consuls, and that the consuls should after their eleotion but before their entry on office arrange between themselves which of the two provinces each should have. The Pompeian law of 53 B.C. enacted that no one should hold the governorship of a province till at least five years after his consulship or praetorship. This law was repealed by Caesar after the battle of Pharsalia, but was re-enacted under Augustus; it severed the connexion which had previously existed between an urban magistracy and the governorship of a rovince, and turned the latter, from the mere prolongation of a Roman magistracy, into an independent office. Like magistracies at Rome a provincial governorship was regularly held for one year; but, unlike them, it could be prolonged, formerly by a vote of the people, later by a decree of the senate. The Julian law of Caesar (46 B.C.) enacted that the governorship of a consular province should be held for two, that of a praetorian province for one year. The necessary supplies of men and money were voted to the governor by the senate. His staff consisted of one or more lieutenants (legati), a quaestor (q.v.) and numerous subordinates. The lieutenants were nominated by the senate from men of senatorial rank; if they proved incompetent, the governor dismissed them; if they showed ability, he entrusted them with military or judicial functions. Besides these the governor took with him from Rome a number of young men of the upper classes to assist him in the government. These were known as the companions (comites) or suite of the governor, sometimes, but incorrectly, as the praetorian cohort (see Praetorians). These members of his suite were chosen by the governor himself, who was responsible for them, but they were maintained at the expense of the state, and under the empire received regular pay. In addition there was a crowd of beadles, clerks, couriers, criers, doctors, dragomans, &c., not to speak of freedmen and slaves for the personal service of the governor. Under the republic the governor was not allowed to take his wife with him to his province; under the empire he might do so, but he was answerable for her conduct. Before setting out for his province the governor, clad in the purple military roiie of his office, offered sacrifice on the Capitol; then immediately after receiving the imperium or military command he marched out of the city (for the imperium could only be exercised outside of Rome and was forfeited by staying in the city), preceded by his sergeants (lictores), and accompanied by his suite. He was bound to travel direct to his province; the means of transport were supplied partly by the state, partly by the provinces through which he travelled. His year of office began from the day he set foot in his province, but the time of arrival varied with the length and difficulty of the route. In the hands of the governor all powers military and civil were united. He commanded all the troops in the province, and had power to raise levies of Roman citizens as well as of provincials, and to make requisitions of war material. He possessed both criminal and civil jurisdiction; as criminal judge he had the power of life and death, and from his sentence none but Roman citizens could appeal; as civil judge he was guided partly by the charter of the province (lex provinciae), partly by the edict which it was customary for him to issue before his entrance on office (compare Praetor), partly by the original laws of the country so far as their validity was acknowledged by the charter or by the governor's own edict. Under the empire Gaius wrote a commentary on the provincial edict, and it is usually supposed that this was a general edict drawn up for use in all the provinces and superseding all separate edicts for the different provinces. Mommsen, however, is of opinion that Gaius only commented on the edict of a particular province.
Condition of the Provinces under the Republic.—Under the republic the Roman people regarded the provinces as so many estates from which they were to derive revenue. The weal or woe of the provincials was of no moment, but the development of the material resources of the provinces was of great moment. Hence agriculture and commerce were encouraged, settlements were made, roads and aqueducts were constructed; in short, the Roman aimed at exploiting his empire by a system of prudent economy as far as possible removed from the blind rapacity which has turned the empire of the Turk from a garden into a wilderness. But the Roman governors were too apt to look on their provinces as their own peculiar prey; they had usually bought their way to office at vast expense, and they now sought in the provinces the means of reimbursing themselves for the expenditure they had incurred at Rome. The annual change of governor was thus a frightful calamity to the provincials, for every year brought a repetition of the same extravagant demands to be met by the same or, as the province became exhausted, still heavier sacrifices. Redress was to be had originally by a complaint to the senate; after 149 B.C. there was a regular court established at Rome for the trial of cases of extortion (repetundae) by provincial governors. But, even when after much trouble and expense the provincials had arraigned their oppressor, it was difficult to secure his condemnation at the hands of juries composed (as they usually were) of men who had a fellow-feeling for the offender because they had themselves committed or hoped for means of committing similar offences. Besides the governor, two classes of harpies joined in wringing the uttermost farthing from the unhappy provincials. These were the publicani or farmers of the taxes, and the money-lenders (negotiatores), who supplied a temporary accommodation at ruinous rates of interest. Both these classes were recruited from the ranks of the Roman knights, and, since from the legislation of Gaius Gracchus (122 B.C.) the juries were drawn at first exclusively and after Sulla's time (81 B.C.) partially from the knightly order,[1] the provincial governor could not check the excesses of those blood-suckers without risking a condemnation at the hands of their brethren. Accordingly he generally made common cause with them, backing their exactions when needful by military force.
