3. The introduction of standing armies, already long prepared, naturally followed a dominion acquired by war; and became, indeed, necessary to guard the frontiers and preserve the newly-made conquests; the establishment of the guards and militia of the city (cohortes prætorianæ and cohortes urbanæ) were measures equally necessary for the security of the capital and the throne. The creation of two prætorian præfects, however, instead of one, diminished for the present the great importance of that office.

Distribution of the legions over the provinces in castra stativa (fixed camps), which soon grew into cities, especially along the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates (legiones Germanicæ, Illyricæ, et Syriacæ). Fleets also were stationed at Misenum and Ravenna.

The provinces divided between the emperor and the senate.

4. The government, as well as the administration and revenue of the provinces, Augustus willingly divided with the senate; keeping to himself those on the frontiers (provinciæ principis,) in which the legions were quartered, and leaving to that assembly the others (provinciæ senatûs). Hence his deputies (legati, lieutenants) exercised both civil and military authority in his name; while those of the senate, on the contrary (proconsules), only administered in civil affairs. Both were, in general, attended by commissioners (procuratores et quæstores). The provinces were unquestionably gainers by this new arrangement, not only because their governors were more carefully looked after, but because they were paid by the state.

The fate of the provinces naturally depended, in a great degree, upon the disposition of the emperor and governor; but there was also an essential difference between the provinces of the emperor and those of the senate (provinciæ principis et senatûs): in the latter there was no military oppression as there was in the former; and to that may be ascribed the flourishing state of Gaul, Spain, Africa, etc.

Finances:
the private and military chest of the emperor; the state chest
swallowed up by the former.

5. There is little doubt but that the finances of the treasury remained, upon the whole, much the same as before; but in its internal administration Augustus made many alterations, of which we have but a very imperfect knowledge. Of course there would be at first an obvious difference between the privy and military chest of the emperor (fiscus), which was at his immediate disposal, and the state chest (ærarium) which he disposed of indirectly through the senate, though it must afterwards follow as a natural consequence of increasing despotism, that the latter should progressively become merged in the former.

The great disorder into which the treasury had been thrown during the civil wars, and especially by giving away the state lands in Italy to the soldiers, together with the heavy sums required for the maintenance of the standing army now established, must have rendered it much more difficult for Augustus to accomplish the reform he so happily executed; and in which it seems to have been his chief aim to place everything, as far as possible, upon a solid and lasting foundation. The principal changes which he made in the old system of taxation seem to have been: 1. That the tithes hitherto collected in the provinces should be changed into a fixed quota, to be paid by each individual. 2. The customs, partly by reestablishing former ones, and partly by imposing new ones as well as an excise (centesima rerum venalium), were rendered more productive. The possession of Egypt, which was the depôt of nearly all the commerce of the east, rendered the customs at this time of great importance to Rome. 3. All the state lands in the provinces were, by degrees, changed into crown lands. Of the new taxes the most considerable were the vigesima hereditatum (the twentieth of inheritances), though with important restrictions; and the fines upon celibacy by the lex Julia Poppæa.—The greater part of these state revenues most likely flowed, from the very first, into the fiscus: that is, the whole revenues of the provinciæ principis, as well as of those parts of the provinciæ senatûs which were appropriated to the maintenance of the troops; the revenues arising from the crown domains; the vigesima, etc. To the ærarium (now under three præfecti ærarii) remained a part of the revenues of the provinciæ senatûs, the customs and the fines. Thus it appears that Augustus was master of the finances, of the legions, and thereby of the empire.

See above, p. 362, the writings of Hegewisch and Bosse.

Extension of the empire:
Spain and Gaul, 25.
20.
Countries south of the Danube, 15—35.
29.
24.