Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

Augustus with characteristic modesty and discretion reserved his strength for the most difficult of the provinces—those on the frontier which demanded military occupation and unusual vigilance in administration—and thus created the distinction between Caesar’s provinces and those which were public (publicae) and were entrusted to the care of the Senate and people.[2091] There were occasional interchanges of provinces between the co-rulers. Thus Achaea and Macedonia were relinquished by the Senate in A.D. 15, but restored to it in A.D. 44,[2092] and Marcus Aurelius took over or surrendered districts according to the necessities of war.[2093] But in the middle of the Principate the Senate possessed but eleven,[2094] the Princeps twenty-one under regular governors,[2095] nine administered by procurators,[2096] one, Egypt, ruled by an equestrian praefect.

As in the Republic, the only true provincial civitates were those which were stipendiariae. The free or free and allied communities were still technically exempt from the governor’s control. But the free cities were lessened in number and restricted in privileges. The supposed abuse of its self-governing powers by a foederata civitas might cause the treaty to be rescinded and the state to be brought under direct provincial rule;[2097] while, even when libertas was retained, its merits might be suspected, and the state might be placed under the financial tutelage of curatores (λογισταί) or the administrative care of correctores (διορθωταί) appointed by the Princeps.[2098] It is also certain that libertas no longer conferred immunity from taxation. We know that, of the cities of Asia which are described as tributary in the reign of Tiberius,[2099] two, Magnesia ad Sipylum and Apollonidea, were liberae,[2100] while Byzantium, which had been in alliance with Rome during the Republic, also paid tribute in the reign of Claudius.[2101] This change, which is specially noticeable in the East, has been with great probability attributed to Pompeius. While granting or renewing charters and privileges, he reserved to Rome the right to tax,[2102] and thus dissociated the ideas of libertas and immunitas, which had hitherto been inseparable. The new principle was so fully accepted by the Principate that even the possession of Latin rights could not have exempted a state from taxation,[2103] and the immunity of cities became more of an exceptional political privilege. Sometimes it took the form of exemption only from a special tax, such as the freedom from the port dues of Illyricum claimed by the state Tyras in Moesia.[2104] Less frequently it was a freedom from all external burdens, such as that enjoyed, on account of its historical associations, by the town of Ilium.[2105] But the favourite means of granting immunity to a state was to confer the right known as the jus Italicum—a right which implied that the members of the city were, like the inhabitants of Italy, in quiritarian ownership of their soil, and, therefore, exempt from the land-tax. This right generally accompanied the honorary designation of the town as a colonia, although the title might be conferred without the right,[2106] or be accompanied by only a partial immunity.[2107] Many states in Lusitania, Gaul, Germany, Syria, and Phoenicia were made coloniae and granted the jus Italicum.[2108]

The two great problems in taxation which confronted the early Principate were the formation of an estimate of the resources of the Empire, and the apportionment of burdens by reference to the capacities of the various countries. Both tasks were undertaken vigorously by Augustus. To both belong his budget of the resources of the Empire,[2109] the geographical works undertaken under the auspices of Agrippa,[2110] and the comprehensive assessments made in various provinces. The right of making such assessments belonged to the Princeps,[2111] and seems not to have been limited to his own provinces, although it is to these that our definite information chiefly refers. The first known census of the kind was that undertaken in the three Gauls in 27 B.C.,[2112] which we find renewed in the years 14, 17, and 61 A.D.[2113] There is a trace of an Augustan census in Spain,[2114] and a similar task was undertaken in Syria.[2115] When these great preliminary estimates were over, provision had to be made for a periodical revision of the assessment. This was done under imperial control and for each province separately. A special imperial decree was issued, and under it the commissioner (censor, censitor, ad census accipiendos)[2116] made a renewed estimate, with the assistance of delegates, in the shape of equestrian officers and procurators, for the special communities or districts in the provinces subject to the census. Originally the chief officials were of senatorial rank, but after the end of the second century equestrian procurators were generally entrusted with the census[2117]—a circumstance which is probably to be accounted for by the fact that in the course of years the duty of making out the returns had become more automatic and therefore simpler.[2118] It is not known whether there were fixed dates for the regular recurrence of the census in each province;[2119] but there were taxes, such as the tributum capitis in Syria, paid only by people of an age that fitted them for labour,[2120] which would have demanded renewed registration at somewhat short intervals; and in Egypt there was a cycle of fourteen years for the payment at least of the poll-tax, which goes back to the time of Tiberius and perhaps of Augustus.[2121] The careful nature of the estimate of the land-tax is shown by the official form of the schedule of returns (forma censualis), which has been preserved. This specified the community and pagus in which the farm was situated, the names of two neighbours, and the character of the land assessed.[2122]