The Provinces under the Empire.—Under the empire the provinces fared much better. The monarchy tended to obliterate the distinction between Romans and provincials by reducing both to a common level of subjection to the emperor, who meted out equal justice to all his subjects. The first centuries of the Christian era were probably for some of the countries included in the Roman Empire the happiest of their history; Gibbon indeed fixed on the period from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus (96–180 A.D.) as the happiest age of the world., Augustus, in 27 B.C., divided the provinces into imperial and senatorial. Those which, from their proximity to the frontier or the turbulence of their population, required the presence of an army were placed under the direct control of the emperor; those which needed no troops were left to be administered by the senate. (1) The senatorial provinces were ruled by an annual governor as under the republic. Of these provinces Augustus ordained that Africa and Asia should be consular, the rest praetorian; but all the governors of the senatorial provinces were now called proconsuls. Their powers and dignities were much the same as they had been under the republic, except that they had now no troops, or only a handful to maintain order. (2) The imperial provinces were governed by imperial lieutenants (legati Caesaris), who were nominated by the emperor and held office at his pleasure; all of them had the power of the sword (jus gladii). For the administration of the finances these lieutenants had procurators under them, while the governors of the senatorial provinces continued to have quaestors as under the republic. Another class of imperial provinces consisted of those which from the physical nature of the country (as the Alpine districts) or the backward state of civilization (as Mauretania and Thrace) or the stubborn character of the people (as Judaea and Egypt) were not adapted to receive a regular provincial constitution. These were regarded as domains of the emperor, and were managed by a procurator (in the case of Egypt by a praefect, see Praefect) nominated by and responsible to the emperor.
Under the empire all provincial governors received a fixed salary. Complaints against them were brought before the senate, and the accusers were allowed a senator to act as their advocate. The lengthened periods during which the governors, at least in the imperial provinces, held office, together with the oversight exercised by the emperor, alleviated materially the position of the provincials under the empire. In order to keep himself well informed of what was passing in the empire, Augustus established a post whereby official dispatches were forwarded by couriers and official persons were conveyed by coaches. The post, however, was only for the use of the government; no private person was allowed, unless by an exceptional concession, to avail himself of it. (J. G. Fr.; X.)
Authorities.—The most exhaustive account of the Roman provinces and their administration will be found in Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung (1881), vol. i. See also W. T. Arnold, Roman Provincial Administration (1879); Mommsen, Roman Provinces under the Empire (1884); C. Halgan, L'Administration des provinces senatorial es sous l'empire, with full bibliography of the subject; and T. M. Taylor, Constitutional and Political History of Rome (1899).
PROVINCETOWN, a township at the N. end of Cape Cod, in Barnstable county, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Pop. (1890), 4642; (1900), 4247; (1910 U.S. census) 4369. Area about 9½ sq. ni. The township is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by a steamship line to Boston. The harbour, which is important as a harbour of refuge, is protected on the east by land, and the Federal government has strengthened this protection by dikes and groins and other sand-catching devices; it has five lighthouses. There is a magnificent beach stretching
30 m. from Provincetown village to Eastham. The village is a summer resort. Through many generations the inhabitants have gained their living chiefly from the sea; the township's fisheries, however, have greatly decreased in importance (the invested capital diminishing 67.1% in 1885–1895). The prosperity it retains is not a little due to Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores, and to British Americans. Provincetown village was long second only to Gloucester in the cod fisheries, which low prices and the introduction of larger vessels and correspondingly costlier fittings have greatly
- ↑ Sulla excluded the equites from the list; the lex Aurelia (70) reinstated them.
