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From my study of the annona, I propose a new perspective on the transition between the Republic and the Principate. Each of the big three imperial historians account for the Principate in terms of personal politics and preferences of the "great man" Augustus (Div. Aug. 28; Rom. His. 52.1; Ann. 1.2). By contrast, I argue that the Principate represents the long-term political result of growing social inequality in Rome. From an equalitarian society of yodel-men farmers and shepherds in the 2nd BCE, Rome had evolved into an unequal society by the 2nd CE, where the top 11.15% controlled an estimated 40% of the national income.[1] As income inequality arose, the competition between rich and poor, the optimates and populares, over the bounty of the Empire paralyzed the politics of the Roman Republic. In the deadlock of the late Republic, the Senate proved unwilling or unable to respond to the new needs of Rome and its extensive empire. Deadlock devolved into deadly civil war. To rebuild the Roman state from its ruin, Augustus and his successors created the Principate and its governance institutions on the basis of "Republican" precedent. Since Augustus could not equalize the distribution of wealth and power between the Emperor and his Senators, the Principate proved provisional. [1]Scheidel and Friesen 2009: 62.

The concept of Roman peace (pax) did not just denote the absence of war but formed part of a much greater discourse on how Rome conceptualized herself. This volume explores its changing meaning from Republic to Principate, arguing that it is fundamental to understanding the shifting balance of power and the creation of the Roman Empire

The article is devoted to the problem of formalizing the military career of Roman equites during the period of the Principate. On the basis of written sources, including epigraphic ones, changes in the nature of the military service of the equites, stages in the development of the imperial policy regarding militiae equestres, specific innovations in the system of the military career of representatives of the equestrian ordo, which took place mainly in the 1st-2nd centuries BC, are traced. The conditionality of the process of stage-by-stage formation of an equestrian military career is argued by the tasks of strengthening the imperial power, which had a tendency to bureaucratization already at the stage of the Principate. The article analyzes the content-contradictory measures of the imperial power to involve equites in state affairs, in particular, in the performance of command duties and, as a continuation of the latter, in the administration of administrative functions. It is concluded that the trend consisted in the gradual formalization of the military stage of the Equite career, which was associated with the task of providing the state with trained managerial personnel.