PROVI´NCIA
PROVI´NCIA This term had originally no geographical
signification, but denoted the functions prescribed for a Roman magistrate
by law, custom, or agreement (e.g.
urbana provincia,
Liv. 31.6). Whether it is derived from
provincere (as is suggested by Festus) or is an
abbreviated form of
providentia, is a moot
point among scholars and need not be discussed here. Naturally enough it was
employed to express a hostile district or territory assigned to a Roman
general as the field of his operations, and thence acquired its special
geographical meaning as a country outside Italy under Roman dominion and
governed by a magistrate of Rome.
The Roman State, in its complete development, consisted of two parts with
distinct organisations, Italy and the Provinces. Its provincial dominions
commenced with Sicily, which became a Roman province B.C. 241 (
Cic. in Verr. 2.1, 2): Sardinia
was added six years later, and the two Spains B.C. 179: by the time at which
the Republic gave place to the Empire the Roman sway had been extended over
Gaul, Illyricum, Macedonia, Greece, parts of Africa, and most of Asia: in
B.C. 50 there were fourteen provinciae, a list of which is given by Mr.
Watson in his edition of Cicero's Letters, p. 237, note. The
[p. 2.507]organisation of a new territory, on its conquest,
did not proceed upon uniform and inflexible lines. The conquering general as
a rule sketched its main principles, subject to the approval of the senate
(
Plut. Marc. 23; Appian,
de Bell.
Civ. 2.9), though in very important cases the latter sent a
commission of its own members, usually ten in number, with instructions for
his guidance (
Liv. 45.17; Appian,
de reb.
Hisp. 99,
de reb. Pun. 135; Sallust,
Sal. Jug. 16;
Plut. Luc.
35,
36). The
forma provinciae was thus given either by a magisterial
decree issued by the commanding consul or other magistrate in virtue of his
imperium, or by a senatusconsultum, which in both cases was loosely known as
a
lex and named after its immediate author. The
first regulations for Sicily, for instance, were made by Marcellus (
Liv. 25.40), but more comprehensive and minute
provisions were laid down. B.C. 131 by P. Rupilius (
Cic. in Verr. 2.16, 39;
V.
Max. 6.9,
8): similarly we read of a
Lex Pompeia in Pontus and Bithynia (
Plin. Ep.
10.83, &c.), a Lex Lentuli in Cyprus (
Cic. Fam. 13.4. 8), and a Lex Mummia in
Achaia. The arrangements made by such ordinances concerned primarily the
fields of finance and judicature, and invariably comprised a very minute
division of the country into districts for purposes of taxation. But when
they had secured themselves against rebellion by extinguishing leagues and
combinations which might endanger their supremacy, and provided for the
collection of the revenue, the Romans, so far as they found it possible,
left pre-existing institutions intact. In Sicily, for instance, the Lex
Hieronica, the judicial and financial regulalations established by Hiero the
ally of Rome, were maintained in their entirety, and no Roman governor,
according to Cicero (
in Verr. 3.6, 12-15), was known to
violate them till the time of Verres. [
DECUMAE] The same policy was followed in Egypt
(Marquardt,
Röm. Staatsverwaltung, 1.279-296) and in
the Greek East. It is of the organisation of Sicily that we have the fullest
knowledge, from the large notices of the subject in the Verrine orations of
Cicero, The island was divided into an eastern and a western district, with
Syracuse as the capital of the former and Lilybaeum of the latter: a
quaestor resided at each, receiving. from the Roman Aerarium the sums
necessary for the administration of his district, and collecting the taxes,
except those which were let out by the censors at Rome. The towns were not
all treated in the same manner. Messana, Tauromenium, and Netum were made
FOEDERATAE
CIVITATES and retained their land. Five other cities, among them
Panormus and Segesta, were. “Liberae et Immunes,” --that is,
they paid no tithe; but it does not appear whether they were free from the
burdens to which the
foederatae civitates as
such were subject by virtue of their
foedus
with Rome. Seventeen conquered towns forfeited their land, which was
restored (as Possessio, not in absolute ownership) on condition of their
paying the
decumae and
scriptura. The towns which paid tithe were called by the
general name of Stipendiariae. The settlement of the municipal constitutions
of the towns was generally left to the citizens; but in some instances, as
in that of C. Claudius Marcellus and Alesa, a constitution was given by some
Roman, at the request, as it appears, of the town. The Senate and the People
still continued as the component parts of the old Greek cities. Cicero,
(
in Verr. 2.55, 137, &c.) mentions a body of 130
men, called Censors, who were appointed to take the census of Sicily every
five years after the Roman fashion. The island was also bound to furnish and
maintain soldiers and sailors for the service of the state, and to pay
tributum for the carrying on of wars; and
Rome also appropriated the Portoria or harbour dues, which were let out to
persons in the metropolis to farm. The governor might take provisions for
the use of himself and his cohors on condition of paying for them. In the
condition of the two Spanish provinces there was greater diversity. Pliny
(
Plin. Nat. 3.7) mentions Coloniae,
Municipia or Oppida Civium Romanorum, Latini veteres or towns “Latio
antiquitus donata,” Foederati. and Oppida Stipendiaria. The
distribution of the, provincial territory into
fora or
conventus for judicial purposes, which is spoken of below, seems to
have sometimes caused great confusion, especially in the East. Strabo
remarks (xiii. p. 629) that the boundaries of Phrygia, Lydia, Caria, and
Mysia were confused, and that the Romans had added to the complication by
not attending to the subsisting national divisions, but making, the
administrative divisions (
διοικήσεις):
different, in which are the Fora (
ἀγοράς,
MS.) and the administration of justice. The word
ἀγορὰ probably represents
conventus (as to the reading, see Casaubon's note).
