126
STATE OF THE ClTT OF BOME.
under Caesar, and still more under Augustus, especially from
Provence, where Latin was spoken at an early time, and which
was hence called altera Italia.13 When therefore we find that
the number of Roman citizens in the reign of Augustus
amounted only to somewhat more than four millions, and
remember that, independently of Italy, a great many Roman
citizens lived in Sicily, Gaul, Spain, and Africa, and that that
number included not merely the heads of families, but every
free man from the age of seventeen upwards, the number must
strike us as fearfully small, and one is startled at the reduced
state of the population, which must have been the consequence
of the civil wars.
The regulations respecting the police deserve praise. Up to
this time, Rome had had no police except the very inefficient
one of the plebeian aediles. The condition of Rome was dread-
ful ; for ever since the time of Sulla and his proscriptions, no
man’s life was safe in the city, for there was in reality no
police at all; we need only read Cicero’s speeches for Cluentius,
Milo, Sextius and Roscius of Ameria, to form a notion of the
insecurity of life in those times. We read in Suetonius that
the grassatores, the banditti of Rome, shewed themselves in
the public streets with their knives, and that no one ventured
to check them.14 Augustus remedied the evil by suitable
police regulations, and extirpated those banditti with resolution
and firmness. The city of Rome and the whole Roman state
are remarkable examples of what is the result, when old insti-
tutions are handed down to posterity without being modified
according to circumstances. Goethe makes Mephistopheles
say that then
“ Reason is changed to nonsense, good to evil.”
And, indeed, the best things if they contain no vital principle,
become absurdities, and are mere harbours for venomous
vermin.
The division of the city into four regions still lasted as it
had been made by Servius Tullius. The Aventine was a sepa-
rate town, and several suburbs had sprung up on the banks and
on the other side of the river. The four regions had, from
ancient times, been subdivided into vici, and this division may
13 Plin. H. N. iii. 4, 5. Comp. Dion Cas⅛s, lii. 42; Tacitu% Annal, iiι. 55,
xi. 25.
*1 Sueton. Caesar, 72, Awjust. 32, 43.
INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS.
127
have been extended to the suburbs likewise. In such an ill-
arranged state of things, the police of the aediles could not be of
much avail. Now Augustus, without taking into consideration
what was within and what without the pomoerium, or what
belonged to the ancient city and what to the suburbs, divided
the whole of Rome into fourteen legions, each with a separate
local magistrate; and each region was subdivided into vid, at
the head of each of which there was a magister vici. This
judicious division was followed by happy consequences, for
the maintenance of a regular police was now possible; and
Rome, which had before been a den of robbers, became a safe
place.13 The Roman magistrates had originally been magis-
trates of a city; but they had gradually become the magistrates
of an immense empire, and the ancient regulations necessarily
lost their efficacy, since it became impossible for the magistrates
to bestow the necessary care upon the city. The smallest colo-
nies and municipia had their local magistrates ; but the Roman
senate and magistrates had seldom, or never, an opportunity of
occupying themselves with the internal affairs of the city.
There were, it is true, magistratus minores, but they possessed
no authority : no man of eminence would have filled such offices,
and they consequently fell into the hands of freedmen. Some
years after the battle of Actium, Augustus established the office
of praefectus urbi, in which the whole of the city administration
was concentrated.16 The office was bestowed at the discretion
of the emperor : L. Piso held it for twenty years, and the ex-
tremely happy choice of the person, and the beneficial conse-
quences of the institution, secured to Augustus the gratitude
and attachment of the city.17 He also established what we may
call gens d,armes, under the name of vigiles, or cohortes urbanae,
which had to assist in cases of fire, riots, and the like. It gave
the people no offence that this body of men was kept in bar-
racks within the city, and thus formed a sort of garrison which
the emperor had in the city itself.
Augustus also instituted an office called t}∖c prarfectura aera-
rii, to which he transferred the functions which had formerly
been performed by the quaestors. It is probable that this
praefectura was not confined to the emperor’s own aerarium,
15 Sueton. Avgust 30; Dion Cassius, Iv. 8.
16 Dion C∏ςςi∏% ɪh 21, Tacitus, Annal, vi. 11, foil.
17 Veil. Paterc ii. 98; Sueton. Tiber. 42; Tacitus, Annal, vi. 10.