Roman Public Life/Chapter 8

by Abel Hendy Jones Greenidge

CHAPTER VIII

THE ORGANISATION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCES

When Rome had asserted her supremacy over the greater part of Sicily at the close of the first Punic war, a new problem in organisation was presented to her. She held, perhaps rightly, that these new dependencies, with their transmarine position, fickle politics, and in some cases Carthaginian sympathies, could not safely be included in the military symmachy of Italy; so she substituted tribute for military service, placed the command of the cities of a wide district under the guidance of the personal imperium, and created the first permanent external department of administration (provincia). The government which had been adopted for Hellenic cities was still more necessary for the barbarians of Spain, a country which Rome had not sought but which military exigencies alone warned her not to leave. The recognition of Empire in the West was rapid and easy, for the effective government of Italy seemed to involve the control of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Senate showed greater hesitancy in accepting a similar Adriatic policy, and declined to recognise that Rome had permanent interests even in eastern Europe of a magnitude that should lead to Empire. War followed war, Greece was once and Macedon twice at her feet, but on every occasion she declined to annex. It was not until experience had proved the costliness and the danger of a protectorate that in 146 B.C. Macedonia was recognised as a province with Achaea as its annexe. The troublesome relations with Carthage had meanwhile ended in war and annexation, and what had hitherto been rather a distant problem—Rome's relations with the potentates of Asia—became, as the years rolled on and as Roman trade struck deeper roots in the East, one of paramount concern. The history of eastern Europe was repeated in Asia, and although Rome had already a foothold in Anatolia through her acceptance of the kingdom of Pergamus, the death-blow to the protectorate system in these regions was first struck by Pompeius' organisation of the East at the close of the Mithridatic wars (65-63). Further extensions in the West and North, which resulted in the conquest of further Spain and of Gaul, were due to the enterprise of individual commanders, or to the search for a frontier which should be a permanent protection against barbarian invasion; and at the close of the Republic the list of Roman provinces had risen to fifteen.^[1]

The idea of a province was that of an aggregate of states (civitates); where Greek or Phoenician civilisation had penetrated, these states were cities, but sometimes, as in Gaul and Spain, they were cantons or tribes. Natural political associations were usually chosen as the units of government, although formidable combinations were broken up, and the numerical regulation of the government centres in a province was an integral part of its organisation. Thus the number of communal unions was in Sicily 68,^[2] in Asia 44,^[3] and 64 in Transalpine Gaul.^[4] Such aggregates probably include the free and federate states, which, although geographically, were not juristically within the province at all. The cities which were liberae and those which were liberae et foederatae differed, sometimes perhaps in the degree, but always in the basis, of their rights. The latter had the grant of their rights embodied in a sworn treaty (foedus), which was the product in the earlier Republic of Senate and people, in the later of either of these powers,^[5]—a guarantee which was meant to be perpetual, and the breach of which was either an act of war or its result. A charter (lex data), on the other hand,^[6] which made a city only "free" might be revoked at any moment. The rights common to both groups of states are practically those of the Italian communes^[7]—a control of their own finances, a free enjoyment of their land which exempted them from the payment of tribute, and above all a use and enjoyment of their own native law^[8]—and both agree in being entirely outside the sphere of the governor's jurisdiction.^[9] He could enter such a privileged city only as a guest, and although for purposes of convenience great central cities which were free, as Antioch in Syria and Thessalonica in Macedonia, were, from their position as natural capitals, chosen as the residence of the governor, he merely exercised jurisdiction in these towns, not over their citizens. More distant still from provincial rule were the allied kings (reges socii) on the frontiers. Their independence was less conditioned than that of the free and allied cities, for they were bound to furnish less definite assistance to Rome in time of need, and their foreign activity was not wholly destroyed. But the chief reason why in a list of Rome's friends they appear in a separate category^[10] is that a treaty with a king was not, like one with a Republic, regarded as eternal. It was a personal obligation, and its perpetual validity depended on its renewal with each successive occupant of the throne.

