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licentiousness in poetry, nor to the cruelties of gladiatorial spectacles. He lived a cheerful, genial, social life in Rome, was never bored by the recitations of his friends, or, at any rate, he was too polite to say so, and if he needed any revenge, he was quite content to take it by giving still longer recitations of his own. As he grew older, no doubt his life would more and more have approximated to that of his friend Spurinna. Hunting and poetry, ornamental letter-writing, and farm supervision would, by turns, have occupied him. That he was prematurely snatched away from a life which suited him so well, and which he enjoyed so thoroughly, almost causes a feeling of personal regret, and the fact that in all probability the correspondence with Trajan belongs to the period immediately before his death, and that either the climate of Bithynia or the worries of his position proved too much for his delicate constitution may perhaps add an element of human interest to the somewhat dry and official nature of what Pliny would perhaps himself have called 'inlitteratissimae litterae.'1 All the facts relating to Pliny's life are collected and arranged chronolgically, year by year, in Masson's C. Plinii Secundi Vita (1709), while much fresh light on various vexed questions both of chronology and constitutional usage is added by Mommsen's admirable article in Hermes, vol. iii.

THE IMPERIAL SUPERVISION OF THE

PROVINCES

Probably the darkest side in the republican government of Rome was its provincial administration. Without attempting to give illustrations here of the various acts of oppression, extortion, and cruelty with which the speeches of Cicero, and especially the Verrine orations, are full, it will suffice to say that the condition of the provinces was reduced to the very lowest ebb. They were regarded merely as 'praedia populi Romani' (Cic. in Verr. ii 2, 3, 7); the senate had little or no check upon the governors, and the governors had every motive to make what they could out of an opportunity which

1 i 10, 9.

rarely came twice in a lifetime. Thus the system was bad positively as well as negatively; bad in giving the freest opportunity for all the excuses and contrivances of oppression in the invention of which Verres was only a member, perhaps a representative, of a class; bad also in providing no adequate remedy, no certain punishment, and the smallest sense of responsibility to a central power. On the one side were the provincial governors, men often of little experience, military or political, with the provincials practically at their feet. With them was a numerous retinue of staff-officers and others who had come out from Rome, all eager to profit by their appointment to the utmost. In the province they found the publicani whose contract with the government gave them a locus standi which had to be respected, while their influence at home and in the iudicia was a motive for winking at their peculiar methods of fulfilling the contract. Lastly, scattered in the provincial towns were the negotiatores, necessary both to governor and publicani, and in some ways a greater burden perhaps to the provincials than either. The governor on arriving at his province was probably burdened with debt; he would hardly have obtained the praetorship without the disbursement of considerable sums in bribery, while the expenses of the gladiatorial games, for which he had to spend a large sum of his own, would have drained his resources still further. To pay off these debts and to lay by a competence for the future was too often the one aim with which he entered on his provincial administration, and what he did had to be done quickly, for his term of office was usually only one year. It is perhaps no wonder that, with the exception of the older Cato in Sardinia, it is hard to find a single instance of firmness against temptation so strong and a system so corrupt. For those even who were content to put aside their own interests might find in their friends, as Cicero found in Brutus, insuperable obstacles in the way of strict and impartial justice.

At home no doubt, theoretically, there was a central authority to which governors were responsible, and before which complaints might be laid, while there was a certain amount of public opinion, unfortunately not enough organised to do much good, in favour of establishing checks and bringing about improvement. The provincials might always accuse a

governor before the senate, but there were so many difficulties, so many hindrances, and so uncertain a prospect of success that they may well have hesitated, as Juvenal says, 'post omnia perdere naulum.' For at the outset they would have to appeal to the patroni of the province, before they could have any locus standi at all, and these patroni, senators themselves, and perhaps expectant governors, were often reluctant to give their assistance. Even if they did, or if the province found, as Sicily did in Cicero, some one else willing to undertake their cause, there was still unlimited bribery to contend with, an unfriendly tribunal to be looked for, and difficulties of every kind thrown in their way, sometimes even by the successor of the prosecuted governor, who might, if he chose, prevent or delay the provincial legates and witnesses, whose presence the case demanded at Rome.

Still, some nominal check there was, and the public opinion on the subject to a certain extent was a growing one. Previous to 149 B.C. complaints were either heard by the senate itself (Livy, 26, 25; 38, 24; 38,43); or handed over to the consuls, and a commission (Livy, 29, 16; 39, 3; 43, 2); or even sent before the comitia tributa (Livy, 29, 16; 43, 8). In that year, however, an attempt was made at a more definite procedure by the lex Calpurnia, which established the first of the quaestiones perpetuae, viz. that 'de pecuniis repetundis' (Cic. pro Cluent. 53 ; de Off. ii 21; Brut. 27; Tac. Ann. xv 20). By this law the various offences which it was designed to check were enumerated (Cic. de Leg. iii 20). An initial appeal to the senate was rendered unnecessary, and the procedure before the senatorial iudices presided over by the praetor peregrinus was fixed. This law was for the protection of peregrini, i.e. provincials only, as Cicero expressly states (Div. 5): 'quasi vero dubium sit quia tota lex de pecuniis repetundis sociorum causa constituta sit' (conf. Verr. ii 6). The punishment, however, was apparently at present only pecuniary, and consisted in simple reimbursement, and the trial was therefore merely recuperatorial. This law was followed, modified, or supplemented by others, such as the lex Servilia, 106 B.C., the lex Acilia, 10I B.C., and the lex Cornelia, 81 B.C. By the lex Servilia, of which the lex Acilia seems to have been a mere repetition, all magistrates and even equites might be accused.