The first provincial governors were praetors specially created for the
purpose, in addition to the two praetors who administered justice at Rome
(
Liv. Epit. 20). They held office for a
year only, except in Spain, where a Lex Baebia for some while extended their
tenure of it to two years. Between the settlement of Spain and the Sullan
reforms five new provinces were created, viz. Macedonia, Africa, Asia,
Narbonensis, and Cilicia, and the government of these was provided for by
“proroguing” for a year the imperium of the consuls and the
two praetors whose functions properly lay in the city, two ex-consuls and
two ex-praetors being thus annually available for provincial command. The
“prorogation” was effected by a special plebiscitum. The
Lex Sempronia of C. Gracchus (
Cic. de Prov.
Cons. 2 and 7;
pro Balb. 27, 61)
enacted that the senate should each year determine before the election of
the consuls what provinces they were to govern, the object of this being to
prevent intrigue and favouritism. Sulla added two praetors to the six
already in existence, and enacted that all of them should administer justice
in the city during their proper year of office: the provinces, of which
there were now ten, were thus in future governed by proconsuls and
propraetors, the two former as a rule obtaining those in which the largest
number of troops was required (
Liv. 41.8). The
exact province of each was determined by lot, though the distribution was
sometimes arranged by agreement among the persons entitled to them. Sulla's
statute made these governorships strictly annual, and required the holder to
leave the province within thirty days after the arrival of his successor
(
Cic. Fam. 3.6); but the first of these
rules was practically infringed by the extraordinary commands
[p. 2.508]conferred successively on Pompey and Caesar, and
by the failure of the senate to provide a successor in time: thus Verres,
Fonteius, and Q. Cicero were three years each in Sicily, Gaul, and Asia
respectively (
Cic. Div. in Caec.
4, 11;
pro Font. 10, 32;
ad Qu.
Frat. 1, 1). A law of Pompey (Sueton.
Jul. 28;
D. C. 40.56), passed B.C. 52, enacted that
provinces should be given only after an interval of five years from a man's
original tenure of office in Rome: this was re-enacted by Augustus after its
repeal by Julius Caesar (
D. C. 42.20,
53.14), who also ordained that a consular
province should be held for two, a praetorian for one year only (
Cic. Phil. 1.8,
19;
2.42,
109, &c.;
D.
C. 43.25). The governor might not leave Rome until he had been
invested with the imperium in the ordinary manner, and had offered the usual
prayers and sacrifices (
Cic. Fam. 1.9,
25;
in Verr. 5.13, 34; Caesar,
Caes. Civ. 1.6): he could display the
insignia of his rank, especially the fasces, as soon as he was outside the
city gates (
D. C. 53.13), but might not
exercise any actual powers until he reached his province (
Dig. 1,
16,
1,
4,
6). When once he had
arrived there, he united in his single person both civil and military
authority. The first thing he did was to issue his edict, by which, like the
praetor at Rome, he stated the rules of law which he intended to apply and
enforce during his year's administration. To a large extent this was based
on the
lex by which the province had received
its original constitution and on the edicts of the governor's predecessors
(
Cic. Att. 5.2. 1,
11,
6.1,
2;
ad Fam. 3.8, 4); but
large portions of the Edictum Urbanum gradually crept into the provincial
edicts, and the law of the provinces was thus slowly but steadily Romanised.
Cicero, for instance, when proconsul of Cilicia, says that as to some
matters he framed an edict of his own, and as to others he referred to the
Edictum Urbanum, on which he proclaimed that he should base his decisions
where no regulations of his own had been made (
ad Att. 6.1,
15); so, too, he observes (
in Verr. 1.46, 118) that the rules
established by the praetor urbanus as to inheritance had been regularly
transferred into their annual edicts by the governors of Sicily long before
the time of Verres. Other topics with which the edict of a provincial
governor dealt were the position of the publicani, and the law of civil
procedure, debt, and usury.
So far as we can judge from Cicero's Letters and from Caesar's work on the
war in Gaul, the former of which in particular are a storehouse of
information upon the affairs with which a provincial governor was occupied,
he was principally engaged with matters military and judicial. At one time
he was administering justice at various centres; at others he was busy with
an army exterminating bands of robbers or reducing a rebellious population.
