Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/49

Rh a conscientious governor was often sorely perplexed by their demands. When his brother was governor of Asia, Cicero wrote to him: "If we set ourselves in opposition to the publicans we alienate both from ourselves and from the State an order, to which we are under obligations, and which by our efforts has been attached to the constitution. If on the other hand we give way to them in everything, we shall be parties to the utter ruin of those over whose safety and even whose interests it is our bounden duty to keep guard. This is (if we are to look the business in the face) the one great difficulty in your administration."

We now see why the control of the jury-courts was a matter of prime importance for the equestrian order. In the province they were at the mercy of the governor; they required that he should be at their mercy when he came to stand his trial at home. There was the closest understanding between the Roman Knights in the provinces and their fellows on the bench in the Forum. "In former days," says Cicero, "when the equestrian order sat on the juries, evil and extortionate magistrates in the provinces were always the humble servants of the tax-farmers; they were civil to the agents of the companies; whenever they saw a Roman Knight in their province, they followed him up with favours and compliments. These efforts did not after all do much to help those who had been guilty of malpractices; but on the other hand