had no jurisdiction, and these still came before the governor or his deputy. Cicero in his edict,[1] while adopting the ordinances which his old instructor Scævola had instituted in his governorship of Asia, forty-three years before, for the regulation of inheritance and debt, and for suits between the tax-farmers and the subjects, announced that in other matters he should follow the rules laid down in the edict of the praetor at Rome. This observance helps us to see how Roman law and Roman methods of procedure were gradually extended among the subject peoples.
We are not informed what was the nature of the imperial taxes in Cilicia. It appears, however, that the tax-farmers had to deal, not with individuals, but with the communities; for these communities were deeply in debt to them, and had to stave off the evil day by entering into special agreements, by which exorbitant interest was often charged on the arrears. Cicero found that from the first foundation of the province such agreements had been held to be exempt from the general rule, which limited the rate of interest to 12 per cent. He hit upon a happy compromise;[2] naming a tolerably easy term for payment, he ordained that for all debts discharged before that day he would allow only the legal rate of interest; if the term were exceeded, then the letter of the bond was to be exacted. But this method would be fruitless, unless some means were found of replenishing the exhausted treasuries of the subject States. Cicero adopted a twofold means