Even when the province was in profound peace he would find enough to do, as
commander-in-chief, in filling up his legions with fresh levies, or
directing the arrangements for billeting his troops during the winter. But
the less he was occupied with active military operations, the more time
could he give to the administration of justice. For judicial purposes each
province was divided into a number of departments called Fora or Conventus,
which latter term also denoted the chief city or place “in quem
conveniebant” as well as the assize or court over which the
governor presided, and which was attended by the Romans who resided in the
district, and generally by all persons who had any business to settle there.
It may perhaps be doubted whether this organisation was at all precise
during the republican period, though even then certain towns seem to have
been regarded as centres where the governor might conveniently spend some
time and hold a court (
forum or
conventum agere,
Liv. 31.22;--
Cic.
in Verr. 5.11, 28;
ad Att.
5.16). Before the time of Gaius
conventus had
also acquired the meaning of the time during which the assize lasted (Gaius,
1.20). In Cilicia, during Cicero's administration, Tarsus and Laodicea were
conventus; in Baetica there were four, in
Lusitania five. The procedure in civil causes seems to have been much the
same as that in vogue at Rome during the formulary period [
ACTIO]; at least the governor
appointed a judex or judices to try each cause, usually from the Roman
citizens who attended the assize; for him to hear and decide the case in
person, so far as we can judge from the instance of Verres, was considered
improper or unconstitutional (
Cic. in
Verr. 5.9, 22). Within the free and allied towns the
governor had not strictly any civil jurisdiction; they had their own law,
their own courts, and their own municipal magistrates, though it not
unfrequently happened that these privileges were set at nought. For
instance, Cicero tells us (
in Verr. 2.22, 53) that Verres
treated with contempt an apparently well-founded claim on the part of the
citizens of Bidis in Sicily to have their legacy cases determined by their
own municipal law. The relations between the jurisdiction of the governor
and that of the local magistrates were usually defined by the Lex
Provinciae: by the so-called lex of Rupilius, Sicilians who belonged to the
same town had their disputes settled according to its laws: citizens of
different towns had theirs decided by judices appointed by the governor: in
case of differences between an individual and a community, the senate of any
Sicilian town might act as judices, if the parties did not choose to have as
judices the senate of their own town: if a Roman sued a Sicilian, a Sicilian
was judex; if a Sicilian sued a Roman, the judge was a Roman: but no one
could be judex who belonged to the governor's cohors. Disputes between the
lessees of the tithe and the Aratores were decided according to the Lex
Hieronica (
Cic. in Verr.
2.13, 32). By the Lex Rubria de Gallia Cisalpina the magistrates of
the municipia were authorised to decide all civil suits in which the sum
involved did not exceed 15,000 sesterces, and the same provision occurs in
the Lex Julia municipalis. The governor's judicial assistance was also
largely needed for the legitimation of certain dispositions, such as
manumissions, adoptions, and emancipations (
jurisdictio
voluntaria). His criminal jurisdiction was in the nature of
that exercised under martial law: he decided in person on the guilt or
innocence of the accused, though under the advice of a consilium formed from
the leading Roman citizens of the neighbourhood
[p. 2.509]（
Cic. in Verr. 1.29,
73;
2.29, 71;
5.21, 55), and over a condemned criminal he had power of life
and death, though if he were a Roman citizen he enjoyed the right of
provocatio to the tribuni plebis, which
enabled him to remove the matter to Rome (Plut.
Caesar, 4).
The nature of the taxes paid by the provincial subjects of Rome has been
alluded to in speaking of the organisation of Sicily, but this subject
cannot be understood without some knowledge of the tenures by which land in
the provinces was held. The general principle was that provincial soil
belonged, as a whole, to the Roman state (
ager
publicus), and could not be owned
ex jure
Quiritium by individuals, but only “possessed”
(
Cic. Att. 6.1,
12; Gaius, 2.7). The great bulk of the taxes was levied on these
“possessions” in the hands of the provincials, who from
this point of view are termed
Stipendiarii;
though some of the
ager publicus was
differently treated, being either sold outright by the state, which imposed
a nominal tax in order to show that it did not waive its right of property
in the soil (
ager privatus vectigalisque), or let
out by the censors at Rome to tenants for life, who paid both
decumae and
scriptura
(grazing tax, Varro,
de Re Rust. 2.1, 16). The
tax levied on the Stipendiarii was either tithe (
decumae), or stipendium. The first was not common, being found
only in Sicily and Sardinia, and for some little while in Asia. The second
was charged both on the land (
tributum soli),
in which case it was sometimes paid in money, as in Macedonia; sometimes in
kind, as in Pontus and Cyrene; and on persons (
tributum
capitis), who were taxed on account of their incomes,
trades,and professions. Besides these sources of income, the Romans derived
large sums from the customs' dues (
portoria),
ship-money, mines, &c. No taxes were paid to the state by the free
and allied towns, but this exemption does not seem to have extended to the
Roman colonies and municipia or the “oppida Latio donata.”