States which belonged to neither of these categories were subject or, as the phrase ran, tributary (stipendiariae), the test of subjection being the normal one in the ancient world of the payment of a tax to a superior. Yet these too had their rights and their charter. The guarantee, however, was no longer individual but collective, and was contained in the law of the province (lex provinciae). This law was usually the work of the conquering general himself, assisted by ten senatorial commissioners (decem legati) appointed by the Senate, and it continued to bear the name of its chief creator, as we see in the cases of the lex Rupilia of Sicily,^[11] the lex Aemilia of Macedonia,^[12] and the lex Pompeia of Bithynia.^[13] While it re-established the states of a conquered district, it also gave them certain ultimate rights. It defined the burden of the tribute, specified the particular circuit-courts which the citizens of the various towns were to attend, and framed regulations, which the governor was expected to observe, about national and international jurisdiction. But these regulations, slight and general as they were, are no sufficient test of the amount of autonomy, in administration and jurisdiction, actually enjoyed by the subject towns. Much of their independence was permissive and based on the will of the governor. But the ruler, whether honest or dishonest, was practically bound to grant it, for the Roman government had provided him with no staff which could take over the minuter duties of administration; if he was an enlightened man, he cherished the fiction that the states were free;^[14] if unenlightened, he at least knew that by permitting self-government he was saving himself trouble. In the case of the eastern cities the neglect of the governor was almost as great an evil as his exactions.^[15]

The theory of Roman taxation was in origin that it was a war indemnity. This accounts for the fact that in the early days of Rome's dealings with conquered peoples a tax might be imposed even on nations which were declared free,^[16] and for the name stipendium ("payment for the army") which was borne by the direct taxation imposed by Roman commissioners on provincials.^[17] This equitable theory, that the taxes collected should merely defray the expenses of the military occupation and administration of a province, seems to have been realised in practice where the Roman government took the trouble to organise a system of its own. The Macedonians were made to pay but half of what they had paid to their kings,^[18] the Spanish provinces must have cost more than they brought in, and in Cicero's time it was only the Asiatic provinces, where taxes were imposed on quite a different system, that yielded a surplus.^[19] It was this system, which the Romans found existing in Sicily, Sardinia, and Asia, and with their characteristic negligence elected to preserve, which changed the whole theory of Roman taxation. The principle was that of the payment by the cultivator (arator) of a tithe (decuma) of the produce of his land. It was inevitable that the Roman lawyer should associate this due with the vectigal paid by the occupants of ager publicus, and should evolve from the comparison the strange theory that land in the provinces was not owned but merely "possessed" by its holders.^[20] The chief practical consequences of the tithe system were a surplus to the treasury, and the exactions of the middlemen (publicani) through the indirect system of collection which it involved.

The direct tax (stipendium) was collected by a tribute assessed either on the land (tributum soli) or on the personalty of individuals (tributum capitis).^[21] The Romans of the Republic seem never to have attempted to form an accurate estimate of the resources furnished by the land and personal wealth of a province; doubtless in Hellenised districts they employed the systems which they found existing, such as the schedules which formed the bases of the εἰσφοραί: in Spain amongst other rough expedients they seem to have adopted a valuation tax on a proportion of the produce of the soil;^[22] while elsewhere, as in Macedonia,^[23] they fixed a total on the existing basis of collection. The direct tax was usually collected by the communes themselves and paid to the governor's quaestor.

The tithe (decuma) was collected on the contract system, and the difference in its mode of collection in the vectigales provinciae depended on whether the site of the auction was in the province itself, where local companies or even communities^[24] could compete for its collection, or whether the tithes of the whole province must be put up to auction in Rome, in which case the province was likely to become the prey of a single Roman company. In Sicily the first system was adopted in accordance with the principles laid down by Hiero, its last great king (lex Hieronica);^[25] the second system was devised by C. Gracchus for Asia and was doubtless extended to eastern provinces subsequently organised such as Cilicia.^[26] The pretext for the change was no doubt the incapacity of the Asiatic cities to collect their own dues,^[27] and was welcome to the weakness of the states, which liked to have near them a body of Roman capitalists from whom they could borrow in emergency; but it created a pernicious connexion between capitalism and administration which made the government of the Asiatic dependencies the gloomiest scene of Roman rule. The tithe system in Asia, and perhaps in other provinces where it prevailed, was abolished by Caesar in 48 B.C.^[28] The harbour and frontier dues (portoria), the source of revenue next in value to the direct tribute or the tithe, were collected by private companies (portitores) perhaps throughout the whole imperial world, as they had been from the earliest times in Italy.^[29] Other dues demanded from the province were paid for by the Roman government. Such were the corn supplied for the praetor and his retinue (frumentum in cellam or frumentum aestimatum),^[30] and the second decuma sometimes required by the state (frumentum emptum) and raised by command of the Senate and people.^[31] In both these cases a reasonable price was fixed by the Roman government.

