the army. But since the days of Marius that duty had become obsolete,
no one wanted the city riff-raff in the legions. Soldiering had become
a profession, and there was never now any general levy of the kind
involved in modern conscription. There must have been some compulsion
upon the upper classes to serve as officers, for Suetonius tells
of a Roman knight who was sold into slavery because he had chopped
off his son’s thumbs in order to evade military service. There had
been a “City Legion” fighting at Actium, but the army was now mainly
recruited from Italy and the imperial provinces. Allied princes like
Herod the Great had their own militias, but were also liable to be
asked for contributions of trained auxiliaries to the imperial army.
From the provinces troops were demanded in proportion to their warlike
activity. The Dutch horsemen were famous, and the Batavians supplied
large contributions of cavalry. The only people in the East who were
enrolled in the legions were the Galatians, who were, of course, Gauls
by ancestry. Augustus himself had a bodyguard of German slaves. As a
rule only freemen were enrolled in the legions, but at the crisis of
the great Pannonian and German revolts,
[Illustration: FIG. 1 STUCCO RELIEF VICTORY]
[Illustration: FIG. 2 DECORATIVE ORNAMENT, “ARA PACIS”]
[Illustration: FIG. 3 STUCCO RELIEF BACCHIC FESTIVAL
PLATE XLI]
the duty was laid upon rich citizens of equipping and maintaining for
six months a certain number of freedmen and slaves who were promised
their liberty and citizenship at the end of six months. These would
probably consist very largely of gladiators. This fact is evidence of
serious military weakness in the Roman Empire. Although there were
over four million full Roman citizens, there were only about 140,000
men in the ranks of the legions, and as there was a very long period
of service, twenty-five years and more, it follows that only a small
number of recruits would be wanted every year. It seems a dangerously
small army to hold such vast frontiers.
Augustus was successful in reducing the enormous rate of pay which had
prevailed during the civil wars. After the death of Augustus the troops
mutinied and demanded an increase of their pay to a denarius (less
than a franc) a day. Augustus established a special military chest to
provide pensions for his veterans in place of the farms which they were
still accustomed to expect.
How greatly--how dangerously--Augustus had reduced the size of the army
may be seen from the fact that there were at least fifty legions during
the civil wars, and only twenty-five at the death of Augustus. These
troops were for the most part stationed along the northern and eastern
frontiers.
In Spain 3 legions
Lower Germany 4 ”
Upper Germany 4 ”
Pannonia 3 ”
Dalmatia 2 ”
Mœsia 2 ”
Syria 3 ”
Egypt 3 ”
Africa 1 ”
To these must be added the 9000 men of the prætorian guard, who enjoyed
shorter service (sixteen years) and double pay. The prætorians had to
be genuine Italians, and when inside the walls of Rome wore civilian
dress. There were also three “urban cohorts” as police--a new and
most salutary invention--and a “cohort of watchmen” for the prevention
of fire. Obviously with a service of twenty-five years there could be
no reserve. But some of the veterans of the prætorian guard were used
as paymasters or engineers. There were also colonies of time-expired
soldiers planted as garrisons in dangerous country.
The legions themselves were stationed in great fortified camps along
the frontiers of their various provinces. There were thus huge spaces
of country totally without military forces. For warfare on the shores
of the Black Sea troops had to be summoned from Syria. There was no
such thing as a readily mobilised striking force in Italy. This was
an inconvenience and a danger, but Augustus did not mean to organise
a military monarchy. Professor Gardthausen has a clever comparison of
the problems before the Roman army with those that face the British
Empire. The problems were remarkably similar, for greater speed of
transport counteracts the greater distances. Both peoples made great
use of the system of drilling native troops and expecting provinces to
guard themselves. But the Romans would have been saved much trouble if
they had been able to adopt our system of a compact and highly trained
expeditionary force backed by a citizen army for home defence. To be
sure, the Romans now lived in a state of peace far more profound than
any that the world has enjoyed before or since. Their wars were of
their own making. Within the circle of the armed frontiers Pax Romana
reigned supreme. The Roman citizens hung up their swords for ever.