The practice of letting out the taxes to publicani to farm is well known, and
it often happened that a firm of these capitalists engaged to pay the state
a fixed sum per annum for five years in exchange for all the taxes of a
province--vectigal, decimae, scriptura, portoria, &c. In such cases
it would seem that the publicani paid the money over directly to the
quaestors at Rome: but all taxes which were not farmed were collected by and
paid to the quaestor of the province or its districts, an officer who was
assigned to his province by lot, and not appointed by the governor. In
theory the quaestor had the entire management of financial matters, though
he was often largely interfered with by the governor, who decided, according
to his own view of the local requirements, what sums should be transmitted
to Rome, and who had power to remit taxation (
Cic.
in Verr. 4.9, 20;
ad Fam. 3.7).
Though properly a financial officer, he had jurisdiction in matters which
fell under his official cognisance, like the aediles at Rome (Gaius, 1.6)
and the early Exchequer authorities in England; and he had to give a full
account of his receipts and expenditure on his return from the province
(
Cic. in Verr. 1.14, 36).
After the passing of a Lex Julia (B.C. 61) the governor was bound to deposit
two copied of his accounts in the two chief cities of his province, and to
forward one (
totidem verbis) to the Aerarium
(
Cic. Fam. 2.1. 7,
5.20;
ad Att. 6.7). The
governor might even delegate his own powers to a quaestor, either
in toto (e. g.
Cic. Att.
6.6,
3) or for a special purpose, such
as the administration of justice (e. g.
Suet. Jul.
7).
The
personnel of a provincial administration
comprised also (1)
legati, of whom there were
usually three in a consular, one in a praetorian province: they were
appointed by the senate, very often on the nomination of the governor, who
would entrust them with minor military commands or assign them a district to
look after, with civil jurisdiction; (2)
comites, appointed by the governor himself, and maintained at the
public charge, presumably on the supposition that they discharged
secretarial functions and employed their time in learning the business of
administration; (3)
praefecti, three in number,
whom the governor seems to have employed principally as military
lieutenants; and lastly a large miscellaneous body of lictors, praecones,
scribae, haruspices, &c., whose duties are too unimportant to be
here detailed.
Those who have read the Verrine orations of Cicero will remember what a
gloomy picture he draws of the condition of the provinces under Roman rule.
“It is difficult,” he says in his speech for the Lex
Manilia (100.22), “to describe into what hatred we have been brought
by the wrongdoing and lust of the governors whom we have sent among
foreign peoples during these years.” Pay was first attached to
the office of proconsul or propraetor by Augustus (
D.
C. 53.15; Sueton.
August. 36), so that under the
Republic the governor had to pay himself as best he could during his tenure
of power; and the boast of Verres recorded by Cicero (
in
Verr. 4.1, 14) is ample proof that a magistrate whose conscience was
not over-tender found numerous opportunities of filling his own pockets. The
old rule that a governor and his retinue must pay for their lodging and
entertaiment was seldom observed, and his progresses through the province,
to say nothing of the Legationes liberae, entailed vast expenditure on its
inhabitants: the extortions practised by himself and his subordinates were
even outdone by those of the publicani, who farmed the taxes, and the
negotiatores or money-lenders; and in many of the provinces, especially in
Greece and Asia, protracted wars had inflicted miseries on the people from
which they could hardly hope for recovery. Practically no remedy for all
these evils was afforded by the nominal control of the senate, which had the
right of deciding on the number of troops which a governor should have under
his command, and of altering or overriding his policy, and which, if he did
not follow its instructions, could refuse to sanction his arrangements, or
to grant him a triumph or supplicatio even after a successful war. But,
towards the end of the Republic, it is patent that, so far from controlling
the provincial governors, the senate was itself ruled by such men as Sulla,
Pompey, and Caesar. The strongest check upon the misconduct of a governor
ought in reality to have been found in statutory enactments. A number of
these (a Lex Valeria, a Lex Julia, and Leges Porciae) were designed to
protect
[p. 2.510]Roman citizens residing in the provinces
from ill-treatment by him. The Lex Calpurnia (B.C. 149), the first statute
against
repetundae or extortion, was followed
by a Lex Acilia (B.C. 125) and a Lex Servilia (B.C. 111) dealing with the
same offence, the former of which was especially severe; and the Lex Julia
defined the requisitions which a governor might make upon the inhabitants of
his province without payment. The laws on the subject of Majestas and
Peculatus were also weapons which on occasion might be turned against
governors who abused the trust confided to them. But when we consider the
condition of things described to us by Cicero, we cannot but be struck by
the smallness of the result obtained by prosecutions under these statutes.
There can be little doubt that this is to be explained by the political use
which was made of the judicia. Between the times of C. Gracchus and Sulla,
while the knights were sole judges in criminal trials, their sympathies with
the publicani would prejudice them against the cause of the provincials: the
venality of the senators, whom Sulla substituted for the knights, was
shameless and notorious, though according to Appian (
de Bell.
Civ. 122) not more so than that of the knights themselves: in any
case the senate would do its best to screen a governor for whom it was
itself mainly responsible, and whose condemnation would in a way condemn
itself. Some improvement was perhaps effected by the Lex Aurelia (B.C. 46),
which divided the judicia between the senators, knights, and tribuni
aerarii: but it was in the Empire that the provincials first found relief
from oppression, and redress for wrong inflicted on them by Roman
magistrates.
