Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/510

 504 MUNICIPAL EEGIME DISAPrEAKtf. BOOK V. Then, too, the Romans, while everywhere destroying the municipal system, substituted nothing in its place. To the people whose institutions they took away, they did not give their own instead. The Ron)ans never thought of creating new institutions for their use ; they never made a, constitution for the people of their em- pire, and did not understand how to establish fixed rules for their government. Even the authority which Rome exercised over the cities had no regularity. As they made no part of her state, or of her city, she had no legal power over them. Her subjects were stran- gers to her — a reason why she exercised this irregular and unlimited power which ancient municipal law al- lowed citizens to exercise towards foreigners and ene- mies. It was on this principle that the Roman admin- istration was a long time regulated, and this is the manner in which it was carried on. Rome sent one of her citizens into a country. She made that country the jjrovince of this man, — that is to sny, his charge, his own care, his personal affair; this was the sense of the word j^^ovincia. At the same time she conferred upon this citizen the imperium / this signified that she gave up in his favor, for a deter- mined time, the sovereignty which she held over the country. From that tmie this citizen represented in his ])t'rson all the rights of the republic, and by this means he was an absolute master. He fixed the amount of taxes; he exercised the military power, and admin- istered justice. His relations with the subjects, or the allies, were limited by no constitution. When he sat in his judgment-seat, he pronounced decisions accord- ing to his own will ; no law controlled him, neither the^ provincial laws, as he was a Roman, nor the Roman, laws, as he passed judgment upon provincials. If there