Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/351

XI after another passed under his immediate authority. If we open the correspondence, most fortunately preserved to us, between Trajan and his friend Pliny the younger, whom he had sent out to regulate the province of Bithynia, we get a wonderfully vivid picture of the working of the new centralised government. This province had been badly administered under senatorial rule, and was now to be reorganised by a delegate of the emperor. The lesson we learn from these letters is that to be governed by the delegate was equivalent to being governed by Trajan himself. Even at a distance of 1000 miles Pliny writes to consult his master on matters of the minutest detail, and invariably receives an answer sufficiently definite to guide him. These answers of Trajan are very brief and business-like; they show that he had found time to attend to the question addressed to him, and that he had made up his mind upon it; while at the same time they often leave the delegate to act on his own discretion without needlessly hampering his freedom of action. Nowhere can we get a better idea of the way in which government was actually carried on in this new form of State by an intelligent and industrious ruler.

Secondly, there is the study of the various forms of local government within each province. We are still learning how city-life was everywhere encouraged and organised; how towns were formed