We pass now to the governor and his staff. The early institution of praetors and the later use of the pro-magistracy for provincial government have already been described.^[32] But we have seen that even Sulla did not formally dissociate the consulship and praetorship from provincial rule.^[33] The consequences of this continued association were curious. By a law of C. Gracchus, which aimed at destroying one of the most valuable pieces of patronage which the Senate had at its disposal, the consular provinces must be assigned before the election of their holders.^[34] They are strictly consular, and are technically entered on by their possessors on March 1 of their year of office, although no definite agreement need be come to as to their partition until the following December^[35]—the earliest date at which the consuls of the later Republic could quit their urban duties. March 1 was the beginning of the military and provincial year, as since 152 B.C. January 1 had been of the year of civil office at Rome. The reason why the 1st of March of the year of office at Rome was chosen, and not the same date in the following year, was that the pro-magistracy was not yet recognised as a separate office, and that, if this second solution had been adopted, the interval between December 29 and March 1 would have caused a break in the imperium.^[36] The anomaly resulted that a provincial governor held his command only for two months in his own right, and for ten months while waiting for his successor. It was harmless in practice, inasmuch as Sulla's law had ordained that the governor should retain his imperium until he returned to Rome, and need only quit his province thirty days after the arrival of his successor,^[37] and was only accidentally disastrous as leading to the quarrel between Caesar and the Senate, and thence to the downfall of the Roman Republic. The pro-magistracy was first raised into a separate office by a Pompeian law of 52 B.C., which enacted that governors should seek their provinces five years after holding office at Rome. It was a law that, by diminishing the nearness of the prize, was intended to make the consulship and praetorship less an object of illegitimate ambition at Rome. It might, therefore, have conferred a slight indirect benefit on the provincials, but the speedy collapse of the Republican government prevented its adequacy being tested. The tenure of a provincial governorship was nominally annual, but, even after Sulla had raised the number of praetors to eight, there were but ten magistrates available for fifteen provinces, and we know of three propraetors—Verres in Sicily, Q. Cicero in Asia, and Fonteius in Narbonese Gaul—who severally held their provincial commands for three years in succession.

The chief members of the governor's staff were one subordinate magistrate, the quaestor, and certain senatorial commissioners (legati), one of whom was usually assigned to a praetorian, and three to a consular province. The magisterial position of the quaestor did not entitle him to an independent sphere of duties. It is true that he was, in the main, a financial official, was entrusted by the Senate with money or a credit for meeting the expenses of the administration of his province,^[38] received the revenues from the stipendium, and had at the end of the year to give an account of income and expenditure in his own name and that of his superior;^[39] but even here the real responsibility was incurred by the governor, whose commands were irresistible, and in all other respects the quaestor is the merest delegate, who exercises jurisdiction, or any kind of administrative work, in obedience to a voice that was supposed to convey a paternal authority.^[40] He might even, like the legates, be dismissed for incompetence or maladministration before the term of his office had expired.^[41] The legati had originally been representatives of the government in Rome, but, to avoid friction, the custom grew up of allowing governors to suggest individuals for the post.^[42] Yet to the end of the Republic their names were submitted to the Senate, and they were supposed to be subordinate officials of the state. No special departments were, however, assigned them; any power which they exercised was delegated by the governor, whether it took the form of the command of a legion or the presidency of a court. A still more independent selection was made of the unofficial members of the staff. The "comrades" (comites) of the governor were young men, whom he initiated in the mysteries of official and diplomatic life, and whose services he employed for any purpose for which they seemed competent.^[43] But, however many instruments the governor might use, there was such a complete unity of responsibility that, in dealing with the administration of a province, we are treating of the powers of a single man.

