As to the mode of administration, there existed no important distinction between these two classes of governors; they exercised in reality the same power, differing only in rank and title. In Gaul, as elsewhere, the governors had two kinds of functions: 1st. They were the emperor's immediate representatives, charged, throughout the whole extent of the Empire, with the interests of the central government, with the collection of taxes, with the management of the public domains, the direction of the imperial posts, the levy and regulation of the armies —in a word, with the fulfilment of all the relations between the emperor and his subjects. 2d. They had the administration of justice between the subjects themselves. The whole civil and criminal jurisdiction was in their hands, with two exceptions. Certain towns of Gaul possessed what was called jus Italicum-the Italian law. In the municipia of Italy, the right of administering justice to the citizens, at least in civil matters and in the first instance, appertained to certain municipal magistrates, Duumviri, Quatuorviri, Quinquenvales, Ediles, Prætores, &c. It has been often stated that the case was the same out of Italy, in all the provinces as a rule, but this is a mistake: it was only in a limited number of these towns assimilated to the Italian municipia, that the municipal magistrates exercised any real jurisdiction; and this in every instance subject to an appeal to the governor. There was also, subsequent to the middle of the fourth century, in almost all the towns, a special magistrate, called defensor, elected not merely by the curia or municipal body, but by the population at large, whose duty it was to defend the interests of the people, even against the governor himself, if need were. The defensor exercised in such matters the jurisdiction in the first instance; he also acted as judge in that class of cases, which we now term police cases. With these two exceptions, the governors alone adjudicated all suits; and there was no appeal from them except direct to the emperor. This jurisdiction of theirs was exercised in the following manner :-In the first ages of the Empire, conformably with ancient custom, he to whom the jurisdiction appertained, prætor, provincial governor, or municipal magistrate, on a case being submitted to him, merely determined the rule of 7 law, the legal principle according to which it ought to be adjudged. He decided, that is to say, the question of law involved in the case, and then appointed a private citizen, called the judex, the veritable juror, to examine and decide upon the question of fact. The legal principle laid down by the magistrate was applied to the fact found by the judex, and so the case was determined. By degrees, in proportion as imperial despotism established itself, and the ancient liberties of the people disappeared, the intervention of the judex became less regular. The magistrates decided, without any reference to this officer, certain matters which were called extraordinariæ cognitiones. Diocletian formally abolished the institution in the provinces; it no longer appeared but as an exception; and Justinian testifies, that in his time it had fallen completely into desuetude. The entire jurisdiction in all cases then appertained to the governors-agents and representatives of the emperor in all things, and masters of the lives and fortunes of the citizens, with no appeal from their judgments but to the emperor in person. In order to give you an idea of the extent of their power, and of the manner in which it was exercised, I have drawn up from the Notitia Imperii Romani-a list of the officers of a provincial governor; a list exactly similar to that which we might at the present day derive from the Almanach Royal, of the official establishment of a government office, or a prefecture. They are the officers of the pretorian prefect whom I am about to introduce to you, but the governors subordinate to the pretorian prefect, the consulares, correctores, præsides, exercised, under his superintendence, the same powers with himself; and their establishments were almost entirely the same as his, only on a smaller scale. He cited before The principal officers of a prætorian prefect were: 1. Princeps, or primiscrinius officii. the tribunal of the prefect those who had business there : he drew up the judgments: it was upon his order that accused persons were taken into custody. His principal business, however, was the collection of taxes. He enjoyed various privileges. 2. Cornicularius.-He made public the ordinances, edicts, and judgments of the governor. His post was one of very great antiquity; the tribunes of the people had their cornicularius (Val. Maximus, I., vi. c. 11). He was so entitled because he carried with him, as a distinctive badge, a horn, of which he made use, in all probability, to impose silence on the crowd when he was about to perform his official duty. The præco, or herald, was under his direction, and he had a large establishment of clerks. His period of office was only a year. He was a species of recorder. 3. Adjutor, a supplementary officer, whose services appear to have been due to all the other functionaries, when required; his specific business was to arrest accused persons, to superintend the infliction of the torture, &c. He had an office of his own. 4. Commentariensis, the director of prisons, an officer higher in rank than our jailers, but having the same functions; he had the internal regulation of the prisons, conducted the prisoners before the tribunals, furnished them with provisions when they were destitute, had the torture administered to them, &c. 5. Actuarii vel ab actis.―These officers drew up contracts for the citizens, and all such deeds as the law required to bear a legal character, such as wills, grants, &c. They were the predecessors of our notaries. As the actuarii attached to the office of the pretorian prefect or of the præses, could not be everywhere, the decemvirs and other municipal magistrates were authorized to act as their deputies. 