Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

The praefectus annonae was the final product of a question that had never ceased to agitate Rome from the close of the Punic wars. Anxiety about the supply of corn to the capital had raised Pompeius to an extraordinary position in 57 B.C.,[1987] and in 43 the Senate, alarmed at the possible designs of Antonius and Octavian, had agreed that no individual curator for corn should again be appointed.[1988] In the early Principate the duty belonged technically to the aediles cereales instituted by Caesar;[1989] but epochs of scarcity led to its being taken over by the Princeps. Augustus accepted the task in 22 B.C.,[1990] but whether as a permanent cura is uncertain,[1991] and in 18 B.C. and 6 A.D. experiments were made to carry it through by the appointment of curatores of praetorian or consular rank.[1992] Finally, as a definite cura of the Princeps, it was given to a praefect. The cura annonae as undertaken by the Princeps involved two charges; firstly, the gratuitous distribution of corn to the poorer classes at Rome, and secondly, the placing of corn on the Roman market for purchasers as well as recipients. It was with the latter of these duties that the praefect was chiefly, perhaps exclusively, concerned.[1993] He had to see that the requisite mass of grain was brought to the market, and that it was sold at a moderate and stable price.[1994] Assistance was furnished him by subordinate officials in Rome itself, in the harbours of Italy, and in the provinces, senatorial as well as imperial; but the number of these procurators was not large, since the lower departments of the corn-supply were managed by guilds, such as those of the mensores and navicularii,[1995] “associations that originally leased their services to the state and finally became its instruments.”[1996] The praefect possessed a jurisdiction arising from his administrative duties. He listened to criminal informations touching the public supply of corn,[1997] and seems even to have heard certain civil actions arising out of the corn trade.[1998] The appeal from his judgment went immediately to the Emperor.[1999]

The institution of the praefectus vigilum was equally the result of the Emperor’s undertaking a special department of administration that had formerly belonged to Republican magistrates. The guardianship of the town against fires and nocturnal disturbances had belonged chiefly to the triumviri capitales,[2000] and in a more general way to the aediles. But the Republican appliances were found insufficient, and Augustus formed an early scheme for giving the curule aediles a fire-brigade of six hundred slaves.[2001] Even this did not prove satisfactory, and in A.D. 6 he undertook the new cura—an undertaking which was followed by the establishment of seven cohorts of vigiles, one for every two of the fourteen regions of the city, and the creation of a praefect set over the tribunes who were commanders of these divisions.[2002] This praefecture was, like that of the corn-supply, equestrian, and the two differ little in rank; for, although the praefectura annonae was reckoned superior, direct promotion from the command of the vigiles to that of the praetorian guard is found.[2003] The praefect protected the town and patrolled the streets by night, and he exercised a jurisdiction closely connected with his police functions, and resembling, in a lower degree, that of the praefect of the city. He tried cases of arson, robbery, burglary, and thefts in baths;[2004] but the higher jurisdiction in such cases belonged to the praefectus urbi, and the praefect of the watch could not try Roman citizens on capital charges.[2005] In the third century he possessed some civil jurisdiction in matters connected with leases and house-rent.[2006]

(ii.) The Curators.—There were certain curae undertaken by Augustus which he did not give to equestrian praefects, but to senatorial curatores. These curae of the roads of Italy, of the public works, of the public water-supply, and of the channel and banks of the Tiber (viarum, operum publicorum, aquarum publicarum, alvei et riparum Tiberis), were filled by nomination of the Princeps, but their holders were perhaps, like the praefects of the aerarium, regarded as officials of the people or of the Senate rather than of the Emperor; the reason for this view probably being that the care of the roads, opera publica, and the like was concerned with solum publicum, and “the public soil in Rome and Italy was, even after the foundation of the Principate, not the property of the Emperor but of the people or the Senate.”[2007] Hence in the early Principate the pecuniary means for this administration was guaranteed from the aerarium, the fiscus merely contributing.[2008] Hence too the occupation of these posts by senators and their method of appointment. In 11 B.C. Augustus nominated curatores aquarum with the consent of the Senate (ex consensu senatus, ex senatus auctoritate);[2009] the curatores operum publicorum and viarum were perhaps nominated in the same way, and the curatores of the Tiber were in Tiberius’ reign appointed by lot.[2010]

(iii.) The Procurators.—The quasi-magisterial position of the occupants of the higher imperial posts could not be reflected in the lower grades of office. So far as the detailed ministeria principatus[2011] were concerned, the Princeps adopted the analogy of the Roman house, not of the Roman state, and employed either general agents (procuratores) or assistants designated by the secretarial or other duty which they performed (ab epistulis, a rationibus, etc.). There was always a distinction between the two classes, which was still preserved now that they had become official. The agent of domestic life might indeed approximate to the condition of a mere bailiff, and might be a slave; but the necessity for representing the absent dominus in courts of law had made it convenient that the procurator should be a free man; and the idea of agency, usually of general agency (procuratio omnium rerum),[2012] was closely associated with the word. On the other hand, the slaves and freedmen of the household who copied and kept accounts, were not agents; and, in accordance with this distinction, the officials of the Principate who bear such titles as ab epistulis, a libellis, a rationibus, are not spoken of as procurators, although one of these posts might rise to the dignity of a procuratorship, as that a rationibus did.