These powers were exercised chiefly in three spheres—military, administrative, and judicial. In a province that seethed with war the summer months were spent in camp, the winter in more peaceful duties; but in a settled district the governor could map out his circuits as he pleased, and devote some time to the ungenial task of inspecting the affairs of the municipalities under his control. Apart from the necessary diplomatic intercourse with neighbouring potentates or protected chiefs, the amount of administrative work which the governor undertook was as much or as little as he pleased. Its quantity depended on his view as to how far self-government was a symptom of health or of disease. That it sometimes had the latter character is shown by the startling discovery made by Cicero when he undertook an unexpected investigation into the financial affairs of his subject states. He found that the native Greek magistrates of Cilicia had been plundering their respective treasuries for the last ten years.^[44] But the possibility of such a discovery is itself a testimony to the best aspect of provincial rule in the Republic—its noble but sometimes misguided belief in the capacity of people to govern themselves.

There was, however, one systematic function to which most of the governor's energies were directed in time of peace, and that was jurisdiction, both civil and criminal. General regulations concerning jurisdiction were made in the charters of the provinces; but these could not be the same for every country, since the judicial machinery of some groups of states was far more perfect than that of others. Sicily, the only province the details of whose lex are known, was peculiarly favoured, and its privileges may be taken as the best type of those offered by Rome. It was ordained that, in a suit between two citizens of the same state, the trial should be held in that state and according to its laws,^[45] a regulation which certainly guaranteed the native judex and the native code, but which did not, perhaps, inhibit an appeal to the governor or take away his right of interpreting the law. The charter then provides for cases of inter-political jurisdiction. If a Sicilian of one state sues a Sicilian of another, the governor is to provide by lot the judex or judices,^[46] who are perhaps in this case to be Roman citizens.^[47] When litigation arises between an individual and a community not his own, the Senate of some third state should be the judge, when either litigant has challenged one of three senatorial bodies proposed.^[48] In suits between Roman citizens and Sicilians the judex was to be of the nationality of the defendant.^[49] In all other matters judices chosen by the magistrate (selecti) were to be appointed from the Roman citizens dwelling within the assize.^[50]

In Sicily it is clear that the peregrinus judex was a standing institution. Elsewhere, even in the Hellenised East, his existence was more dependent on the grace of the governor. Cicero, in his government of Cilicia, following the precedent of Mucius Scaevola, the ideal governor of Asia, allowed the greatest freedom to the native laws, courts, and judges, and remarks on the quickened life which their use inspired in the provincials.^[51] The attempt, indeed, to substitute her own for the native law was abhorrent to the political sense of Rome, and her most ambitious representatives never attempted to make their edicts into codes. The importance of the edict was chiefly felt in matters of private international law, administrative jurisdiction, and procedure. It stated principles which should regulate the relations between members of different states or between provincials and Romans, it issued rules for the settlement of claims made by the publicani, and it supplemented the law of the province by framing regulations for the conduct of private suits. The edict of each province was a separate entity, and drew its name from the country to which it directly applied,^[52] and it had a continuous existence, although the unity and continuity of its life depended too much on the discretion of the individual governor.^[53] The edict might be composed at Rome,^[54] and its author might copy from more than one original. The rulings of his predecessor would doubtless be well known; there were the edicts of other provinces, the work of famous administrators of the past;^[55] and, as a fruitful source of general rules of procedure, there was the edictum perpetuum of the capital In Cicero's own edict, of which he furnishes a brief description, the principles regulating business and trading relations (especially as existing between Roman companies and provincials) were clearly and fully set forth. As much attention was devoted to the general rules of inheritance and bankruptcy, such as had been evolved by the imperium at Rome, and which were doubtless meant not to supersede the customs of the various communities, but to be a common law for the province as a whole. But much remained that could not be formulated. A province had boundless surprises in store, and Cicero found it wiser to leave the third part of his edict "unwritten." The principles of the urban praetor were to be drawn upon as occasion required.^[56] The civil jurisdiction of the governor, which was based on the edict, was either personal or delegated, and in both cases required the visitation of circuits (conventus, διοικήσεις),^[57] into which the province had been divided at the time of its organisation. A programme of the assize was drawn up, the stay in each circuit was accurately determined,^[58] and the governor held a court (forum egit) in each of them in turn.^[59]

