Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul

by T. G. Tucker

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A glance at the map will show some provinces named in heavy type and some in italics. Those in italics are the provinces to which the Senate has the right to appoint the governors, in this case called "proconsuls." Of course His Highness the Head of the State is graciously pleased to approve the choice of the Senate; which means that the Senate will not attempt any appointment which the emperor would dislike. The revenues of these provinces go into a treasury controlled by the Senate. Of those named in heavy type the emperor is himself the governor or proconsul. Theoretically he is made governor of all these simply because they contain, or may need, armies, and he is the commander-in-chief of those armies. But since he is at Rome, and in any case cannot be everywhere at once, he governs all such provinces by means of his deputies, whom he appoints for himself. They are his lieutenants, and are so called—to wit, "lieutenants of Caesar" and "deputies of the commander." The revenues of these imperial provinces are collected by an "agent" or "factor" of Caesar, and go into a treasury controlled by the emperor. In any one of his provinces the emperor would be its governor, and would exercise the usual military and civil powers of a governor. His lieutenant to each province simply acts in his place, receives the same powers, and is the governor of that province exactly as the proconsul sent by the Senate is governor in his. But whereas the governors in the senatorial provinces wear the garb of peace, and are appointed, like other civil officers, for one year only, the "deputies of Caesar," the commander-in-chief, wear the military garb, and are kept in office just so long as their superior thinks fit. It is as if in modern times the governor of the one kind of province made his public appearances in civilian dress, and the governor of the other kind in uniform.

The actual outcome of this system was that the provinces of the emperor were on the whole better administered than those of the Senate. In the latter, changes were too frequent, and a governor might sometimes strain a point to enrich himself quickly. But it must on no account be imagined that at this date a governor could with impunity be extortionate or oppress the provincials, as he too often did in the good old days of the republic. He was paid his salary, which might be anything up to £10,000; his allowances and power of making requisitions, such as of salt, wood, and hay when travelling, were strictly defined by law; any pronounced extortion, oppression, or dishonesty laid him open to impeachment; and such a charge was tolerably certain to be brought. Among so many governors it was inevitable that a number should have been impeached. We know of twenty-seven instances, resulting in twenty condemnations and only seven acquittals. The emperors at least looked sharply to their own provinces; nor would they readily tolerate any gross irregularity in those other provinces which were nominally controlled by the Senate. On leaving his province every governor must make out duplicate copies of his accounts, one to be left in the province, one to be forwarded to Rome.

In the Acts of the Apostles we have mention of two governors of senatorial provinces—in other words, two "proconsuls"—Gallio in Achaia (or Greece), and Sergius Paulus in Cyprus. It is instructive to compare the lenient and common sense attitude of these trained Roman aristocrats with that of the turbulent local mobs who dealt with St. Paul in Asia Minor, Judaea, or Greece. Of the minor governors of smaller provinces—styled "agents" or "factors" of Caesar—we meet with Pontius Pilate, Felix, and Festus.

It remains only to remark that, while the Senate's treasury, which received the revenues from the senatorial provinces, paid the expenses of their management and also of the administration of Italy, the emperor's treasury, which received the revenues from the other provinces, provided for their administration, for the pay of the army, for the corn and water of Rome, for public buildings, for the great military roads, and for the imperial post. Nevertheless the emperor could handle all this latter money exactly as he chose, and it is upon this chest that Nero was drawing for all his lavish prodigalities and his undeserved and wasteful bounties. Yet even Nero was scarcely so bad as Caligula, who managed to spend £22,000,000 in less than one year.

CHAPTER VII

ROME: THE IMPERIAL CITY

In the year 64 the capital of the Roman Empire was, it is true, a large and splendid city and an "epitome of the world," but it had not yet reached either its zenith of splendour or its maximum, of size. Many of the largest and most sumptuous structures of which we possess the records, and in most cases the ruins, were not yet built or even contemplated. There was no Colosseum; there were no Baths of Trajan, Caracalla, or Diocletian. The Column of Trajan, still soaring in the Foro Traiano, and of Marcus Aurelius, now so conspicuous in the Piazza Colonna, are of a later date. So also are the three great triumphal arches which are still standing—those of Titus, Severus, and Constantine. The Mausoleum of Hadrian, now stripped of its outward magnificence of marble and sculpture, and known as the Castle of Sant' Angelo, was not built for two generations. On the Palatine Hill the palaces of the Caesars were wide and lofty, but not more than half so spacious and imposing as they became by the end of the following century.

Down in the Forum there stood no Basilica of Constantine; the place of several later temples and shrines was occupied by edifices of less dignity; many columns and statues, and much ornament of gilt or marble, were still to come. Beside and beyond the two embellished public places which had been added to the public comfort and convenience by Julius Caesar and Augustus, and which were known respectively as the Julian and the Augustan Forum, lay only the houses of citizens or streets of shops. Up from the Forum towards the later Arch of Titus and the Colosseum, the "Upper Sacred Way" ran as but a narrow road between buildings for the most part of ordinary character, principally shops catering for luxury. It was later by two centuries and a half that this street was converted into a broad avenue forming a worthy approach to the "hub of the universe."

In the ruins which lie on the Palatine Hill, or along the valley of the Forum below, or up the Sacred Slope towards the Colosseum, or across where the streets wind round from the "Roman" Forum through the Forum of Trajan to the Corso, the modern visitor to the Eternal City does not behold simply the remnants of the temples, halls, squares, and arches which actually existed in the days of Nero. We must not say of these places that St. Paul trod the very paving-stones or gazed on the very walls which we now find in their worn and broken state. In a few cases it may be so; in most it is certainly otherwise. Either the building was not there, or what we now behold is part of a reconstruction or an enlargement. Fire, flood, earthquake and the wear and tear of time called for many a rebuilding or restoration. In the very year upon which we have fixed, there swept over all this part of the city perhaps the most disastrous fire that it ever experienced. Another only a little less destructive occurred in A.D. 283, and when we say that the remains of the glory of ancient Rome are still visible in the excavated Forum, we must recognise that the glory which they represent is the glory of the place as restored after that year.