PROCURA´TOR
PROCURA´TOR The term
procurator signifies agent, and is used to denote the transaction
of agency of almost any description. It was applied chiefly to the managing
agents of property at Rome, and is often used in a sense almost equivalent
to
vilicus or
calculator (Senec.
Ep. 14, 16); although the
procurator had more freedom of action than the former, and more extended
functions than the latter. While one entrusts a commission to a procurator,
one gives direct commands to a bailiff, or
vilicus (
Cic. de Orat. 1.58,
249). It is used especially of the managers of the landed property of a
dominus or owner, who transacts business
with others, manages his slaves, and directs his agricultural operations
through a procurator; such an agent had the management and control, subject
to direction, of one or more estates (
Plin. Ep.
3.19,
2). They were generally
freedmen, or even favoured slaves, and, if slaves, might be transferred to
another party with the sale of the house or estate to which they were
attached (
Cic. Att. 14.1. 6).
As a term denoting a legal personality, in the civil law of Rome, procurator
is a parallel term to
cognitor; and is almost
equivalent to the modern attorney [
ACTIO]. Like the cognitor, he was the person through whose agency
a legal action, not primarily his own, might be undertaken; the appointment
was simple, only depending on the expression of will on the part of the
procurator so appointed. The presence of neither of the parties to the
dispute was necessary to his taking up the case; and he was thus able of
himself to represent the
persona of an absent
litigant, and to become an
actor in the legal
sense (Festus, s. v.
cognitor).
The political sense of the word
procurator
originated with the Empire, and the personal government that it brought
about. In that
[p. 2.497]division of state administration
which was managed by the princeps, he himself was the one supreme head;
certain state functions he delegated to praefecti; most, however, were
managed by the imperial agents, the
procuratores
Caesaris. They were in a strict sense the servants of the
emperor, with no independent but only representative authority, appointed to
perform the lesser administrative duties of the Empire (
ministeria principatus,
Tac. Hist. 1.58,
1). Like other parts of the emperor's household, they were
originally slaves or freedmen, generally of the latter class, as is shown by
Tacitus (
Tac. Ann. 4.6,
7), and especially by inscriptions. The holders
of offices about the emperor's person, such as are described in the
expressions
a libellis, a rationibus, auditors
and accountants, would be procurators. Pallas, for instance, one of the
favourite freedmen of Claudius, was his
procurator a
rationibus. Gradually, however, as the administrative duties
of the princeps extended, these posts came to be of more importance, and
there came to be gradations of rank connected with them. The more
responsible procuratorships were subsequently given, not to freedmen, but to
equites: and this change, due in the first instance to the Emperor Vitellius
(
Tac. Hist. 1.58,
1), was more thoroughly carried out by the
Emperor Hadrian (Hirschfeld,
Untersuch. i. p. 32). The lower
grades were held, without distinction, either by equites or freedmen (
D. C. 52.25). The filling of the higher
procuratorships gradually became one of the marks of a permanent equestrian
career: so much so, that Tacitus expressly calls this office the
equestris nobilitas. No senator, or man who had a
senatorial career in view, could be a procurator; for, in the Roman world of
the Empire, there were two distinct patents of nobility. The quaestorship,
and certain lower offices that led to it, formed the road to senatorial
nobility: a procuratorship in the emperor's household was the stepping stone
to a prefecture, which was the crown of equestrian nobility. The original
powers with which the procurator Caesaris was supposed to be invested are
well defined in the words of Tiberius (
Tac. Ann.
4.15,
3), that “his
procurator's rights only extended over his slaves and personal
property.” This reference is only to the emperor's private pecuniary
agent in a senatorial province; but, as no real distinction can be drawn
between the original legal relations of the fiscus and patrimonium
respectively to the emperor, so the distinction between the emperor's
private agent and one connected with his public concerns is a difference
more of position and importance than of fact or law. It was found
impossible, however, to confine the imperial agents to the limits of
authority that Tiberius thus lays down. Disputes sprang up between them and
the senatorial or other authorities, in the provinces; and it is given as an
instance of Claudius's moderation that he requested all decisions to be
confirmed that his procurator had awarded (
Suet. Cl.
12). This points to the judicial authority that the procurators
soon gained. As there was no convenient court of arbitration in the
provinces that could decide on the rights of the procurator, he was, without
being recognised as a proper court for the trial of private claims,
empowered to settle disputes that might arise from the exercise of his
financial duties (Cod. 1, 13, 1). His duties, as regards the emperor, were
strictly limited and defined; he was altogether accountable to him for the
use he makes of his finances or any portion of his property; he could not
give, sell or transfer it, and his duties are defined as careful management
of it (
diligenter gerere) within the prescribed
bounds (
Dig. 1,
19,
2); but, while he keeps within these bounds, his acts
have all the authority of those of the emperor himself (ib. 1, 19, 1).