Delegated jurisdiction was performed usually by the quaestor and the legates; in both cases it was due to the mandate of the governor,^[60] who could assign them lictors, if he pleased,^[61] and could always control their sentences.^[62]

The governor possessed an unfettered criminal jurisdiction over the members of the stipendiary states; but it cannot be supposed that he often exercised it. He might summon any case into his court, but ordinary crimes he doubtless left to the judicial machinery of the states themselves.^[63] On the other hand, it was held that an offence might be of such import as to transcend even his competence; and although there was no legal means of escaping his jurisdiction, it was considered advisable that he should send cases of a grave political character—those, for instance, connected with sedition or a popular rising—to be tried at Rome.^[64] The only restraining influence on the governor's jurisdiction was the necessity, imposed by custom, of consulting a council of advisers.^[65] This consilium, however, was purely Roman, being composed of Roman citizens residing in the conventus and of members of the governor's retinue,^[66] and although a council composed wholly of the latter was usually avoided, there was no legal hindrance to such a narrow selection.^[67]

Over Roman citizens in the provinces the governor possessed the same autocratic power; for his jurisdiction here is on a level with that of the camp, and he gives judgment in a sphere to which the provocatio does not extend.^[68] Yet a strong customary law, which was seldom disobeyed, directed that he should remit to Rome all cases in which Roman citizens were to be tried on a capital charge, and that, if he pronounced judgment himself, he should inflict on them no degrading punishments.^[69]

Almost every item in the provincial organisation that we have sketched shows where its inherent weakness lay. It resided in the uncontrolled power of the governor. Yet it was a weakness more apparent in practice than in theory. There were many controlling forces at work which the organiser and the government hoped would be effective. There were the charters of cities and of provinces, and in the province a constant, if improvised, committee of the Senate, which the governor was supposed to consult before he ventured on any important step.^[70] There was an unparalleled amount of legislation intended for the protection of provincials and expressed in enactments dealing with the ordering of the provinces, the rights of magistrates, and with extortion (de provinciis ordinandis, de jure magistratuum, repetundarum); and, lastly, there was the criminal responsibility supposed to be enforced by the courts which carried out these laws. Some of these checks—the charters of the favoured cities, the senatorial commission—were real, but were not far-reaching enough seriously to affect the form of provincial rule. Those of the laws were almost nugatory, for though the government that proposed them had a collective conscience, its individual members who were bound by them had none, and the courts that were supposed to enforce these laws became the prey of party strife and the weapon of party fanatics. But a government that depends on protective legislation and the enforcement of criminal responsibility must be in a perilous state. The defect must be in the principle of rule, not merely in its working. And in truth the Republican theory of provincial rule represents a fundamental inconsistency of idea. The theory aimed at the impossible combination of martial law with municipal independence. Had the rights of all the states been provided with better safeguards, their self-government might have been more real, and the autocracy of the governor might have been proportionately checked. But this solution would have been an offence to the idea of the unlimited imperium, a clinging superstition which the Romans had inherited from the history of their own state and her days of conquest. The Roman Empire had been developed from a protectorate; it bears to the end of the Republican period the traces of its origin, and, in its lack of organisation, conveys the suggestion of being a merely provisional government. The merits of such system as there was cannot be ignored. The unrestricted imperium was necessary in time of war and, under a benevolent despot, might be useful even in days of peace, while the very absence of organisation betrays the noble belief that the aggregate of states which formed a province was rather a confederated suzerainty than an integral part of an empire. But its defects are more glaring and are to be found in the absence of some central authority at home, not interested in provincial misrule, which might enforce responsibility on governors; in the existence of annual commands, and the exaggeration of routine which rendered extraordinary appointments, such as that of Pompeius, inevitable; and in the lack of an organised civil service, which, with its mechanical routine and its self-evolved rules, is perhaps the surest of all checks on autocracy.

