Dio's Rome, Volume 4 - An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the - Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, - Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form by Cassius Dio
page 58 of 363 (15%)
page 58 of 363 (15%)
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Gaul adjacent to Narbo back to the people, and he himself took Dalmatia
instead. This was also done subsequently in the case of other provinces, as the progress of my narrative will show. I have enumerated these in such detail because now each one of them is ruled separately, whereas in old times and for a long period the provinces were governed two and three together. The others I have not mentioned because some of them were acquired later, and the rest, even if they had been already subdued, were not being governed by the Romans, but either were left to enjoy their own laws or had been turned over to some kingdom or other. All of them that after this came into the Roman empire were attached to the possessions of the man temporarily in power.--This, then, was the division of the provinces. [-13-] Wishing to lead the Romans still further away from the idea that he looked upon himself as absolute monarch, Cæsar undertook the government of the regions given him for ten years. In the course of this time he promised to reduce them to quiet and he carried his playfulness to the point of saying that if they should be sooner pacified, he would deliver them sooner to the senate. Thereupon he first appointed the senators themselves to govern both classes of provinces except Egypt. This land alone, for the reasons mentioned, he assigned to the knight previously named.[2] Next he ordained that the rulers of senatorial provinces should be annual magistrates, elected by lot, unless any one had the special privilege accorded to a large number of children or marriage. They were to be sent out by the assembly of the senate as a body, with no sword at their side nor wearing the military garb. The name proconsul was to belong not only to the two ex-consuls but also to the rest who had served as prætors or who at least held the rank of ex-prætors. Both classes were to employ as many lictors as were usual in the capital. He ordered further that they were to put on the insignia of |
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