There were several classes of procurators; most of them, however, being
purely finance officers, may be classed under the head of
procuratores fisci. The officer connected with the fiscus at
Rome was originally a procurator, as well as the agent for collecting the
Roman or Italian dues for the fiscus. A
procrator
summarum is found in an inscription of Nero's time (Henzen, 6525),
who was a freedman; officials may also have been of this class, called
procuratores rationum summarum, their
position being that of keepers and auditors of the imperial accounts,
although the latter title seems later to have had a restricted
signification. They were originally, perhaps, the highest officers connected
with the fiscus; later we find a praefectus of the fiscus, and, under Nerva,
a
praetor fiscalis. We find other names given
to officials of this class who may be identified as procurators, such as
rationalis summae rei (Cod. 3, 26, 7),
dispensator or
dispensator summarum (Suet.
Vesp. 12; Henzen,
6396) and
vilicus summarum (
C. I.
L. 5, n. 737). We find from a Greek inscription a procurator
(
ἐπίτροπος) appointed for the
collection of Roman and Italian dues to the fiscus, such as the
vicesima hereditatium (
C. I. G.
2980).
It is difficult to determine the precise importance attaching to the various
offices held by the procurators whose titles we know from inscriptions; and
this is especially the case with the agents of the fiscus at Rome, the
officers attached to it and their titles varying with each reconstruction of
the imperial system of finance. It seems certain that from the time of
Claudius the title
a rationibus was reserved
for the central director of the fiscus. After Hadrian it became regularly an
equestrian post (Hirschfeld,
Untersuch. i. p. 32), while the
members of this central bureau, which was now completely organised, had a
higher standing than their provincial colleagues. The title
procurator rationum summarum, belonging to the
second century A.D., undoubtedly denotes some high
official connected with the fiscus. As it does not seem to be identical with
the title
a rationibus, it has been supposed to
represent a subordinate director of the fiscus, perhaps established for the
first time by Marcus Aurelius (Hirschfeld,
l.c. p.
35). The title
rationalis, which often in the
earlier imperial times was used indiscriminately with
procurator, and still had this wide sense in the third
century A.D. (
Dig. 1,
19,
tit. “De officio procuratoris Caesaris vel rationalis” ), seems
at some period within this century to have supplanted the title
a rationibus as the designation of the chief officer
of the fiscus (Hirschfeld,
op. cit. p. 37; Liebenam,
Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgesch. p. 32).
[p. 2.498]
Another class of procurators were confined to the imperial provinces alone;
they were the finance officers in these provinces, like the quaestors in the
senatorial provinces. They were connected, therefore, with the branch of the
imperial treasury in the province (
fiscus
provincialis), and managed the collection of taxes due to it as
well as their disbursement. There was another treasury connected with the
military station in such a province (
fiscus
castrensis), with a corresponding agent (
procurator castrensis), who superintended the payments made
to the soldiers in the district (
Strabo iii.
p.167) and military expenses in general: the title
a copiis militaribus is found in inscriptions
(Orelli, 2922, 3505): and an agent of the mint (
procurator monetae) is found, in connexion apparently with the
provincial fiscus (
C. I. L. 2, n. 4206). Other provincial
procurators are found for the collection of the imperial dues that were
imposed on all the provinces alike. The vectigalia with which the provincial
fiscus was supplied were collected by various means; some, such as the
portoria, were in the hands of the publicani, others were directly
collected: and amongst these were certain perquisites which belonged
exclusively to the imperial exchequer, whether they were collected in an
imperial or a senatorial province: such were lapsed legacies (
bona caduca) and the property of condemned persons
(
bona damnatorum): others were the
vicesimae manumissionum and
hereditatium, after the latter had been extended to the
provinces, and the
centesima rerum venalium.
These dues were all collected by the imperial procurators, and accordingly
we find in inscriptions such titles as
procurator a
caducis (
C. I. L. 3, n. 1622), and other
procurators connected each with the collection of a separate kind of
imperial revenue. Agents of this kind were by the nature of their functions
not confined to the imperial provinces: and we find, in senatorial
provinces, frequent evidence of dues that fell to the emperor, and of the
presence of his agents as their collectors (
Tac.
Ann. 2.47,
3;
4.15,
3). These
imperial revenues, that extended over the provinces generally, may be
divided into three classes. Firstly, there were the dues mentioned above,
the
bona caduca and the like, that fell of
right to the fiscus. Secondly, there were dues that went directly to pay for
certain responsibilities (
curae) undertaken by
the emperor for Rome and all the provinces,--such was the
annona or corn-supply for Rome; the supervision of this duty
was at Rome delegated to a praefectus of the emperor: and, consequently, in
the provinces, the business connected with its supply must have been in the
hands of an imperial agent or procurator. Again, the military defences, and
the expenses consequent on them, the cost of the transport of troops and the
like, fell entirely on the imperial exchequer: and the revenues necessary
for the defraying of such expenses were managed by procurators in the
provinces, whether senatorial or imperial, that were directly benefited by
such administration. Lastly, among the imperial dues that affected all the
provinces alike, comes the
patrimonium of the
emperor. The mention of a
procurator patrimonii
or
patrimonii privati is found in inscriptions
(Orelli, 3180). They would have the management of the vast imperial estates
in the provinces; and together with the
procurator
patrimonii we find a
procurator rerum
privatarum of the emperor. At first sight they appear
identical, and originally they were so. The institution of the twofold
procuratorship does not arise until the time of the Emperor Severus
(Marquardt,
Staatsverw. ii. p. 311). There had, in all
probability, always been a distinction between the
res
privatae and the
patrimonium; the
former consisting mainly of legacies that had been left to the emperor.