In the year 43 B.C. Gallia Cisalpina ceased to be a province: it was
incorporated with Italy, though the term Italia was sometimes improperly
used to describe it even before this date (Caesar,
Bell.
Gall. 1.54, 5.1, 6.44, &c.;
Cic.
Phil. 5.12,
31), and a new
organisation was given to it by the Lex Rubria, by which in particular
jurisdiction in certain classes of suits was conferred on the municipal
magistrates [RUBRIA LEX]. With the establishment
of the imperial power under Augustus a considerable change was made in the
administration of the provinces, the control of some of which he reserved
absolutely to himself, while the rest remained under the nominal management
of the senate; this being the origin of the distinction drawn by Gaius
(2.21) and others of the older jurists between those provinces which are
“propriae populi Romani” and those which are
“propriae Caesaris.” The division was modelled in principle
upon the older one between consular and praetorian provinces: the
“Imperial” provinces were those in which the chances of
invasion from without or rebellion within necessitated the presence of
considerable forces, especially those which formed the frontiers of the
Empire; those in which peace was assured were ostensibly left to the senate
(Sueton.
August. 47;
D. C.
53.12,
14,
54.4;
Strabo xvii. p.840).
Subject to frequent interchange of provinces (
Tac.
Ann. 1.76,
80; Sueton.
Claud. 25;
D. C. 60.24;
Capitol.
Marc. 22), these arrangements subsisted until the
third century. Strabo, in the passage referred to, gives the division into
provinces (
ἐπαρχίαι) as constituted by
Augustus. The provinces of the Populus (
δῆμος) were two consular (
ὑπατικαὶ) and ten praetorian provinces (
στρατηγικαί); the rest of the eparchies, he says, belong to
the Caesar. Lusitania is not enumerated among the eparchies of the Populus,
and if it was a distinct province it must have belonged to the emperor. The
list of provinces in the “Demonstratio Provinciarum”
(
Mythog. Vat., Bode) mentions the province of Asturia et
Gallaeca Lusitania. Dio Cassius (53.12) states the distribution of the
provinces by Augustus thus: the provinces of Africa, Numidia, Asia, Hellas
(Achaia), with Epirus, Dalmatia, Macedonia, Sicilia, Crete with the
Cyrenaica, Bithynia with Pontus, Sardinia and Baetica, belonged to the
senate and people (
δῆμος and
γερουδία). Tarraconensis, Lusitania, all Gallia,
Coele Syria, Phoenice, Cilicia, Cyprus, and Egypt belonged to Augustus, who
afterwards took Dalmatia from the senate and gave it Cyprus and Gallia
Narbonensis in exchange, while Tiberius appropriated Achaia and Macedonia
without any compensation (
Tac. Ann. 1.76),
though they were restored by Claudius (Sueton.
Claud. 25).
Bithynia became definitely imperial under Hadrian. The
provinciae populi were administered for one year according to
usage (
D. C. 53.12,
14; Strabo,
loc. cit.; Sueton.
August. 4) by, the old republican magistrates; two of
them, viz. Africa and Asia, by ex-consuls; and the rest by ex-praetors. The
two oldest consulares cast lots for the consular, the praetors also by
seniority for the praetorian provinces, though the title of proconsul
belonged generally to these governors without reference to the offices which
they had actually held at Rome (
Dig. 1,
16). They enjoyed imperium, including unlimited
jurisdictio, and the administration of justice must have been their main
business, as owing to the nature of the case their military duties must have
been quite inconsiderable. In the “provinciae Caesaris” the
emperor was himself proconsul, but conducted their government through
lieutenants, a “legatus Augusti pro praetore” having in effect
the same power and authority here as a proconsul in the provinces of the
people (
Dig. 1,
18). These
legati were selected by the emperor from those who had been consuls or
praetors (whence they were called
consulares or
praetorii) or sometimes from senators of
less rank (e. g.
D. C. 53.13: Appian,
de
reb. Hisp. 102; Sueton.
August. 23): they held
their office at the emperor's pleasure, being mere delegates of his
authority. Thus Agricola governed Aquitania for three years, in accordance
with Maecenas' advice to Augustus (
D. C.
53.23); but Galba was in Spain eight years (Plut.
Galba, 4). Sabinus in Moesia seven, and Silius in Gaul
apparently at least ten (
Tac. Ann. 1.31,
4.18). The theory of delegated authority
was not, however, consistently observed; the jurisdiction of a legatus, for
instance, not being regarded as
mandata, but as
belonging to him independently, so that he could himself delegate it to one
of his subordinates (
Dig. 1,
21,
5, pr.). These imperial governors are in
the inscriptions always designated as “legati pro praetore;”
but when not viewed as the emperor's agents, they were termed
“provinciarum praesides” (Sueton.
August.
23,
Tib. 42; Vopisc.
Prob. 13;
Dig. 1,
18,
8,
20,
1,
16,
[p. 2.511]9, 6); like the
praefectus urbi or praetorio, they were magistrates, but magistrates of the
princeps, not of the populus (
Dig. 4,
2,
3,
1), though it is true that as all the provinces tended more and more
to fall under the emperor's direct control the term
praeses came to be applied also to the governors of senatorial
provinces (
Dig. 1,
18,
1; Sueton.