The creation of a standing fleet was not the least of Cæsar’s
achievements. The Mediterranean was now properly policed and commerce
was free to circulate. The Italian navy was divided into two flotillas,
one for the Western Mediterranean and one for the Adriatic. Great
artificial docks were constructed for them, one for the Mediterranean
fleet at Misenum by opening up a connection between the Avernian and
Lucrine lakes and the sea and thus creating a small land-locked
harbour which was used for exercising the rowers in rough weather. The
construction of this Portus Julius, which was carried out by Agrippa
with a lofty disregard both of the gastronomic fame of the Lucrine
oysters and of the mythological celebrity of the lake of Avernus as the
gateway to the underworld, excited a wonder which has been reflected
both by Horace and Vergil.
Similarly a base for the Adriatic fleet was constructed by great
engineering works at Ravenna. A third harbour was created on the coast
of Gaul at Fréjus (Forum Julii). The Tiber was dredged and restored to
navigation. Flotillas of small vessels were maintained on the Rhine.
The navy, however, did not even in these days attain to anything like
the status of the army. It was “my fleet”--the private property of the
emperor, equipped and maintained out of his own pocket, and manned
chiefly by his slaves. Even the “prefects of the fleet” were generally
freedmen and foreigners. A Roman admiral, as Mommsen remarks, ranked
below a procurator or a tax-collecter. Thus the Romans never to the end
of their days realised the meaning or importance of sea-power. Their
navy was only for police work and on several occasions, as for example
in the Dalmatian War, they failed to perceive that naval operations
might have been of the greatest assistance to their army. It is true
that there were no hostile navies in the world, but the empire was so
distributed that marine communication might have been of very great
value.
The control of finance was a necessary corollary to the control of
the troops. The Republic had been shipwrecked on finance almost as
much as on the military system, and there is some truth in Mommsen’s
epigram: “the Romans had bartered their liberty for the corn-ships of
Egypt.” Perhaps the most sinister light in which we can regard the
statesmanship of Augustus is that suggested by Tacitus. He was buying
the support of all classes in the state systematically. But to that the
Republic had already accustomed them.
We must clear our minds of the modern idea of a budget and a coherent
public system of finance. The Romans had never paid taxes and their
financial administration had rested in the hands of young men just
beginning their public career as quæstors. This was because finance
was a comparatively recent idea at Rome. It was not part of the _mos
maiorum_ at Rome to have a financial policy, and Rome had always been
a military and not a commercial state. Even now it was a cheap empire.
If we except the corn-supply, the pay of the army was the only large
head of expenditure. On the whole, one with another, the provinces
were more than self-supporting, and as time went on a prudent policy
of development made them extremely profitable. As we shall see later,
the encouragement of natural resources and the exploitation of minerals
all over the Empire added enormously to the Roman wealth. Officials and
magistrates had generally been expected not only to give their services
for nothing but even to pay for their honours handsomely with public
works and entertainments. Public works undertaken by the state were
generally carried out by slaves or soldiers. When marble was needed it
was usually requisitioned from Greece or Numidia. But it was inevitable
that the man who controlled the army should also possess the revenues.
Julius Cæsar had simply appropriated the treasury. Augustus as usual
reached the same end by a more devious path.
The enormous treasures which he disbursed were his favourite weapons of
statecraft. If he had a friend to get into the senate he would simply
make him a present of the necessary income. To retain the goodwill of
the commons he scattered those immense largesses which he has recorded
on the Ancyran monument. To the Roman plebs he distributed over six
millions sterling in eight donations. On another occasion of financial
stress he lent more than half a million without interest. When the
soldiers had to be rewarded after Actium he was able to save himself
from the unpopular necessity of confiscation by finding six millions in
cash to buy them land. There was scarcely a town in the empire which
had not some splendid building to bear witness of its debt to Cæsar’s
generosity, and we shall see how he transformed the whole aspect of
the metropolis. In addition to all this he often replenished the state
treasury out of his own pocket. Over a million and a half was thus
transferred. No wonder that a man who could thus pour his gold into the
treasury should come to regard it as his own.
