Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/109

 THE EXPANSION OF ROMAN DOMINION 97 observed of levying military contingents from the allies, but imposing no taxes. The next provinces added were the two into which Spain was divided long before its complete subjection by the second Scipio. Here praetors were appointed ; but after this, in- Absence of stead of additional praetors being created, consuls Checks, or praetors had their powers extended for a second year, during which they were sent to administer provinces with the title of Pro-Consul or Pro-Praetor. In the transmarine possessions those checks were wanting which at Rome prevented maladminis- tration by the magistrates. The provincials had no remedy except the dangerous one of petitioning the supreme government at Rome for redress, when the magistrate's term of office was over. Matters were made worse because the taxes were farmed out to tax-collectors called Publicani, who paid an agreed sum to the treasury, and made what profits they could out of the provincials. In case of appeals to the government, the ' publicans ' could usually ensure, especially as corruption became more and more general, that they would have a favourable hearing from the government officials. What may be called the revolutionary period in Rome opens with the year 133 B.C., and the brief career of Tiberius Gracchus; the year when Scipio was crushing Numantia. For 3 The Re nearly seventy years the demoralisation of the Sena- volution : torial class had been steadily increasing. Senatorial The Graccni - rank had long been almost confined to a few great families, because the Senate was filled up from those persons who had held the great administrative posts, and eligibility to these posts was limited by the heavy personal outlay involved in those which had to be first undertaken. Among the Senatorial families were found many distinguished men, who were painfully alive to the deterioration which was going on and was pervading the whole of Roman Society. But if they were aware of deterioration in the governing classes, they did not see a remedy in the restoration to power of the popular Assemblies whose constitutional authority the Senate had by custom, not by law, come to wield. For as the active functions of these bodies had decayed they came to be discharged almost G