Claud. 17; Lamprid.
Alex. Sever. 46). No quaestors were sent to the Imperial
provinces, in which the functions entrusted to these officers in districts
administered on the old system were discharged by “procuratores
Caesaris” (
Dig. 1,
19), selected from the knights or the emperor's freedmen, who had
jurisdiction in financial matters (Cod. 3, 13, 1): and such procuratores are
even found in provinces of the people for the purpose of guarding the
interests of the Fiscus in connexion with inheritances, legacies,
&c., where too they had in such concerns a jurisdiction concurrent
with that of the proconsul. Sometimes an unimportant province, or an
outlying portion of a considerable one, was governed by a procurator with
the powers of an ordinary governor, as e. g. Judaea by Pontius Pilate (
J. AJ 17.13,
5;
18.1,
1, &c.).
Egypt received a peculiar organisation from Augustus (
Tac. Hist. 1.11;
Dig.
1,
17). He placed it under the government of
a praefectus Augustalis, who took the place of the Egyptian king with the
powers of a Roman magistrate; but the old division of the country into
νομοὶ administered by native
νόμαρχοι was retained (
Plin. Nat. 5.49), and a special magistrate
for judicial purposes called
juridicus, with
the powers of a provincial governor, was assigned to Alexandria.
But notwithstanding the epithet “Senatorial” applied to those
provinces which were governed by a proconsul, they were in reality hardly
less under the control of the emperor from the beginning than those which
were “propriae Caesaris:” from him the proconsuls as well as
the “legati pro praetore” received instructions and mandata as
to the administration (
D. C. 53.15;
Plin. Ep. 10.64), and in all important
matters not already provided for they had to apply to him for advice. Their
position in fact was so different from that of a provincial governor under
the Republic or of a legate in an imperial province that, according to
Tacitus (
Tac. Ann. 6.27), Tiberius found it
difficult to get competent men to accept the office, which was one of great
responsibility, and could be valued only on account of the salary which
Augustus attached to it.
The “Romanisation” of the law of the provinces continued to be
carried on by edicts, statutes (Ulpian,
Reg. 11.18;--Gaius,
1.183, 185; 3.122), imperial enactments (
Plin. Ep.
10.71,
72), and senatusconsulta
(ib. 77); and even some laws passed for the citizens of Rome were expressly
extended to the provincials (e. g. Gaius, 1.47; Ulpian,
Reg.
10.20;
Dig. 30,
41,
6;--Cod. 7, 9, 3; 7, 71, 4): but the local laws still
remained outside Italy the foundation of private rights and duties until the
celebrated edict of Caracalla, by which the Roman civitas was early in the
third century bestowed upon all free subjects of the Empire. With the fall
of the Republic more substantial alterations took place in the matter of
taxation. Julius Caesar abolished the decumae in Asia and probably also in
Sicily, and under Augustus a complete survey was made of the provinces,
extending over more than twenty years, and a census taken of their
inhabitants; both of which were of the greatest value in adjusting the taxes
upon an equitable basis. The vectigal of the
ager
publicus or domain land was paid into the Aerarium or the
Fiscus, according as the province belonged to the senate or to the emperor,
until the time of Vespasian, who took the whole of the domain land under his
charge. All the provinces seem now to be charged also with
annona, a payment from the land in kind, which was
applied to supporting the civil and military officials within them; in this
form Africa and Egypt supplied in addition enough corn to feed Rome during
one-third of the year (Josephus,
Bell. Jud. 2.16,4). The old
revenue from poll-tax (
tributum capitis),
mines, and portoria still continued: to them were added under Augustus new
imposts in the 5 per cent. duty on legacies, though this was paid only by
Roman citizens in Italy, until the edict of Caracalla, the centesima on
res venales, levied apparently throughout
the Empire, and a tax of 4 per cent. on all purchases of slaves. The system
of farming the taxes was still followed, though with most of its abuses
corrected. The emperor also derived large sums from the “patrimonium
Caesaris,” or his private estates in the provinces, which were of
vast extent; Augustus owned all Egypt, and the Thracian Chersonese belonged
to the emperors up to Trajan. The property of condemned criminals was in
some cases forfeited to the Aerarium, and later to the Fiscus; and the same
was done with
bona vacantia and
bona caduca under the Leges Julia and Papia Poppaea.
But the Aerarium, though nominally the Senatorial Exchequer, was really
under the control of the emperor (
D. C. 53.16;
cf.
Tac. Ann. 6.2, “bona Sejani ablata
aerario ut in fiscum cogerentur,
tanquam
referret” ), by whom its officials were appointed; and
when the distinction between imperial and senatorial provinces ceased to
exist in the time of Severus, it became the treasury of the corporation or
municipality of Rome. The really heavy expenses of the State were paid from
the Fiscus, which bore the costs of the naval and military forces, the civil
organisation, the construction and maintenance of public works, such as
roads and aqueducts, the supply of corn to Rome, &c.