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1. Sicily, Sardinia, Hither and Further Spain, Illyricum, Macedonia and Achaea (separated by Caesar), Africa, Asia, Gallia Narbonensis, Gallia Cisalpina, Bithynia, Cyrene with Crete, Cilicia and Syria.
2. The number is given by Pliny (H.N. iii. 88). In Cicero's time there was about this number. He speaks of the appointment of 130 censors (in Verr. ii. 55, 137), two for each state (ib. 53, 133).
3. Cassiodorus Chron. ad A.U.C. 670 "Asiam in XLIIII. regiones Sulla distribuit."
4. Tac. Ann. iii. 44. This division may be the work of Augustus.
5. pp. 244, 283.
6. p. 245.
7. Except that ownership of the soil is not always, as in Italy, the ground of exemption from taxation. On the free city of Termessus in Pisidia "free possession" is alone conferred.
8. See the lex Antonia de Termessibus (71 B.C.), especially the clause which confers autonomy "so far as is consistent with this charter" (i. l. 7 "eique legibus sueis ita utunto . . . quod advorsus hanc legem non fiat").
9. Cic. de Prov. Cons. 3, 6. For the weakening of this respect for [Greek: autonomia] in the Ciceronian period and Caesar's attempt to strengthen it by law (probably the lex Julia repetundarum of 59 B.C.) see Cic. in Verr. iii 89, 207; in Pis. 16, 37 ('lege Caesaris justissima atque optima populi liberi plane et vere erant liberi").
10. Festus p. 218.
11. Cic. in Verr. ii. 13, 32; 15, 37; 16, 39; 24, 59.
12. Liv. xlv. 17 and 32.
13. Plin. ad Traj. 79 (83), 1.
14. As Cicero did in his government of Cilicia. See ad Att. vi. 2, 4 "omnes (civitates), suis legibus et judiciis usae, [Greek: autonomian] adeptae, revixerunt"; vi. 1, 15 "multaque sum secutus Scaevolae (governor of Asia circa 98 B.C.); in iis illud, in quo sibi libertatem censent Graeci datam, ut Graeci inter se disceptent suis legibus . . . Graeci vero exsultant quod peregrinis judicibus utuntur."
15. This we may gather from Cicero's account of the proceedings of the native magistrates in Cilicia (ad Att. vi. 2, 5 "Mira erant in civitatibus ipsorum furta Graecorum, quae magistratus sui fecerant: quaesivi ipse de iis, qui annis decem proximis magistratum gesserant; aperte fatebantur").
16. On the conquest of Epirus in 167 B.C., although all the Illyrians were declared liberi, only some were pronounced "non solum liberi sed etiam immunes" (Liv. xlv. 26).
17. Cf. Tac. Hist. iv. 74 "nam neque quies gentium sine armis neque arma sine stipendiis neque stipendia sine tributis haberi queunt."
18. Liv. xlv. 29.
19. Cic. pro Leg. Man. 6, 14 "ceterarum provinciarum vectigalia, Quirites, tanta sunt ut iis ad ipsas provincias tutandas vix contenti esse possimus, Asia vero tam opima est et fertile ut . . . facile omnibus terris antecellat."
20. Gaius ii. 7 "in eo (provinciali) solo dominium populi Romani est vel Caesaris, nos autem possessionem tantum vel usumfructum habere videmur." The theory is perhaps as old as the Gracchan period. C. Gracchus' association of the Asiatic taxes with the censor (cf. p. 231) must have done a good deal to develop it. It is no wonder that this theory led to the view that the provinces were "quasi quaedam praedia populi Romani" (Cic. in Verr. ii. 3, 7).
21. These expressions are known only from the literature of the Empire; it may be a mere accident that in Republican literature tributum seems never to be used of imperial taxation. The form stipendium is preferred. In Liv. xxiii. 32 we have the tributum of Sardinia mentioned with reference to Republican times. The venditio tributorum and the [Greek: ônai] of Cilicia (Cic. ad Fam. iii. 8, 5; ad Att. v. 16, 2) probably refer to local taxes improperly sold to publicani.
