Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/292

278 the governors of praetorian rank, and when he was a consul himself only one province was left to be otherwise disposed of. He abolished the five years' interval between the urban and the provincial term (pp. 253-254), and ordained that the proconsuls were to remain in office two years and the propraetors one. From his own career he readily understood the dangers of a prolonged provincial tenure. But he could recall his appointees at discretion.

Besides, he restricted their powers. As dictator he was their commander-in-chief, and he probably kept them further in check by appointing the brigadier generals or adjutants of the legion (legati legionis), an authority regularly exercised by the emperors. Possibly he introduced the practice of appointing special tax-collectors (procuratores). He also enforced his law in regard to extortion.

Financial Reforms of Caesar. — Caesar regulated in particular the provincial finances and improved the financial administration. In 48 he converted the tithes of the province of Asia (p. 171) into fixed money payments, and left their collection to the different communities. He likewise abolished the tithes in Sicily and other places, in consequence of the bestowal of citizenship or Latin rights. In so far he restricted the pernicious activity of the equestrian tax-collectors, but he continued the old system (pp. 39-40) for the indirect taxes. While he introduced a great saving in the distribution of grain (p. 275), he increased the public expenses by almost doubling the pay of the soldiers, who had before received annually about $26 and were now paid $50. But the change was necessary. He had to meet enormous expenses, but he had also extraordinary sources of income, and at his death left in his own and the public treasury a sum of $44,000,000, four times the regular income of the state in his youth, and ten times the amount in the treasury during the most flourishing period of the republic.