his family to undertake official tasks, and his later opinions on expansion of the Empire after the disaster of Varus in Germany. . .

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