Hence the duties of the imperial procurators as regards inheritances (
Dig. 1,
19,
2; Orelli, 2921,. “servus exactor haereditatum legatorum
peculiorum” ); but in the early Empire this distinction between
res privatae and
patrimonium was not recognised by any formal division of the
office of procurator, and in inscriptions (Orelli,. 3180) the two are found
combined. There were several other unimportant posts recorded in
inscriptions as being held by procurators, such as the posts of librarians,
managers of spectacles and stores, of daily household expenses, and the
like.
Besides the numerous procuratores fisci there was another class of
procurators connected with the imperial administration of the provinces.
These were the
procuratores Caesaris pro
legato, who were governors of outlying and comparatively
unimportant districts, that were classed with the imperial provinces. Such a
district was Cappadocia in the reign of Tiberius (
Tac. Ann. 2.56;
D. C. 57.17,
7), which was at first put under the government of
an eques as procurator; and Judaea, which was similarly under the government
of Pontius Pilate, its procurator pro legato. These procurators were more or
less under the control of the nearest imperial legate (
legatus pro praetore); Judaea, for instance, was attached to
the larger province of Syria, and Pilate was deposed from office by
Vitellius the governor of Syria (Jos.
Antiq. Jud, 18.4, 2).
Other provinces that are known to have been placed at various times under
imperial procurators are the Alps, Raetia, Noricum, Thrace, and Mauretania
(Liebenam,
l.c. p. 26).
The imperial procurators were continued in office for terms of indefinite
length; and had fixed salaries from the treasury (
D.
C. 53.23,
1). The words
trecenarius, ducenarius, and
centenarius denote the value of these posts, according as the
salary varied from one hundred to three hundred sestertia (Orelli, 946;
Suet. Cl. 24). The salaries of the civil
procurators at Rome were probably higher than those of the same grade in the
provinces. Thus the
procuratio rationis
privatae was probably in Rome a
trecenaria; in the provinces a
ducenaria;
in Italy, where it would be merely a branchoffice from Rome, a
centenaria procuratio (Liebenam,
l.c. p. 55). The grades of rank through which the various
procurators passed, their position in the imperial organisation, and the
status of the individuals chosen for these offices, cannot be expressed with
any certainty. The scale of rank was often broken through by sudden and
extraordinary promotions, which were made through the favour of the princeps
or the personal fitness of the individual promoted. Thus we find in one
instance a procurator
a memoria promoted to a
praefecture
[p. 2.499]（
Script. Aug. Nigr. 7),
A more regular promotion is that of Ti. Cl. Bibianus Tertullus, who rose
from the procuratorship
ab epistulis Graecis to
that
a rationibus, and was from this second
post promoted to the
praefectura vigilum (
C.
I. G. 3.6574); or that of Sex. Var. Marcellus, who rose through
the successive grades of
procurator aquarum and
procurator Britanniae to the post of
procurator a rationibus, and was then
promoted to be
vice-praefectus praetorio
(Orelli, 946). The political influence of the procurators at various periods
or the Empire, and the classes from which they were chosen, changed with the
changing conditions of imperial government. The Empire began by being a
strictly personal rule marked by undivided responsibility on the part of the
princeps. At this time the procurators were
naturally freedmen, acting as mere servants of the central head of the Roman
state; and even after the change initiated by Vitellius, a return to this
principle of selection might be made, as it was by the Emperor Domitian
(
Suet. Dom. 7). But with the development
of the Empire, the political organisation itself began to replace in part
the personal responsibility of the princeps; and we get the order of the
equestrian aristocracy filling these posts. The definite political routine
lessened the personal influence of these agents, which had been very great
under a weak prince like Claudius, in the half-organised earlier Empire. In
the later period of the Empire we find a new influence arising--that,
namely, of the emperor's personal household. In the fourth and fifth
centuries freedmen of the household, such as the chamberlain (
cubicularius), had the power which in the time of
Claudius was possessed by the freedmen filling the great fiscal offices
(Friedländer,
Sittengesch. i. p. 67).
(Mommsen,
Staatsrecht, ii.2 pp. 836 ff.,
934; Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung, v. p. 296 ff.; Hirschfeld,
Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der römischen
Verwaltungsgeschichte, i. p. 30 ff.; Liebenam,
Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgeschichte des
römischen Kaiserreichs, i. p. 52 ff.;
Friedländer,
Sittengeschichte, i. p. 59 ff.)
[
A.H.G]