After the edict of Caracalla (A.D. 215), little reason remained for
preserving the old distinction between Italy and the provinces, which now
entailed a grave injustice on the latter, which became liable to the
vicesima on legacies and inheritances besides having to pay the old
land-tax. Accordingly within half a century Italy itself was subdivided into
provinciae, and had to pay tributum equally with the most distant parts of
the Empire. Towards the end of the third century Diocletian completely
remodelled the provincial organisation by dividing the whole Roman world
into twelve
διοικήσεις, each of which
comprised a number of provinces with new geographical limits: thus in the
διοίκησις of Britain there were four
provinciae, in that of the Oriens sixteen: the total number was 101. Each
διοίκησις was under the administration
of a new officer called Vicarius, who was
[p. 2.512]answerable only to the praefectus praetorio as lieutenant of the emperor:
the governors of the provinciae were proconsuls, consulares, or praesides,
and enjoyed different ranks in the hierarchy or peerage of the Empire. The
administration of justice was in a way revolutionised by Diocletian's
abolition of the formulary procedure in civil causes, which applied to the
provinces no less than to Rome, the magistrates being directed to hear and
determine all suits in person. The Empire was resurveyed for financial
purposes, and all taxation, so far as it affected the land, being based on a
division of the soil into
juga, each of which,
though differing in acreage from others according to its fertility, being
rated in the same value; the customs' dues were increased, and the
tributum capitis was taken off the towns and levied
chiefly on the new class of Coloni. Constantine made further administrative
changes by completely separating the civil and military powers, so that the
governors of provinces even on the frontiers of the Empire had nothing to do
with the troops stationed in them, which were under the command of a general
without any civil authority: but Justinian re-united the two sets of
functions, at any rate in those provinces in which Constantine's
arrangements had not worked satisfactorily (
Nov. Just. 8.2,
5; xxiv.--xxxi.; cii., ciii.).
It remains to give a short account of the condition and organisation of the
provincial towns. In the republican period the vast majority of these were
subjected absolutely to the power of the governor, and had no free municipal
constitution or independent jurisdiction: these citizens were under the same
authorities, financial, judicial, and military, as the purely rural
population. Some of them, however, were privileged, though in their
immunities there were various degrees.
Foederatae
civitates, such as Messana and Tauromenium in Sicily, and
Gades in Spain, owed no duties to Rome beyond those imposed on them by their
treaty with her, though these were often oppressive (e. g.
Cic. in Verr. 5.19-24,
§ § 48-61). Some towns were after their conquest declared
free again by a lex or senatusconsultum (
populi
liberi, such as Termessus in Pisidia,
Strabo xvii. p.839, &c.), whereby their citizens became
capable of owning land within their territory, and acquired rights of
self-government, especially in matters of taxation and legislation: others
were
liberae et immunes, being released from
the taxes usually paid to Rome, and from the liability to have troops
quartered on them during the winter months. In many provinces, again, there
were colonies, either Latinae or civium Romanorum, for whose relation to the
ordinary provincial administration reference should be made to the article
on COLONIA; and sometimes towns, without being
made to receive a colony, were endowed with the “jus Latii” (e.
g. in Gallia Transpadana by Cn. Pompeius, Strabo, B.C. 89), which freed them
from the control of the Roman governor (
Strabo iv.
p.187) and gave them the rights of self-government and having
their own coinage, and other privileges described under
COLONIA and
LATINITAS Under the Empire we
find also numerous municipia in the provinces, i. e. towns on which the
Roman civitas had been bestowed--e. g. on Gades and other Spanish towns by
Julius Caesar (Liv.
Epit. cx.;
D. C.
41.24,
43.39),whose example was
followed by Augustus (
Suet. Aug. 47;
D. C. 54.25) and his successors. These had the
ordinary free municipal constitution of Italian towns, with elected duoviri
or quattuorviri, who possessed a tolerably extensive civil and criminal
jurisdiction, aediles, quaestors, an ordo decurionum, and assemblies for
their citizens: in fact, their condition was much the same as that of the
“coloniae civium Romanorum,” except that the latter ranked
above them in dignity (Gellius,
16.13). Finally
there were towns endowed with the “jus Italicum,” the
conception of which arose after the Social war and the statutes it
occasioned, and which led to the familiar opposition between municipia,
colonise, and praefecturae of Roman citizens in Italy and all other towns
whatsoever (e. g. Lex Julia municipalis, ll. 1.42, 143). It does not seem to
have been granted with any great freedom (
Plin.
Nat. 3.25;
Dig. 50,
15,
1,
6-
8), and apparently only to coloniae and municipia, not
to oppida which were merely “stipendiaria” or had the
“jus Latii” only; though this is a disputed matter, Puchta
(
Institutionen, § 95) and Zumpt (
Comm.