To the Roman mind it was unbecoming to a free gentleman to be asked
to pay taxes in a free country. They held that a _tributum_ was only
for slaves to pay. Moreover it was one of the limitations of the power
of Augustus that he had no constitutional right to impose taxation on
Italy. Twice indeed he proposed to inflict a property-tax on Roman
citizens. In A.D. 4 and 13 he took a census of all properties above
£2000 as a preliminary measure, but on the second occasion at least
it is explained by the historian as a shrewd stroke of diplomacy
to make people acquiesce in the existing death-duties. The serious
financial embarrassment of these years was caused by the expense of
the gratuities paid to time-expired soldiers. The soldier’s daily
pay of about sixpence was only pocket-money, he had always expected
a farm on his discharge. Under Augustus this allowance of land was
commuted for a bounty of about £125 for the legionary, or £185 for the
prætorian guard. Of course, with a service of over twenty years and
constant fighting, the number of veterans discharged each year must
have fallen considerably below the 20,000 recruits enrolled, but still
it was a heavy expense. In some cases the veterans were retained under
the colours and in some cases land in new countries was still given.
But this burden led to the establishment of a new military chest in
A.D. 6. This was filled in the first instance by a donation of nearly
two millions from Augustus and Tiberius, but it was maintained by two
indirect taxes which fell upon the Roman citizens--very much to their
annoyance. One was a tax of one per cent. on all objects bought and
sold, the other a five per cent. tax on legacies. The latter was not
imposed purely for revenue. It was intended, along with other laws,
to discourage celibacy, since it only fell upon those who died without
heirs of kin. What appears to be a distinct tax is another upon the
sale of slaves.
The other large head of expenditure was that of the Roman corn-supply.
Two hundred thousand people received free corn and the rest of the
citizens always expected to buy it very cheaply. Most of this corn came
from Egypt and Sicily as taxation paid in kind. The control of the
supply was in the hands of a new department, _cura annonæ_, but owing
to its mismanagement there were several periods of famine, on which
occasions either Augustus himself or some member of his family had to
step in and put things straight.
The general expenses of administering the Empire were not as great
as modern analogies would lead us to suppose. No doubt the imperial
legates and procurators received wages out of the imperial fiscus. It
is commonly stated that all provincial magistrates now received a fixed
salary instead of being left to plunder the provincials. The truth is
that the higher magistrates of Rome never had received and did not
for a long time yet receive a salary. But they had always claimed an
allowance for their travelling expenses technically called “mule and
tent money,” and this had been fixed on a generous scale which really
amounted in practice to a salary. The only change was that instead of
allowing these fees to be subject to contract on the regular contract
system of the republican treasury, the governors now received a fixed
grant calculated according to the necessary scale of expenses in the
various provinces. For the provinces an immense saving was effected
in this manner but it must have been more expensive to the central
treasury.
The finances of the provinces were gradually brought into order
and arranged with consummate skill. The little information that we
possess tends to show that nowhere was the Augustan reformation more
beneficent or more brilliantly successful. In Gaul the land-tax and
property-tax were fixed in 26 on a fairly high scale, it is true, but
the development of commerce and agriculture fostered by the Romans
made their incidence a light burden in comparison with the rapidly
increasing wealth of the province. By this time the state had accepted
the theory of tribute which the Roman lawyers had developed upon false
principles. Tribute was now regarded, not as a commutation of the
liability to military service, which was its real origin, but as a rent
paid to Rome for the continued enjoyment of lands which had passed to
her by right of conquest. The tribute was everywhere reassessed upon
a new valuation systematically conducted. Generally it represented a
tithe of the corn harvest and 20 per cent. of liquid products, such as
oil and wine. In the senatorial provinces the old system of tax-farming
by contractors survived for a time, but in his own provinces Augustus
instituted an imperial board of revenue administered by Roman knights
or Greek slaves and freedmen as his fiscal procurators. We have,
indeed, three known cases of embezzlement by native agents. One,
Eros, had advertised his insolent rapacity in Egypt by purchasing a
celebrated fighting quail for an immense sum of money, and then cooking
it for his dinner. Another, Licinius, a native Gaul set to collect
taxes in his own country, disarmed Cæsar’s wrath like the servant
in the parable by showing rooms full of silver and gold, which he
professed to have stored up in his master’s interest. In this case it
is zealous extortion which is charged against him. One of his methods
was to extort fourteen months’ taxes in the year by pointing out to the
innocent natives that since December was by its very name the tenth
month, they had two more monthly contributions to pay before the end
of the year. A paymaster, also a slave, who died in Tiberius’s reign,
was notorious for the retinue of fourteen persons who attended him
on his travels. He had his private cooks and physicians. But these
are isolated cases. On the whole it is clear that the provinces were
rejoicing at their deliverance from the oppression of the Republic.