22. Liv. xliii. 2 "(Hispani) impetraverunt ne frumenti aestimationem magistratus Romanus haberet."
23. p. 319.
24. Cic. in Verr. iii. 33, 77.
25. ib. ii. 13, 32; 26, 63, etc.
26. ib. iii. 6, 12 "inter Siciliam ceterasque provincias . . . in agrorum vectigalium ratione hoc interest, quod ceteris aut impositum vectigal est certum . . . aut censoria locatio constituta est, ut Asiae lege Sempronia."
27. Cf. Cic. ad Q. fr. i. 1, 11, 33 "nomen autem publicani aspernari non possunt, qui pendere ipsi vectigal sine publicano non potuerint, quod iis aequaliter Sulla discripserat." The reference is to Sulla's temporary abolition of the Gracchan principle of collection.
28. App. B.C. v. 4; Dio Cass. xlii. 6.
29. Nothing seems to be known about the conditions of sale of the provincial portoria, e.g. whether those of Asia were put up at Rome like the decumae.
30. Cic. in Verr. iii. cc. 81-96, 188-222.
31. Cic. in Verr. iii. 70, 163. Cf. Liv. xxxvi. 2 "idem L. Oppio de alteris decumis exigendis in Sardinia imperatum." Sometimes this enforced sale of corn (frumentum imperatum) was required from free cities such as Halaesa, Centuripae, and Messana in Sicily (Cic. in Verr. iii 73, 170; iv. 9, 20).
32. pp. 201, 202.
33. p. 201.
34. Sall. Jug. 27; Cic. de Prov. Cons. 2, 3; pro Domo 9, 24.
35. Cic. ad Fam. i. 9, 25.
36. Cf. Cic. de Prov. Cons. 15, 87 (if the consul of 55 B.C. succeeds Caesar on March 1, 54 B.C.) "Fuerit toto in consulatu sine provincia, cui fuerit, antequam designatus est, decreta provincia? Sortietur, an non? Nam et non sortiri absurdum est, et quod sortitus sis non habere. Proficiscetur paludatus? Quo? Quo pervenire ante certam diem non licebit. Januario, Februario provinciam non habebit. Kalendis ei denique Martiis nascetur repente provincia."
37. Cic. ad Fam. i. 9, 25; xii. 4, 2.
38. Cic. in Verr. i. 13, 34 "pecunia attributa, numerata est. Profectus est quaestor in provinciam (Verres). Venit exspectatus in Galliam ad exercitum consularem cum pecunia."
39. Rationes referre (Cic. in Verr. i. 13, 36). In accordance with a lex Julia (perhaps repetundarum) of Caesar's, the accounts had to be deposited at the aerarium, and two copies in two cities of the province (Cic. ad Fam. v. 20, 2; Plut. Cato Min. 38).
40. p. 215.
41. Cic. in Verr. iii. 58, 134 "Quaestores, legatos . . . multi missos fecerunt et de provincia decedere jusserunt, quod illorum culpa se minus commode audire arbitrarentur aut quod peccare ipsos aliqua in re judicarent."
42. The transition is marked in 169 B.C. (Liv. xliv. 18 "Senatus Cn. Servilio consuli negotium dedit, ut is in Macedoniam, quos L. Aemilio videretur, legaret").
43. Cicero delegates even jurisdiction to one of his comites, Volusius (ad Att. v. 21, 6). Other members of his retinue were his son Marcus and his brother Quintus. These intimates of the governor were spoken of as contubernales, cohors amicorum, even as cohors praetoria (Cic. ad Q. fr. i. 1, 4, 12), although this title was properly applied to the governor's military guard.
44. p. 319, note 2.
45. Cic. in Verr. ii. 13, 32 "Siculi hoc jure sunt ut, quod civis cum cive agat, domi certet suis legibus."
46. ib. "quod Siculus cum Siculo non ejusdem civitatis (agat), ut de eo praetor judices ex P. Rupilii decreto . . . sortiatur."