Epigraph. i. pp. 477-491;
Studia
Romana, pp. 337, 338) denying its possession by municipia in any
case, and the latter maintaining that it was sometimes given to mere
peregrini. As to its nature also there are considerable differences of
opinion. Conceivably it affected the soil, the municipal constitution, the
taxes, and the persons of those who inhabited the towns on which it was
conferred. The soil would be released from tributum, and subjected to
Quiritarian ownership with all its legal incidents. In relation to finance,
the citizen of a town possessed of “jus Italicum” would have
his name entered in the local census with the formula employed at Rome, and
the lists would be incorporated with those of Rome herself (Lex Julia munic.
ll. 142-160; Huschke,
Census, p. 62); he would
further be discharged from the payment of all taxes not paid in Italy,
including tributum, annona, and the poll-tax on trades and professions. It
would affect the person of the citizen by giving him the benefit of certain
laws which applied to Italy alone, or at any rate conferred on persons
domiciled in Italy advantages over those domiciled elsewhere (e. g. the
rewards given to those who contracted a fruitful marriage by the Lex Papia
Poppaea, and the benefits of the Lex Furia de sponsu). These consequences,
and these only, are ascribed to a grant of “jus Italicum” by
Schwartz (
de jure Italico, Exerc. Academ. 1783,
1-37) and Walter (
Geschichte des röm. Rechts,
§ 319); but Savigny (
Ueber das Jus Italicum, Verm.
Schriften, 1.29-80) and Puchta (
loc. cit.) deny the
last of the three, and affirm as one of the chief consequences of the
“jus Italicum” a free municipal constitution, which,
according to Schwartz and Walter, must have belonged to the town already.
Provincial towns which belonged to none of these privileged categories
(
civitates stipendiariae) had some sort of
municipal constitution, and the Romans as a rule interfered but little with
arrangements which they found already established, provided they were not a
menace to their own supremacy. But such constitutions
[p. 2.513]were not
free: they did not exclude the
jurisdiction of the governor of the province. The towns had their own
magistrates of various denominations: in Temnos there were praetors,
quaestors, and mensarii (
Cic. pro
Flacco, 19, 44), names which doubtless are intended to
represent Greek titles: in Thyatira there were
στρατηγοι: in fact the names of the local magistrates are
legion, but their functions are regarded as burdens (
munera) rather than as privileges (
honores), and there was no local jurisdiction, the administration
of justice, civil as well as criminal, being in the hands of the governor
alone. Most provincial towns seem to have had elective senates (
curiae), an arrangement encouraged by Rome herself,
who was adverse to democracies; but to be a “decurio” or
senator was burdensome and expensive, and the citizens had to be expressly
rewarded for undertaking or getting others to undertake the office. [For
details see DECURIONES; DECEM PRIMI.] Under the
Empire the electorate was controlled from Rome, no one being permitted the
full local franchise unless his income reached a certain minimum; thus Dio
Chrysostom (2.43 R) says that at Tarsus, besides the
βουηλ̀ and the
πλῆθος,
“there was no small multitude which stood, as it were, outside the
constitution.” The provincial towns had no independent right of
legislation, even in relation to municipal affairs, but were obliged to
resort to the emperor, as is shown by the number of Rescripts on the
subject; and upon nearly all matters which with us are transacted by the
corporation or vestry of a town, such as the construction and maintenance of
public works, they had to refer to the governor. It does not appear that the
religion of the provincials was ever interfered with, nor had it been put
under any restraint in the republican period.
The constitution of the provincial towns was affected in the second half of
the fourth century by the establishment in all of them of a new office, that
of
defensores civitatis, plebis, or
loci. These magistrates were chosen for five years,
which Justinian reduced to two, by all the citizens of the town who
possessed the franchise, but no decurio could be elected: their chief
function was the protection of the town and its citizens against oppression
and injustice at the hands of the imperial officials, as to which they were
to address complaints to the governor of the province, or, if he were
himself the offender, to the emperor or praefectus praetorio; by reason of
their independence in relation to the governor they ranked above all the
other municipal magistrates (Cod. 1.55,
de
Defensoribus). They were even invested with a limited jurisdiction
in civil causes, which Justinian extended from matters of the amount of 50
to those of 300 solidi, and from which there was an appeal to the
praeses (
Nov. 15, 5); and they could
appoint tutors where the property of the ward did not exceed a certain
minimum in value (Inst. 1.20, 5). In the fifth or sixth century they also
acquired a small jurisdiction in criminal matters (Cod. 1.55, 5; Cod. Theod.
1.29, 7;
Nov. 15, 6).
The most complete treatment of the Roman provincial organisation and its
history is that of Marquardt,
Römische
Staatsverwaltung, i. pp. 90-425. English readers will find a careful
and accurate account of the matter, based upon the best authorities, in Mr.
W. T. Arnold's
Roman Provincial Administration (Macmillan,
1879), which the writer of this article has found of the greatest service.
Reference may also be made to Walter's
Geschichte der
römischen Rechts, § § 233-248,
308-320, 387-392; Puchta,
Institutionen, §
§ 66-69, 93, 94, 122, 123; Sigonius,
de Antiquo
Jure Provinciarum, lib. i.-iii.; Savigny,
Geschichte
des röm. Rechts im Mittelalter, vol. i.; and
Goettling's
Geschichte der römischen
Staatsverfassung.
[
J.B.M]