The taxes were either imposts on the land (tributum soli) or on the person (tributum capitis). The land-tax was in most provinces paid either in money or grain, more usually in the former; but in certain minor districts it was delivered wholly, or almost wholly, in kind. Cyrene sent its famous silphium, the Sanni in Pontus wax, and the Frisii of Germany the skins of oxen.[2123] The personal tax might be one on professions, income, or movable property. It was rarely a poll-tax pure and simple, although this is found in Egypt[2124] as a relic of the Ptolemaic organisation; amongst the Jews, when the δίδραχμον had been diverted from the Jewish temple to that of Jupiter Capitolinus;[2125] in Britain,[2126] where it would have been difficult to collect any other personal tax from the mass of the people; and in the tiny island of Tenos,[2127] whose poverty probably forbade any other method of assessment. It may, however, have existed in many provinces by the side of other personal taxes as a burden imposed on those whose property fell below a certain rating.

The collection of the chief imperial taxes was now direct, since the system of decumae with the accompanying tax-farmers (decumani) had been abolished.[2128] But there seem to have been different degrees of directness in the method. A distinction is drawn between the stipendium of the public and the tributum of Caesar’s provinces,[2129] and as this distinction can scarcely be one of a method of taxation, it must be one based on the method of collection. Perhaps in the public provinces the taxes were still collected by the states themselves and paid by them to the quaestor, while in the imperial provinces the procurator came into direct contact with the tax-payer. But much was still left to the efforts of private companies, and the abolition of the decumani was perhaps the sole infringement made on the vast operations of the publicani. The extent to which the system of contracting out was still employed may be illustrated by the facts that “companies of Roman knights” are said still to have gathered in the pecuniae vectigales—by which the portoria are chiefly meant—and other publici fructus—the revenues from mines, salt-works, quarries, and the like—during the reign of Tiberius,[2130] that in the reign of Nero severe measures had to be taken to repress the exactions of the publicani,[2131] and that these state middlemen have a title devoted to them in the Digest of Justinian.[2132] Even a tax which fell to an imperial treasury, such as the vicesima hereditatum, was collected by contractors in the reign of Trajan.[2133] The contracts were no longer leased by a central authority in Rome, but by the official who controlled the department with which the tax was concerned. In most cases it was an imperial procurator who leased the tax, and perhaps to some extent supervised its collection.[2134] The direct taxes were paid to the quaestor in the public provinces, and in the imperial were collected by the procurators, of whose functions and operations we have already spoken.[2135] In connexion with the fiscus of each province there was a bureau (tabularium)[2136] in which the assessments were kept.

The method of government in the public provinces underwent considerable modifications, but suffered little formal alteration. The tenure of office was still annual, and the regulation that a five years’ interval must elapse between home and foreign command,[2137] which had been neglected by Caesar,[2138] was revived by Augustus,[2139] but considerations of fitness and another method of determining seniority considerably interfered with the application of the latter principle. Some qualified candidates were set aside by the Senate either on its own motion or by the advice of the Emperor,[2140] and the jus liberorum admitted some to the sortitio in preference to others.[2141] All the governors of public provinces were now called proconsuls, whether they had previously held the consulship or not,[2142] in order to distinguish them from the legates of Caesar’s provinces, who all bore the title pro praetore. The two greatest of the public provinces, Asia and Africa, were always given to consulares, while the other governments might be held by men of praetorian rank. A definite allowance (salarium) was now given to the governor,[2143] which must have removed some of his temptation to extortion. Each proconsul was attended by lictors and had the other insignia of his rank. But the proconsulare imperium was in many respects a mere shadow of its former self. Its possessor did not wear the sword or the military dress,[2144] to show that his command was not a military one, and in deference to the full proconsulare imperium possessed by the Princeps. It was an exception to this rule that until the time of the Emperor Gaius the legion in Africa was under the command of the governor of that province;[2145] but even here, where the employment of active military power was needed, the appointment of the proconsul was thrown practically on the Princeps.[2146] The governor was also hampered by assessors[2147] more carefully selected than the legati of Republican times. The legati proconsulis pro praetore, three of whom were assigned to the higher class of provinces, such as Asia and Africa, and one to the lower, such as Sicily and Baetica, although nominally selected by the proconsuls themselves, had to be approved by the Princeps; and the fact that they bear a title which suggests the imperium shows, that although they were still delegates of the governor, their jurisdiction was more definite and independent in the dioceses assigned them than it had been in Republican times. Even the quaestor now bears the title quaestor pro praetore,[2148] and exercises, besides his financial functions, a definite judicial charge—the kind of jurisdiction which was in the hands of the curule aedile at Rome.[2149] We have already shown the possibilities of imperial interference with the administration and jurisdiction of proconsular governors through the presence of procurators in their provinces, and through the tendencies which led to the Emperor’s becoming a court of appeal for the whole provincial world.[2150]

