and people.1 In both these cases a reasonable price was fixed by the Roman government.

We pass now to the governor and his staff. The early institution of praetors and the later use of the pro-magistracy for provincial government have already been described.2 But we have seen that even Sulla did not formally dissociate the consulship and praetorship from provincial rule. The consequences of this continued association were curious. By a law of C. Gracchus, which aimed at destroying one of the most valuable pieces of patronage which the Senate had at its disposal, the consular provinces must be assigned before the election of their holders. They are strictly consular, and are technically entered on by their possessors on March 1 of their year of office, although no definite agreement need be come to as to their partition until the following December 5-the earliest date at which the consuls of the later Republic could quit their urban duties. March 1 was the beginning of the military and provincial year, as since 152 B.C. January 1 had been of the year of civil office at Rome. The reason why the 1st of March of the year of office at Rome was chosen, and not the same date in the following year, was that the pro-magistracy was not yet recognised as a separate office, and that, if this second solution had been adopted, the interval between December 29 and March 1 would have caused a break in the imperium. The anomaly resulted that a provincial governor held his command only for two months in his own right, and for ten months while waiting for his successor. It was harmless in practice, inasmuch as Sulla's law had ordained that the governor should retain his imperium until he returned to Rome, and need only quit his province thirty days after the arrival of his successor, and was

1 Cic. in Verr. iii. 70, 163. Cf. Liv. xxxvi. 2 "idem L. Oppio de alteris decumis exigendis in Sardinia imperatum." Sometimes this enforced sale of corn (frumentum imperatum) was required from free cities such as Halaesa, Centuripae, and Messana in Sicily (Cic. in Verr. iii. 73, 170; iv. 9, 20).

2

pp. 201, 202.

3

p. 201.

4 Sall. Jug. 27; Cic. de Prov. Cons. 2, 3; pro Domo 9, 24. 5 Cic. ad Fam. i. 9, 25.

6 Cf. Cic. de Prov. Cons. 15, 37 (if the consul of 55 B.C. succeeds Caesar on March 1, 54 B.C.) "Fuerit toto in consulatu sine provincia, cui fuerit, antequam designatus est, decreta provincia? Sortietur, an non? Nam et non sortiri absurdum est, et quod sortitus sis non habere. Proficiscetur paludatus? Quo? Quo pervenire ante certam diem non licebit. Januario, Februario provinciam non habebit. Kalendis ei denique Martiis nascetur repente provincia." 7 Cic. ad Fam. i. 9, 25; xii. 4, 2.

only accidentally disastrous as leading to the quarrel between Caesar and the Senate, and thence to the downfall of the Roman Republic. The pro-magistracy was first raised into a separate office by a Pompeian law of 52 B.C., which enacted that governors should seek their provinces five years after holding office at Rome. It was a law that, by diminishing the nearness of the prize, was intended to make the consulship and praetorship less an object of illegitimate ambition at Rome. It might, therefore, have conferred a slight indirect benefit on the provincials, but the speedy collapse of the Republican government prevented its adequacy being tested. The tenure of a provincial governorship was nominally annual, but, even after Sulla had raised the number of praetors to eight, there were but ten magistrates available for fifteen provinces, and we know of three propraetors -Verres in Sicily, Q. Cicero in Asia, and Fonteius in Narbonese Gaul-who severally held their provincial commands for three years in succession.

The chief members of the governor's staff were one subordinate magistrate, the quaestor, and certain senatorial commissioners (legati), one of whom was usually assigned to a praetorian, and three to a consular province. The magisterial position of the quaestor did not entitle him to an independent sphere of duties. It is true that he was, in the main, a financial official, was entrusted by the Senate with money or a credit for meeting the expenses of the administration of his province,1 received the revenues from the stipendium, and had at the end of the year to give an account of income and expenditure in his own name and that of his superior; 2 but even here the real responsibility was incurred by the governor, whose commands were irresistible, and in all other respects the quaestor is the merest delegate, who exercises jurisdiction, or any kind of administrative work, in obedience to a voice that was supposed to convey a paternal authority. He might even, like the legates, be dismissed for incompetence or maladministration before the term of his office

3

1 Cic. in Verr. i. 13, 34 "pecunia attributa, numerata est. Profectus est quaestor in provinciam (Verres). Venit exspectatus in Galliam ad exercitum consularem cum pecunia."

2 Rationes referre (Cic. in Verr. i. 13, 36). In accordance with a lex Julia (perhaps repetundarum) of Caesar's, the accounts had to be deposited at the aerarium, and two copies in two cities of the province (Cic. ad Fam. v. 20, 2; Plut. Cato Min. 38). p. 215.

3

had expired.1 The legati had originally been representatives of the government in Rome, but, to avoid friction, the custom grew up of allowing governors to suggest individuals for the post.2 Yet to the end of the Republic their names were submitted to the Senate, and they were supposed to be subordinate officials of the state. No special departments were, however, assigned them; any power which they exercised was delegated by the governor, whether it took the form of the command of a legion or the presidency of a court. A still more independent selection was made of the unofficial members of the staff. The "comrades (comites) of the governor were young men, whom he initiated in the mysteries of official and diplomatic life, and whose services he employed for any purpose for which they seemed competent.3 But, however many instruments the governor might use, there was such a complete unity of responsibility that, in dealing with the administration of a province, we are treating of the powers of a single man.

