128
DIVISION OF ITALY.
though I cannot express myself at all decisively upon the point;
but we know, at least, that he appointed treasurers for his own
aerarium, and that in it the other aeraτium was subsequently
merged. Under a specious pretext, he appointed équités Bomani
to this office, and not senators; for the latter, venal as they
were, had immense pride.18
With regard to the courts of justice, he maintained the Iex
Julia, which Iradagain given the judicia entirely to the équités
but the decuries, or jury-lists, were much increased, and he also
made a fourth list, or decury, for minor cases, to which persons
of smaller fortunes than the census equester were admitted.
Italy had, as it were, by chance grown together into one state.
In ancient times, it comprised only the south, and did not ex-
tend further north than the Tiber; but it had gradually been
extended as far as the river Rubicon, which formed the bound-
ary between it and Cisalpine Gaul, so that Etruria and Umbria
were included in it. Augustus now gave Italy its natural ex-
tent, from the straits of Sicily to the foot of the Alps, and
divided the whole of that country into a number of regions.19
What was the meaning of these regions, and whether each of
them had a praefect at its head, I cannot say. I have never
been able to find anything to throw light upon the question,
but I am inclined to believe that the division had reference
only to the forty quaestors20 ; for I cannot conceive a division
of that kind without a corresponding number of officers. I can-
not find, in the reign of Augustus, or of his immediate succes-
sors, a trace of anything like the four consulars appointed by
Hadrian in Italy21, or like the correctores in the reign of
Severus22; but I will not therefore deny that Augustus in-
troduced something similar in his division. As far as I am
aware, however, no traces of it occur either in books or in
inscriptions relating to his reign, though they are numerous in
later times.
Augustus had an enormous private property; he possessed
entire principalities, and we may form some notion of his
16 Sueton. August, 36; Dion Cassius, liii. 2, 32, 48; Tacitus, Annal, xiii. 29.
19 Pliny, Jfist. Hat. iii. 6.
20 The number of praetors was reduced by Augustus to ten.—N. (Veil. Paterc,
ii. 89; Dion Cassius. Iiii 32.)
2i Spartian. Hadrian, 21.
22 Treb. Pollio, Trig. Tyranni, 24; Vopiscus, Aurelian 39; Eutrop. ix. 13;
Aurel. Victor, de Caesar. 35.
INSTITUTION OF THE PIiAETORIANS.
129
wealth when we read in Josephus23 the will of Herod, who
left all his property to Augustus and his family. Dependent
kings and tetrarchs often bequeathed to the emperors all that
they possessed. The rest was the produce of his wars, and of
the tributes derived from his provinces. His vicegerents who
received these tributes were called procuratores Caesaris, and
were usually taken from among the Roman équités, but never
from the senators; freedmen of the emperors also sometimes
obtained such an office, though perhaps this did not occur
under Augustus. The emperors had such unlimited power in
these provinces, that Augustus, for example, changed the whole
registration of property in Gaul on his own responsibility, and
without consulting any one, even for the sake of appearances.
The soldiers too were wholly in his power, for they took their
oath of allegiance to the emperor: they did the same, it is
true, to the imperium populi Romani, but they were bound to
and dependent on the emperor, as they had formerly been to
the consuls, to whom no one was now bound. His fleets were
stationed at Afisenum and Ravenna.24 The institution of the
praetorian cohorts was nothing new, for cohortes praetoriae had
existed from the earliest times, and were analogous to the
guides des généraux whom we meet with in the history of the
French Revolution. They occur in the Punic wars, and during
the civil wars we find them on both sides. They had arisen
out of the former eυocati. Augustus had brought them back
with him to Italy, and had founded twenty-eight military
colonies, as a protection against any popular outbreak; in
order to keep these veterans also in check, he formed the
cohortes praetoriae, which in Italy gradually came to represent
the armed Roman people of former times ; for they were raised
principally in those districts of Latium which had formed the
nucleus of the AIarian party. These cohorts were at first kept
scattered over various parts of Italy, but they were gradually
drawn nearer to Rome and there established the well-known
castra praetoria. Their number was increased in the course of
time, but under Augustus there may have been about 8,000.
Formerly the provincials were called upon to take up arms
only when their country was in immediate danger; but hence-
forth cohorts were formed from among the subjects of all the
23 Aiitiqult. Jud. x∖ii. 6, § 1.
m Sneton. August. 49.
VOL. III.