In his own provinces Caesar was the only possessor of the proconsulate imperium.[2151] Hence his governors were merely legates (legati Caesaris pro praetore). They were not, however, regarded as mere delegates. They exercised an independent jurisdiction, which they could delegate to their subordinates—a proceeding of which the mere mandatary is incapable.[2152] Their military command was delegated, but some at least of them exercised the power of life and death over the soldiers in their province.[2153] All the legates wore the military dress and sword,[2154] since all governed provinces in which legions were quartered. But even their military discretion was to some extent limited by the fact that the legions now had their own regular commanders (legati legionum), while their civil authority was lessened by the circumstances that the financial affairs of the province were chiefly in the hands of a procurator responsible to the Princeps or to a bureau, and that in many provinces after the time of Hadrian and the Antonines we find a special legate appointed for jurisdiction (legatus juridicus),[2155] who, though inferior to the governor in rank, was a delegate not of him but of the Princeps.

One of the secrets of the better administration of Caesar’s provinces was the length of time during which one of these legates might be kept in a single province. Thus in Tiberius’ reign Sabinus governed Moesia for twenty and Silius Gaul for seven years,[2156] while somewhat later Galba was in Spain for eight.[2157] In every case the tenure of such commands depended on the Emperor’s discretion,[2158] and the holders drew fixed salaries from the imperial treasury.[2159] To the higher class of provinces, such as Syria, consulares were sent; those of a lower class, such as Aquitania and Galatia, might be governed by men of praetorian rank.

The sphere of imperial rule included a class of dependencies which had not yet become, or were not thought worthy of being, organised as definite provinces and placed under senatorial legates. They were governed by personal agents of Caesar, who were in this case known as procuratores Caesaris pro legato.[2160] Some of these districts, such as the three Alpine provinces, were comparatively small: but others, such as the Mauretanias, Thrace, Judaea,[2161] were of considerable size, and the presence of mere procurators in such countries must be accounted for by the fact that they were not important military stations but defended by some great command in a neighbouring province. The procurator was, indeed, sometimes under the partial control of the neighbouring imperial legate; thus Judaea was in some way attached to the larger province of Syria, and Pilate was deposed from office by Vitellius its governor.[2162] But even in this case the procurator is the delegate, not of the governor, but of the Princeps. Thus, when St. Paul appealed against the jurisdiction of Festus, the appeal was made directly to Caesar.

Anomalous methods of government were adopted for the two greatest military and strategic positions in the Empire—Germany, which was divided into an upper and a lower province, and Egypt. The two strips of land west of the Rhine, which contained the garrisons not merely of the river frontier but of Gaul, were not placed under the ordinary provincial legates. The two consular legati, not of the separate legions, but of the armies, were themselves the governors of the districts; they bore the title pro praetore,[2163] and, except when the supreme command over Gaul and the Germanies was assumed by a colleague of the Emperor,[2164] were not under the control of any governor of the neighbouring Gallic provinces. Egypt, in a sense a private domain of the Princeps,[2165] and, as the key of land and sea, guarded even from the approach of a man of senatorial rank,[2166] was entrusted to an equestrian praefect (praefectus Aegypti), who exercised the reality without the name of the imperium,[2167] wielded all the powers of a governor,[2168] and had an army under his control.