The salary and titles of the equestrian officials. The ordinary career of an official in the imperial civil service included a considerable number of procuratorships in various branches of the administration, both in Rome, Italy and the provinces. Although from the time of Augustus a definite salary was attached to each of these offices, it was not until after the reforms of Hadrian that four distinct classes of procurators were recognized on the basis of the relative importance of their offices expressed in terms of pay. These four classes of procurators were the tercenarii, ducenarii, centenarii and sexagenarii, who received respectively an annual salary of 300,000, 200,000, 100,000 and 60,000 sesterces; this classification remained unchanged until the close of the third century. At that time the highest class included the imperial secretaries of state, whose title was now that of magister, or master. The salary of the four chief prefectures was probably higher still.
Following the example of the senatorial order, the equestrians also acquired titles of honor, which depended upon their official rank. From the time of Hadrian the title vir eminentissimus (most eminent) was the prerogative of the praetorian prefects. Under Marcus Aurelius appear two other equestrian titles, vir perfectissimus and vir egregius. In the third century the latter was borne by all the imperial procurators, while the former was reserved for the higher prefectures (apart from the praetorian), the chief officials of the treasury and the imperial secretaries.
Administration of the finances: (I). The Fiscus. The most important branch of the civil administration was that of the public finances, which merits special consideration. Augustus did not centralize the administration of the provincial revenues which were at his disposal, but created a separate treasury or fiscus for each imperial province. However, he did establish the aerarium militare at Rome for the control of the revenues destined for the pensioning of veteran troops. Furthermore, Augustus drew a sharp distinction between the public revenues which were administered by the princeps in his magisterial capacity, and the income from his own private property or patrimony. For the expenditure of the former he acknowledged a strict accountability to the Senate. The policy of Augustus was followed by Tiberius and Caligula, but under Claudius a central fiscus was organized at Rome for the administration of all the public revenues of the princeps. The provincial fisci disappeared, and the military treasury became a department of the fiscus. This new imperial fiscus was under the direction of the a rationibus. From this time the princeps ceased to hold himself accountable for the expenditure of the public imperial revenues, and the fiscus assumes an independent position alongside of the old aerarium of the Roman people, which, as we have shown, it ultimately deprived of all share in the control of the public finances. However, the distinction between the public and private revenues of the princeps was still observed, and the patrimonium was independently administered by a special procurator.
(II). The Patrimonium. But with the extinction of the Julio-Claudian house and the accession of Vespasian the patrimony of the Caesars passed as an appendage of the principate to the new ruler. It then became state property, and as it had grown to enormous size owing to the inheritances of Augustus and the confiscations of Caligula [pg 272]and Nero, the patrimonium was organized as an independent branch of the imperial financial administration. The personal estate of the princeps was henceforth distinguished as the patrimonium privatum. This situation continued until the accession of Septimius Severus, whose enormous confiscations of the property of the adherents of Niger and Albinus were incorporated in his personal estate. This, the patrimonium privatum, was now placed under a new department of the public administration called the ratio or res privata. The old patrimonium became a subordinate branch of the fiscus. The title of the secretary of the treasury in charge of the fiscus was now changed to that of rationalis, while the new secretary in charge of the privy purse was called at first procurator, and later magister, rei privatae. The reform of Severus, which gave to the private income of the princeps a status in the administration comparable to that of the public revenues, is a further expression of the monarchical tendencies of his rule.
The officiales. The subaltern personnel of the various bureaus, the clerks, accountants, etc., during the first two centuries of the principate was composed almost entirely of imperial freedmen and slaves. Among these there was apparently no fixed order of promotion or uniform system of pay, nor could they ever advance to the higher ranks of the service. However, from the time of Severus soldiers began to be employed in these capacities and a military organization was introduced into the bureaus. The way was thus gradually paved for completely dispensing with the services of freedmen and slaves in any part of the civil administration.
III. The Army and the Defence of the Frontiers
The barbarization of the army. It will be recalled that the military policy of Augustus aimed at securing the supremacy of the Roman element in the empire by restricting admission to the legions to Roman citizens or to freeborn inhabitants of provincial municipalities who received a grant of citizenship upon entering the service. The gradual abandonment of this policy is one of the most significant facts in the military history of the principate.
The territorial recruitment of the legions. Under the Augustan system the legions in the West were recruited from Italy and the romanized provinces of the West, the eastern legions from the Greek [pg 273]East and Galatia. But the increasing reluctance of the Italians to render military service led to the practical, although not to the theoretical, exemption of Italy from this burden which now rested more heavily upon the latinized provinces. An innovation of utmost importance was the introduction of the principle of territorial recruitment for the legions by Hadrian. Henceforth these corps were recruited principally from the provinces in which they were stationed, and consequently freedom from the levy was extended to the ungarrisoned provinces, Baetica, Narbonese Gaul, Achaia and Asia. The effect of Hadrian’s reform is well illustrated by a comparison of the various racial elements in the legions stationed in Egypt under the early principate with those in the same legions in the time of Marcus Aurelius. The lists of the veterans discharged from these legions under Augustus or Tiberius show that fifty per cent were recruited from Galatia, twenty-five per cent from the Greek municipalities in Egypt, fifteen per cent from Syria and the Greek East, and the remainder from the western provinces. A similar list from 168 A. D. shows sixty-five per cent from Egypt, the remainder from the Greek East, and none from Galatia or the West. In general, the consequence of Hadrian’s policy was to displace gradually in the legions the more cultured element by the more warlike, but less civilized, population from the frontiers of the provinces. It was Hadrian also who opened the pretorian guard to provincials from Spain, Noricum and Macedonia. As we have seen, Severus recruited the pretorians from the legions and so deprived the more thoroughly latinized parts of the empire of any real representation in the ranks of the army.
The auxiliaries. The auxiliary corps, unlike the legions, were not raised by Augustus from Roman citizens but from the non-Roman provincials and allies. At first they were recruited and stationed in their native provinces, but after the revolt of the Batavi in 68 A. D. they were regularly quartered along distant frontiers. From the time of Hadrian, they were generally recruited, in the same manner as the legions, from the districts in which they were in garrison. The extension of Roman citizenship to practically the whole Roman world by Caracalla in 212 A. D. removed the basic distinction between the legions and the auxiliaries.