The patroni were appointed by the praetor, but provincials might now conduct their own case. Reimbursement was made double, and probably exile inflicted in more serious cases (Cic. de Or. ii 147). By the lex Cornelia of Sulla, exile was certainly established as a punishment (Cic. Verr. ii 31); quadruple reimbursement was introduced, and probably a mild form of infamia. The question unfortunately came to be mixed up with the party struggle between the optimates and populares, and equestrian iudices were substituted for senatorial, and senatorial for equestrian, with very little advantage to the provincials. But still a certain advance was made, though much yet remained to be improved. The provincial governors were still masters through the iudicia of the property of the provincials. They could exact illegal taxes, and enforce contributions in the form of money, corn, or ships, while their opportunities of private plunder were innumerable. The Sicilians put their claim to reimbursement against Verres at forty million sesterces. That the laws were not wholly dead letters is shown by such trials under the lex Calpurnia as those of M. Aquilius, App. Bell. Civ. i 22; Scaevola Cic. de Or. i 17; Papirius Carbo, Cic. ad Div. ix 21, and T. Albucius, Suet. Caes. 55; and under the lex Cornelia, those of Cn. Cornelius Dolabella, Cic. Act. i 4; Terentius Varro, Cic. Div. 8, pro Cluent. 47; Verres Cic. passim; Aurelius Cotta, Dio Cass. 36, 23; Catiline, Sall. Cat. 18; Cic. ad Att. i 2; M. Aemilius Scaurus, Cic. pro Scaur.; C. Rabirius Postumus, Cic. pro Rabir.

A distinctly fresh step and a very important one, though the republican government can hardly be credited with it, was the lex Iulia of 59 B.C., which, the Digest says:-'ad eas pecunias pertinet quas quis in magistratu, potestate, legatione, vel quo alio officio, munere, ministerio ve publico cepit vel cum ex cohorte eius eorum est.' By this law all oppression of provincials in its widest extent was made a punishable offence, illegal taxes (Cic. in Pis. 37), arbitrary tolls, excessive demands for the support of soldiers or staff-officers were forbidden; all presents except within strictly defined limits were prohibited, and an end was put to the selling of privileges and immunities either to individuals or states (Cic. in Pis. 35), while the governor's accounts had to be audited after the expiration of his term (Cic. ad Att. vi 7). Pecuniary reimbursement was still

to be quadruple, and besides banishment for serious cases, intestabilitas and expulsion from the senate were apparently ipso facto the consequences of conviction. This, as we should expect from its author Iulius Caesar, was a far more thorough-going measure than the preceding laws, and in spite of its author, Cicero's admiration of it is unqualified (Cic. pro Sest. 64; in Pis. 12). But, as has been hinted, the lex Iulia was an imperial more than a republican measure, and throughout all the early empire it remained the basis of the procedure taken in cases affecting the provincial governors. Far more important, however, than any change in the mere letter of the law was the change of spirit and intention which the Augustan system introduced into the provinces (Suet. Aug. 59; Dio Cass. 51, 20), 'the periphery' of the empire to which its centre of gravity was destined gradually to shift from Rome the capital. The policy of Augustus, which he consistently maintained throughout his reign, may be summed up in the words, 'pax Romana-peace and security on the frontiers, undisturbed recuperation and development within. How zealously he

strove to improve the condition of the provinces is shown by the eleven years which he spent away from Italy, not often at the head of his armies, for that task he left to Agrippa and Tiberius, but in the work of organisation and the removal of abuses. In Bithynia alone, a comparatively unimportant province, we find in Pliny's letters mention of at least two edicts of Augustus, and we cannot doubt that in other provinces as well his attention and care were similarly displayed. But the provincial administration could not depend on the personal presence of the emperor, which was of course mainly required at Rome. What was wanted was reduction to a system in the first instance, and the means of checking and regulating the system afterwards. Accordingly, one of the first things which occupied Augustus after Actium was the regulation of the provinces and their distribution between himself and the senate. The settled and peaceful provinces, usually well inside the frontiers, where Romanisation had already made some advance, and where the presence of legions was not necessary, were assigned to senatorial administration. The other provinces, whether on important frontiers or newly acquired, or needing for any reason a permanent army, he reserved for his

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