Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/799

Rh THE EARLY EMPERORS.] K M E 775 Fancial rt>rms. beral licy wards e pro- aces. ily and a pro- aces itler the ipire. governor, which was open to every provincial, aud in the right of petition. Under the Antonines, not the least laborious of the duties which devolved upon the emperor and his ministers was the daily one of hearing and deciding the innumerable cases sent up from the provinces. On the other hand, the growing frequency of imperial mandates and rescripts (see above, p. 705), dealing both with ques- tions of general policy and with points of law, attests the close attention paid by all the better emperors to the government of the provinces and the increasing dependence of the governor on imperial guidance. Within the province Augustus curtailed the powers of legate and proconsul alike. In both cases there was a division of authority. By the side of the imperial legate was placed, as the highest financial authority, an imperial procurator, while the proconsul, in addition to the loss of all military control, was checked by the presence of the imperial officer, also styled procurator, to whom the care of the fiscal revenues was entrusted ; finally, both legate and proconsul were de- prived of that right of requisitioning supplies which, in spite of a long series of restrictive laws, had been the most powerful instrument of oppression in the hands of repub- lican governors. The financial reforms of Augustus 1 are marked by the same desire to establish an equitable, orderly, and economical system, an: 1 ., by the same centralization of authority in the emperor's hands. The institution of an imperial census, or valuation of all land throughout the empire, and the assessment upon this basis of a uniform land tax, in place of. the heterogeneous and irregular payments made under the republic, were the work of Augustus, though the system Avas developed and perfected by the emperors of the 2d century and by Diocletian. The land tax itself was directly collected, either by imperial officials or by local authorities responsible to them, and the old wasteful plan of selling the privilege of collection to publicani was henceforward applied only to such indirect taxes as the customs duties. The rate of the land tax was fixed by the emperor, and with him rested the power of remission even in senatorial provinces. 2 The effect of these reforms is clearly visible in the improved financial condition of the empire. Under the republic the treasury had been nearly always in difficulties, and the provinces exhausted and impoverished. Under the emperors, at least throughout the 1st century, in spite of a largely increased expenditure on the army, on public works, on shows and largesses, aud on the machinery of government itself, the better emperors, such as Tiberius and Vespasian, were able to accumulate large sums, while the provinces show but few signs of distress. A reformed administration and an improved system of taxation were not the only boons for which the empire at large had to thank Augustus. While the republic had almost entirely neglected to develop the internal resources of the pro- vinces, Augustus set the example of a liberal expenditure on public works, in the construction of harbours, roads, and bridges, the reclamation of waste lands, and the erection of public buildings. 3 The crippling restrictions which the republic had placed on freedom of intercourse and trade, even between the separate districts of a single province, disappeared under the empire, and the institution of the provincial councils, as centres of provincial unity, is one among many instances of the more liberal policy pursued by the emperors. 4 In the eyes of the republican statesmen the provinces were merely the estates of the Roman people, but from the reign of Augustus dates the gradual disappearance of the old pre-eminence of Rome and Italy. It was from the provinces that the 1 Marquardt, ii. 198 sg., esp. p. 200, note 4, where the literature is given. a Tac., Ann., ii. 47. 3 Suet., Aug., 18, 47. 4 Marquardt, i. 365. legions were increasingly recruited; provincials rose to high rank as soldiers, statesmen, and men of letters ; 5 the growing Roman civilization of the Western provinces and the thriving commerce of the populous cities of the East contrasted significantly with the degenerate cosmo- politanism of Rome, and with the dwindling population and decaying industry of Italy; while even into Rome and Italy the methods of administration formerly distinc- tive of the provinces found their way. From Augustus himself, jealous as he was of the traditions and privileges of the ruling Roman people, date the rule of an imperial prefect in the city of Rome, the division of Italy into regiones in the provincial fashion, and the permanent quartering there of armed troops. 6 For a century and ^a half the policy initiated by The em Augustus secured the peace and prosperity of the empire ; P ire fr ] of the emperors who ruled during that period the majority ) u ^ ist were able and vigorous administrators, and even the follies d ea th ] and excesses of Gaius, Claudius, and Nero did little harm Marcus beyond the limits of Rome and Italy. The firm rule of Aureliu Vespasian repaired the damages inflicted by the wars of A<D the rival emperors after Nero's death, and the abilities of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, if they failed to revive the flagging energies of the empire, at least secured tranquillity and good government. But few additions of importance were made to the territories of Rome. la Britain] the work begun by Caesar was taken up by Conqne Claudius, under whom the southern part of the island was of . constituted a province; the northern districts were subdued ] by Agricola (78-84 A.D.), and the limits of the province northward were finally fixed by the Wall of Hadrian (see BRITANNIA). The conquest of Dacia by Trajan (107) of Dacii was provoked by the threatening attitude of the barbarian tribes on the lower Danube, and, though it remained part of the empire down to 256, its exposed position as lying beyond the Danube frontier rendered it always a source of weakness rather than strength. 7 To Trajan's reign also belongs the annexation of Arabia Petrsea. Otherwise on The the frontiers there Avas little change. In the north the frontier revolt of Civilis (69-70 A.D.) owed its temporary success "^ e mainly to the confusion created by the rivalries of Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. 8 The connexion of the Rhine with the Danube frontier bj a continuous wall, a work gradu- ally carried out under the Flavian and Antonine emperors,, was a strategical necessity, and involved no general advance of the Roman lines. 9 On the Rhine itself the peaceful state of affairs is sufficiently proved by the reduction of the force stationed there from eight legions to four; and it was only on the Danube that there was any pressure severe enough to strain the strength of the Roman defence. The presence of Trajan himself was required to quell the Dacians under their able king Decebalus, and, though his campaigns were followed by sixty years of peace, a force of ten legions was considered necessary to guard the Danubian frontier. Far more serious was the Invasion irruption of the Marcomauni and other tribes in the reign of tfle of Marcus Aurelius (162-175.). 10 The tide of barbaric Marc& ~ invasion which then swept across the upper Danube and m over the provinces of Rhsetia, Noricum, and Pannonia, till it touched the Alps aud the soil of Italy, was indeed driven back after fourteen years of war, but it first revealed to the Roman world the strength of the forces 5 Jung, Romanische Landschaften (Innsbruck, 1881); Budinszky, Die Ausbreitung d. Latcinisclien Sprache (Berlin, 1881). 6 Marquardt, i. 67 ; Suet, Aug., 32. 7 Mommsen, R. G., v. 205-208. 8 Tac., Hist., iv.; Mommsen, R. G., v. 116-131. 9 For the "limes imperii," see Mommsen, v. 140-146 ; Cohau*en, Der Rom. Grenzwall (Wiesbaden, 1884) ; Herzog, Die Vermessung d. Rom. Grenzwalls (Stuttgart, 1 880). 10 Mommsen, v. 209; Vita Marci, 12 sg.