They were always anxious to be transferred from the senate to Cæsar.
If the tax-gatherer was still at their door, he was now a man under
independent authority with a master who would listen to petitions and
appeals. Moreover, they now had a government which assisted them to pay
by intelligently developing their resources.
The public treasury of the senate was no longer entrusted to mere
quæstors. Augustus at first instituted prefects for this also. But the
dearth of administrative capacity at Rome compelled him to transfer the
charge to the prætors. However, he kept an eye upon its administration
himself, as is shown by the fact that when he died he left to the state
an account of the condition of the treasury.
It is still too early to speak of a definite system of division between
the public “ærarium” and the emperor’s private “fiscus.” But the budget
of the senate would include:
REVENUE | EXPENDITURE
5% legacy duty. | Army and police.
2% or 4% duty on sale of slaves. | Religion.
1% on merchandise. | Corn-supply.
Customs and harbour dues. | Water-supply.
Confiscations from state offenders. | Fire brigade.
Intestate estates. | Administration.
Public lands. |
Provincial tribute. |
State mines and works. |
Mintage of copper. |
The budget of the fiscus would include:
REVENUE | EXPENDITURE
Tribute of Cæsar’s provinces, | Provincial administration
especially Egypt and Gaul. | and
Legacies (£15,000,000 in the last | salaries.
twenty years). | Largess and bounties.
Private domains. | Temples and public
Family inheritance. | buildings.
Aurum coronarium (a complimentary | Loans and gifts.
gift on accession). | The fleets.
Private mines and works. | Games and shows.
Mintage of silver and gold. |
THE PROVINCES
Turning now to a rapid survey of the Roman world from a geographical
point of view we shall see the work of restoration and repair,
proceeding with the same methodical thoroughness which makes this
regime one of the most beneficent in the history of civilisation.
We have already seen something of the provincial system as it was
reorganised in 27 B.C. The provinces which fell to the share of the
senate were these:
_Asia._
_Africa._
_Gallia Narbonensis_ (transferred to the senate in 22 B.C.)
_Hispania Bætica._
_Crete_ with the Cyrenaica.
_Macedonia_ with Achaia.
_Bithynia_ with Pontus.
_Cyprus_ (also transferred to the senate in 22 B.C.).
_Dalmatia_ (until the revolt of 11 B.C.).
_Sardinia_ with Corsica.
_Sicily._
These were governed by annual magistrates, chosen by lot from a list
selected by the senate--the first two by proconsuls of consular rank,
the others also by governors termed proconsuls but actually only of
prætorian rank, that is, ex-prætors. Africa was the only one of these
provinces which contained troops and the senatorial governors went out
in civilian dress as administrators only. Cæsar’s provinces were:
_Spain._
_Gaul._
_Syria_ with Cilicia and, until 22 B.C., Cyprus.
To these were gradually added:
_Germania._
_Illyricum_, including Dalmatia and Pannonia.
_Galatia_, including Lycaonia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, and part
of Cilicia, with Paphlagonia added in 5 B.C.
These were all governed by legates of Cæsar, commonly chosen from the
ranks of the senate, with the title of proprætor. They held office for
as long as Cæsar desired, and were provided with a staff, chosen by
him, of trained financiers. In addition to these, other districts under
prefects were gradually accumulated:
_Egypt._
_Mœsia_ and Triballia.
_Alpes Cottiæ._
_Alpes Maritimæ._
And others again under procurators:
_Judæa_ (after A.D. 6).
_Rhætia._
_Noricum._
Further, there were a large number of “allied” or “client” kingdoms and
republics:
Thrace. Abitene.
Pontus with Bosphorus. Emesa.
Judæa (till A.D. 6). Galilæa and Peræa.
Commagene. Nabatæa.
Cappadocia. Batanæa.
Armenia. Mauretania.
Arabia.
