Augustus began his reign in Egypt in B.C. 30 by ordering all the statues
of Antony, of which there were more than fifty ornamenting the various
public buildings of the city, to be broken to pieces; and it is said
he had the meanness to receive a bribe of one thousand talents from
Archibus, a friend of Cleopatra, that the queen's statues might be
left standing. It seems to have been part of his kingcraft to give the
offices of greatest trust to men of low birth, who were at the same time
well aware that they owed their employments to their seeming want of
ambition. Thus the government of Egypt, the greatest and richest of the
provinces, was given to Cornelius Gallus.

Before the fall of the republic the senate had given the command of the
provinces to members of their own body only; and therefore Augustus, not
wishing to alter the law, obtained from the senate for himself all those
governments which he meant to give to men of lower rank. By this legal
fiction, these equestrian prefects were answerable for their conduct to
nobody but the emperor on a petition, and they could not be sued at law
before the senate for their misdeeds. But he made an exception in the
case of Egypt. While on the one hand in that province he gave to the
prefect's edicts the force of law, on the other he allowed him to be
cited before the senate, though appointed by himself. The power thus
given to the senate they never ventured to use, and the prefect of Egypt
was never punished or removed but by the emperor. Under the prefect was
the chief justice of the province, who heard himself, or by deputy, all
causes except those which were reserved for the decision of the emperor
in person. These last were decided by a second judge, or in modern
language a chancellor, as they were too numerous and too trifling to be
taken to Rome. Under these judges were numerous freedmen of the emperor,
and clerks entrusted with affairs of greater and less weight. Of the