These powers were exercised chiefly in three spheres--military, administrative, and judicial. In a province that seethed with war the summer months were spent in camp, the winter in more peaceful duties; but in a settled district the governor could map out his circuits as he pleased, and devote some time to the ungenial task of inspecting the affairs of the municipalities under his control. Apart from the necessary diplomatic intercourse with neighbouring potentates or protected chiefs, the amount of administrative work which the governor undertook was as much or as little as he pleased. Its quantity depended on his view as to how far self-government was a symptom of health or of disease. That it sometimes had the latter character is shown by the startling discovery made by Cicero when he undertook an unexpected investigation into the financial affairs of his subject ⚫ states. He found that the native Greek magistrates of Cilicia

1 Cic. in Verr. iii. 58, 134 "Quaestores, legatos. . . multi missos fecerunt et de provincia decedere jusserunt, quod illorum culpa se minus commode audire arbitrarentur aut quod peccare ipsos aliqua in re judicarent."

2 The transition is marked in 169 B.C. (Liv. xliv. 18 "Senatus Cn. Servilio consuli negotium dedit, ut is in Macedoniam, quos L. Aemilio videretur, legaret").

3 Cicero delegates even jurisdiction to one of his comites, Volusius (ad Att. v. 21, 6). Other members of his retinue were his son Marcus and his brother Quintus. These intimates of the governor were spoken of as contubernales, cohors amicorum, even as cohors praetoria (Cic. ad Q. fr. i. 1, 4, 12), although this title was properly applied to the governor's military guard.

had been plundering their respective treasuries for the last ten years.1 But the possibility of such a discovery is itself a testimony to the best aspect of provincial rule in the Republic-its noble but sometimes misguided belief in the capacity of people themselves.

to govern

There was, however, one systematic function to which most of the governor's energies were directed in time of peace, and that was jurisdiction, both civil and criminal. General regulations concerning jurisdiction were made in the charters of the provinces; but these could not be the same for every country, since the judicial machinery of some groups of states was far more perfect than that of others. Sicily, the only province the details of whose lex are known, was peculiarly favoured, and its privileges may be taken as the best type of those offered by Rome. It was ordained that, in a suit between two citizens of the same state, the trial should be held in that state and according to its laws, 2 a regulation which certainly guaranteed the native judex and the native code, but which did not, perhaps, inhibit an appeal to the governor or take away his right of interpreting the law. The charter then provides for cases of inter-political jurisdiction. If a Sicilian of one state sues a Sicilian of another, the governor is to provide by lot the judex or judices,3 who are perhaps in this case to be Roman citizens.4 When litigation arises between an individual and a community not his own, the Senate of some third state should be the judge, when either litigant has challenged one of three senatorial bodies proposed. In suits between Roman citizens and Sicilians the judex was to be of the nationality of the defendant. In all other matters judices chosen by the magistrate (selecti) were to be appointed from the Roman citizens dwelling within the assize."

5

1 p. 319, note 2.

6

2 Cic. in Verr. ii. 13, 32 "Siculi hoc jure sunt ut, quod civis cum cive agat, domi certet suis legibus.'

3 ib. "quod Siculus cum Siculo non ejusdem civitatis (agat), ut de eo praetor judices ex P. Rupilii decreto sortiatur.

4 It is possible, however, that the principle here adopted was that the judex should be of the nationality of the defendant.

5 Cic. 1.c. "quod privatus a populo petit aut populus a privato, senatus ex aliqua civitate, qui judicet, datur, cum alternae civitates rejectae sunt.

ib. "quod civis Romanus a Siculo petit, Siculus judex datur, quod Siculus

a civi Romano, civis Romanus datur."

7 ib. "ceterarum rerum selecti judices ex conventu civium Romanorum proponi solent."

In Sicily it is clear that the peregrinus judex was a standing institution. Elsewhere, even in the Hellenised East, his existence was more dependent on the grace of the governor. Cicero, in his government of Cilicia, following the precedent of Mucius Scaevola, the ideal governor of Asia, allowed the greatest freedom to the native laws, courts, and judges, and remarks on the quickened life which their use inspired in the provincials.1 The attempt, indeed, to substitute her own for the native law was abhorrent to the political sense of Rome, and her most ambitious representatives never attempted to make their edicts into codes. The importance of the edict was chiefly felt in matters of private international law, administrative jurisdiction, and procedure. It stated principles which should regulate the relations between members of different states or between provincials and Romans, it issued rules for the settlement of claims made by the publicani, and it supplemented the law of the province by framing regulations for the conduct of private suits. The edict of each province was a separate entity, and drew its name from the country to which it directly applied,2 and it had a continuous existence, although the unity and continuity of its life depended too much on the discretion of the individual governor.3 The edict might be composed at Rome, and its author might copy from more than one original. The rulings of his predecessor would doubtless be well known; there were the edicts of other provinces, the work of famous administrators of the past; and, as a fruitful source of general rules of procedure, there was the edictum perpetuum of the capital. In Cicero's own edict, of which he furnishes a brief description, the principles regulating business and trading relations (especially as existing between Roman companies and provincials) were clearly and fully set forth. As much attention was

4

5

1 Cic. ad Att. vi. 1, 15 "multaque sum secutus Scaevolae; in iis illud, in quo sibi libertatem censent Graeci datam, ut Graeci inter se disceptent suis legibus

Graeci vero exsultant quod peregrinis judicibus utuntur"; ad Att. vi. 2, 4 omnes (civitates), suis legibus et judiciis usae, avrovoμíav adeptae, revixerunt." 2 "Edictum Siciliense" (Cic. in Verr. i. 45, 117).

3 Extreme changes might be made a ground of complaint by the departing governor. Thus Cicero writes from Cilicia (50 B.C.) "Appius enim ad me ex itinere bis terve literas miserat, quod quaedam a se constituta rescinderem " (ad Att. vi. 1, 2).

4 Cic. ad Fam. iii. 8, 4.

5 Thus Cicero, governor of Cilicia, followed in some respects the edict of Mucius Scaevola, the former governor of Asia (Cic. ad Att. vi. 1, 15).