Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/339

51 B.C.] careful to screen his reputation as much as possible. This did not save him from many bitter reproaches from his predecessor, which he answered with good-tempered but spirited vindications of his action. It was like a change of doctors, he remarks to Atticus; Appius had adopted a lowering treatment, and was vexed to see Cicero feeding the patient up again.

A Roman province was a unity, merely as the Persian Empire was a unity, in the sense that it all had one master. If we look at its internal organisation, a province is rather an aggregate of isolated commonwealths. Every acre of ground is part of the territory of some State, and each State has its own laws, its own courts of justice, its own treasury, and its own power of self-taxation. Super-imposed on these, but not substituted for them, comes the Roman administration of public order and defence, of justice, and of imperial finance.

The first thing which Cicero did for his subjects was to allow them to settle all their own controversies in their own courts. In Sicily, as we learn from the speech against Verres, this was a right guaranteed by the constitution of the province; but in Cilicia the extent of interference by the Roman authority appears to have been at the discretion of the governor. Cicero seemed to be giving away a profitable privilege and the Greeks hailed his indulgence "as if he had restored them independence." In cases where Roman citizens were concerned, the native courts