And the allied states:
Lycia.
Athens, Sparta, Rhodes, and other
Greek cities.
In his own provinces Cæsar was supreme in all things; he had the
right of making peace, war, and alliance, without consulting the
senate. Though he governed through legates or procurators, the Roman
law had always granted a right of appeal from a lower magistrate to
his superior. This was the source of Paul’s “appeal unto Cæsar” from
the procurator of Judæa. In the senatorial provinces his imperium,
which had been specially defined as “superior” (_maius_), gave him
precedence when he was actually present. And we have many cases of his
interference in senatorial provinces. Cæsar’s legates, such as Agrippa,
Tiberius, and Gaius, constantly act as overlords in Asia, though a
decree of the senate is required for this. We hear of Augustus founding
colonies in Sicily. Moreover, the princeps had sole authority over the
army, and for any military operations it would be necessary to borrow
troops of him.
The foundations of this great empire were not hastily or carelessly
laid. Although of feeble constitution and by nature a man of peace,
Augustus spent the first half of his long reign more abroad than at
home, in fighting rebels and organising or reforming with unwearied
energy. To this part of his work we are unable to devote sufficient
attention through lack of material. The ancient historians prefer to
record small victories over barbarian tribes, or the petty gossip of
the Roman streets, while they have little to say about the tireless
administration which in one generation transformed the Roman world
from a horrible chaos into that scene of peace and prosperity shown
to us in the pages of Strabo and Pliny. So while our eyes are fixed
upon the sins and follies of Roman emperors and courtiers, until we
get an impression of rotten tyranny conducted according to the caprice
of monsters and fools, all the time the greater part of Europe was
advancing in peace to a state of general culture and civilisation
such as it had never known before, and such as it never knew again
until the nineteenth century. A casual glance over the inscriptions
of a provincial town probably gives us a truer impression than all
the rhetoric of the historians. In Pompeii, for example, a small
and unimportant suburb of Naples which scarcely comes into the view
of history, we see a busy and useful municipal life carried on in
absolute security. There were the ten councillors (_decuriones_), who
corresponded to the Roman senate, and there were two local consuls
bearing the title of “duumviri.” In most cases a small municipality
would have its “patronus” also, a local squire, perhaps, who in
some measure corresponded to the princeps, and who would represent
the interests of the town at Rome, or with the Roman prætor. His
main business, however, was to equip his town with baths, temples,
and colonnades, or to provide it with public banquets. For the rich
freedmen, in whose hands was much of the trade of the place, Augustus
had provided the new office of _Seviri Augustales_, which we have
already described. There were no rates, for private munificence took
their place. There was no direct taxation in Italy, and the indirect
taxes were inconsiderable. Internal trade was free. The obligation to
military service was so widely distributed that it fell very lightly
on Italy, and the natives accordingly became less and less warlike.
All the Italian peoples were now Roman citizens. Trade was greatly
assisted by the improvement of communications which took place during
this period. The care of roads properly devolved upon the senate, but
as they showed their usual incompetence in this department the princeps
had to step in and organise a special Board of Roads with a curator for
each of the trunk lines of communication. Augustus also established an
imperial post with a system of stages and relays, which lasted on until
the coming of railways. The vehicles and horses were maintained by the
roadside communities, and imperial messengers who carried a _diploma_
or passport were allowed to travel express by this means. The great
road to Rimini, the Flaminian Way, was the first to be repaired, and
Augustus adorned its terminal city with a handsome marble bridge[44]
and triumphal arch, possibly as a compensation for the trouble which he
himself had inflicted upon the town during the civil wars. Flourishing
historic cities like Turin and Brescia owe their origin to colonies
founded by Augustus. Towns like Perugia which had been almost destroyed
in the civil wars now grew up again and flourished. In all, Augustus
founded twenty-eight colonies in Italy, and supplied 90,000 veterans
of the civil wars with land which he had bought and paid for. That the
sea was now safe for trade and fishery must have meant a great deal to
the coast towns. Augustus himself wrote an account of the condition
of Italy, and Pliny confesses to using it as his authority. In all
the long and important history of Italy it is doubtful whether she has
ever enjoyed such peace and prosperity as began for her in the reign of
Augustus.