6. Numerarii.-These were the keepers of the accounts. The ordinary governors had two, called tabularii ; the prætorian prefects four:-1. The Numerarius Bonorum, who kept an account of the funds appertaining to the exchequer, the revenues of which went to the comes rerum privatarum ; 2. The numerarius tributorum, who was entrusted with the accounts of the public revenues which went to the ærarium, and to the account of the sacred donatives; 3. The numerarius auri, who received the gold drawn from the provinces, had the silver money he received changed into gold, and kept the accounts of the gold mines within his district; 4. The numerarius operum publicorum, who kept the accounts of the various public works, such as forts, walls, aqueducts, baths, &c., all of which were maintained by a third of the revenues of the cities, and by a land tax levied on and according to occasion. These numerarii had under their orders a large body of clerks. 7. Sub-adjuva; an assistant to the adjutor. 8. Curator Epistolarum.—This was the secretary who had charge of the correspondence; he had a number of subordinates, called epistolares. 9. Regerendarius.-The officer charged to transmit to the prefect the petitions of the subject, and to write the answers. 10. Exceptores.-They wrote out all the documents relating to the judgments given by the prefects, and read them before his tribunal; they were under the direction of a primicerius. They may be assimilated to our registrars. 11. Singularii, or Singulares, Ducenarii, Centenarii, &c.— Officers commanding a sort of military police attached to the service of the provincial governors. The singulares attended these functionaries as a guard, executed their orders in the province, arrested accused parties, and conducted them to prison. They acted as collectors of the taxes; the office of the ducenarii (captains of two hundred men, or cohortales), of the centenarii, the sexagenarii, was the same. 12. Primilipus.--The chief officer of these cohortales; it was his especial charge to superintend the distribution of provisions to the soldiers, in the name of the pretorian prefect, and to inspect the provisions previous to delivery. It is obvious that only the more prominent employments are indicated here, and that these officers must have had a great many others under their direction. In the offices of the prætor of Africa, there were 398 persons employed, in those of the count of the East, 600. Independently of their number, you perceive, from the nature of their functions, that the jurisdiction of the provincial governors comprehended all things, all classes, that the whole society had to do with them, and they with the whole of society. I will now direct your attention, for a moment, to the salaries which these officers received; you may derive from this information some rather curious illustrations of the social state of the period. Under Alexander Severus, according to a passage in his biographer Lampridius,' the governors of a province received twenty pounds of silver and one hundred pieces of gold,' six pitchers (phialas) of wine, two mules, and two horses, two state suits (vestes forenses), and one ordinary suit (vestes domesticas), a bathing tub, a cook, a muleteer, and lastly (I have to solicit your pardon for this detail, but it is too charac 1 Chap. xlii. * About 1501. teristic to be omitted), when they were not married, a concubine, quod sine his esse non possent, says the text. When they quitted office, they were obliged to return the mules, the horses, the muleteer, and the cook. If the emperor was satisfied with their administration, they were allowed to retain the other gifts he had bestowed upon them; if he was dissatisfied, they were compelled to give him four times the value of what they had received. Under Constantine, the part payment in goods still subsisted; we find the governors of two great provinces, Asiana and Pontus, receiving an allowance of oil for four lamps. It was not until the reign of Theodosius II., in the first half of the fifth century, that this mode of paying the governors was altogether discontinued. The subordinate employés, however, continued, down to the time of Justinian, to receive in the eastern empire a portion of their salaries in provisions and other goods. I dwell upon this circumstance because it furnishes a striking idea of the inactive state of commercial relations, and of the imperfect circulating medium of the Empire. The facts I have stated, which are perfectly clear, make equally evident the nature of the government under our consideration; an utter absence of independence on the part of the various functionaries; all of them subordinate one to the other, up to the emperor, who absolutely disposes and decides the fate of them all. No appeal for the subject from the functionary, but to the emperor; nothing like co-ordinate, co-equal powers, destined to control and limit one another, is to be met with. All proceeds straight upwards or downwards, on the principle of a sole, strict hierarchy. It is a pure, unmitigated, administrative despotism. Do not, however, conclude from what I have stated, that this system of government, this administrative machinery, was instituted for the sole behoof of absolute power, that it never aimed at or produced any other effect than that of promoting the views of despotism. In order to appreciate the matter fairly, we must present to our minds a just idea of the state of the provinces, and more especially of Gaul, at the moment preceding that when the empire took the place of the republic. There were two powers in authority, that of the Roman proconsul, sent to administer, for a temporary period, such or such a province, and that of the old national chiefs, the governors whom the country obeyed before it passed under the Roman yoke. These two powers were, upon the whole, more iniqui 1 |