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 Roman forces should act together. Frequently the Roman armies had been simultaneously directed against various points of Italy, and the custom naturally suggested itself that each consul should command half of the regular army of four legions, and thus have an independent sphere of operations (provincia). In a defensive war, such as that against Hannibal, Italy would naturally fall into two consular provinces; but the practice became even more essential when the Roman arms extended beyond the peninsula, and in the period of the acquisition of the empire, from the beginning of the first Punic war to the close of the struggle with Greece (264-146 ), Italia as a whole, and some foreign country such as Greece or Macedon, are the regular provinciae held by the consuls. The arrangements which were made for the permanent government of provinces, first through praetors and afterwards through pro-magistrates, tended to arrest their employment for this purpose; but down to the time of Sulla (81 ) a consul might at any time be appointed to a transmarine province.

The consuls settled the distribution of provinciae by agreement or by lot, the sortitio becoming in time the more usual practice. Occasionally the Senate ventured to suggest that one of the consuls was better qualified for a special department, and in this case the inevitable consent of his colleague enabled him to assume it extra sortem. But, as Rome's activity extended, and the available magistrates with imperium increased, the important question came to be, not who should have one of two departments, but which should be the consular provinces. This power to nominate the provinces (nominare provincias) had, by the close of the Hannibalic war, become the undisputed prerogative of the