47. It is possible, however, that the principle here adopted was that the judex should be of the nationality of the defendant.
48. Cic. l.c. "quod privatus a populo petit aut populus a privato, senatus ex aliqua civitate, qui judicet, datur, cum alternae civitates rejectae sunt."
49. ib. "quod civis Romanus a Siculo petit, Siculus judex datur, quod Siculus a civi Romano, civis Romanus datur."
50. ib. "ceterarum rerum selecti judices ex conventu civium Romanorum proponi solent."
51. Cic. ad Att. vi. 1, 15 "multaque sum secutus Scaevolae; in iis illud, in quo sibi libertatem censent Graeci datam, ut Graeci inter se disceptent suis legibus . . . Graeci vero exsultant quod peregrinis judicibus utuntur"; ad Att. vi. 2, 4 "omnes (civitates), suis legibus et judiciis usae, [Greek: autonomian] adeptae, revixerunt."
52. "Edictum Siciliense" (Cic. in Verr. i. 45, 117).
53. Extreme changes might be made a ground of complaint by the departing governor. Thus Cicero writes from Cilicia (50 B.C.) "Appius enim ad me ex itinere bis terve . . . literas miserat, quod quaedam a se constituta rescinderem" (ad Att. vi. 1, 2).
54. Cic. ad Fam. iii. 8, 4.
55. Thus Cicero, governor of Cilicia, followed in some respects the edict of Mucius Scaevola, the former governor of Asia (Cic. ad Att. vi. 1, 15).
56. Cic. ad Att. vi. 1, 15 "unum (genus) est provinciale, in quo est de rationibus civitatum, de aere alieno, de usura, de syngraphis; in eodem omnia de publicanis. Alterum, quod sine edicto satis commode transigi non potest, de hereditatum possessionibus, de bonis possidendis vendendis, magistris faciendis: quae ex edicto et postulari et fieri solent. Tertium, de reliquo jure dicundo [Greek: agraphon] reliqui. Dixi me de eo genere mea decreta ad edicta urbana accommodaturum."
57. Cic. ad Fam. iii. 8, 6.
58. Cic. ad Att. v. 21, 9.
59. Cic. ad Att. v. 20, 1; ad Fam. iii. 8, 4 and 5.
60. Suet. Caes. 7 "Quaestori (Caesari) ulterior Hispania obvenit; ubi cum, mandatu praetoris, jure dicundo conventus circumiret, etc." Quaestorian jurisdiction was more frequent in Sicily than in other provinces, on account of the presence of the second quaestor at Lilybaeum.
61. Cic. ad Fam. xii. 30, 7 "Illud non nimium probo quod scribis . . . te tuis etiam legatis lictores ademisse."
62. Thus Verres quashes either a decision, or the execution of a decision, given by his quaestor (Cic. Div. in Caec. 17, 56 "Lilybaeum Verres venit postea: rem cognoscit: factum improbat: cogit quaestorem suum pecuniam . . . adnumerare et reddere").
63. Possibly certain kinds of criminal jurisdiction were guaranteed to cities by the lex provinciae. The Senate of Catina in Sicily tried a slave (Cic. in Verr. iv. 45, 100).
64. Cic. in Verr. i. 33, 84 (of an émeute at Lampsacus) "Non te ad senatum causam deferre . . . non eos homines, qui populum concitarant, consulum literis evocandos curare oportuit?"
65. The council was not, however, legally necessary. Cf. Cic. in Verr. ii. 30, 75 "Reus plorare . . . ut cum consilio cognosceret."
66. ib. ii. 29, 70; 30, 75.
67. ib. ii. 30, 75 "hominem innocentem de sententia scribae, medici haruspicisque condemnat."
68. For the threat of capital punishment on a Roman citizen see Cic. ad Q. fr. i. 2, 5; for its apparent execution, Diod. xxxvii. 5, 2.
69. Cic. in Verr. v. 66, 170 "Facinus est vincire civem Romanum; scelus, verberare: prope parricidium, necare: quid dicam in crucem tollere?" Cf. pro Rab. 5, 17.
70. See p. 285.