Although from the point of view of functions the two classes must be kept distinct, from that of qualification they may be discussed together. In both we observe the tendency for the household to become a bureau, for the freedman and slave to give place to the Roman knight. Tiberius’ household consisted mainly of freedmen,[2013] and their influence reached its zenith in the reign of Claudius. An Emperor who sought popularity might, like Vitellius, transfer the ministeria of the Principate to Roman knights;[2014] but no comprehensive attempt seems to have been made to reorganise the bureaucracy on this footing until the time of Hadrian.[2015] Henceforth the higher grades were held as a rule by knights, only the lower being possessed indifferently by equites or freedmen.[2016] The procuratorship was the patent of equestrian nobility (equestris nobilitas),[2017] and we have seen that titles were finally devised to express the differences in procuratorial rank.[2018] The civil service now became closely connected with the army, and the occupants of civil posts were mainly retired officers, men who had held at least one of the three positions in the equestrian service,[2019] and who, after the second century, had generally filled every grade before they took the procuratorship.[2020] This militarising of the administrative service is one of the most curious features of the Principate. It gave that service its precision, its rigidity, its tendency to work as a smooth machine almost independently of personal control. This tendency was a blessing in so far as it was calculated to diminish the influence due to the idiosyncrasies of the Princeps, or of any individual holder of office; but one cannot help suspecting that a great deal of the administrative tyranny, which darkened the closing years of the Principate and weakened the Empire, was due to the ineradicable habits of routine inspired by a military life, and that the Greek or Graeco-Asiatic freedman, although a more corrupt, was, on the whole, a more capable administrator. The military supply was not, however, altogether sufficient, and from the time of Hadrian a civil career was also open, which gave a chance to the aspiring lawyer.

Theoretically the procurator’s duties were those of mere agency, and he had little discretionary authority and no general official power. Tiberius’ emphatic statement that his procurator’s business was merely to manage the Emperor’s slaves and personal property[2021] is echoed in the language of the Digest, which tells us that the duties of these servants of the Emperor were strictly defined, that they were accountable to their master for the use made of the finances or property under their care, that they could not give, sell, or transfer it, and that “careful management” was the limit of their power.[2022] It was only when they kept within these bounds that their acts had all the authority of those of the Princeps himself.[2023] But the extending spheres of their operations rendered it impossible for these limits to be rigorously preserved. Claudius asked and obtained that his procurators should be permitted jurisdiction within their own financial departments[2024]—an almost necessary result of the fact that in the provinces (and especially in those under senatorial management) there was no convenient court of arbitration to decide when money was or was not owing to the Princeps.[2025] The consent of the Princeps, also, to the procurator’s acts must eventually have meant the consent of the chief bureau at Rome; for, in spite of the extraordinary capacity for personal government possessed by the Roman Emperors, the fiscal system was too complicated for every detail to reach their ears.

The chief duties of the procurators were financial, and most of these agents can be summed up under the title procuratores fisci. A number of titles are met with which clearly have reference to the central department at Rome. Such are procurator summarum found in an inscription of Nero’s time and borne by a freedman,[2026] procuratores rationum summarum,[2027] rationalis summae rei,[2028] dispensator or dispensator summarum,[2029] and vilicus summarum.[2030] The titles belong to different epochs, and it is difficult to establish their precise import. It is generally agreed that from the time of Claudius the title a rationibus was reserved for the chief controller of the fiscus. After the reign of Hadrian this post was reserved for equites,[2031] and the members of the central bureau had a higher standing than the financial agents in the provinces. The title procurator rationum summarum, which belongs to the second century, denotes some highly placed official connected with this central chest; but, as it does not seem to be identical with the title a rationibus, it has been thought to represent a subordinate controller perhaps instituted by Marcus Aurelius.[2032] The title rationalis, which was often identical with procurator,[2033] seems at some period within the third century to have replaced a rationibus as the designation of the chief officer of the fiscus.[2034]

Amongst provincial procurators we may enumerate first those who were confined to the imperial provinces. The procurator here occupied the position which the quaestor held in the public provinces; he was the chief officer of the provincial fiscus, collected the taxes due to it, and managed the disbursement of its funds. There was also a treasury connected with the military station in the province (fiscus castrensis), and at the head of it a procurator castrensis, who superintended the payments made to the soldiers,[2035] and military expenses in general. Other procurators were common to all the provinces; for even those that were “public” paid certain dues to the Emperor.[2036] Such were lapsed legacies and the goods of the condemned (bona caduca and damnatorum), after the fiscus had asserted its claim to these revenues,[2037] and the taxes owed by Roman citizens everywhere, such as the vicesima hereditatum and the centesima rerum venalium. But the public provinces owed more direct dues to the Princeps as well. Thus Africa, a corn-supplying but not an imperial province, was brought into the closest relation with his cura annonae, and even the most peaceful districts must have defrayed the expense of the necessary military protection, and surrendered certain revenues to be collected by imperial officials.

Common, too, to all the provinces were the agents who managed the imperial estates (procuratores patrimonii or patrimonii privati).[2038] We have already noticed that after the time of Severus a distinction was drawn between the res privata and the patrimonium of the Emperor.[2039] From this time onward the procurator rerum privatarum is distinct from the procurator patrimonii.[2040]