§ 1. The Romans had annual Magistrates in the provinces. There was a twofold reason for this: both lest, through long familiarity with provincials and soldiers, they should acquire a power formidable to the fatherland, and so that access to wealth and honors might lie open to more men. Accordingly, that perpetual changing was instituted not for the good of the state but through the cupidity of powerful men. But if another means of security had been devised, there would have been no need to change Governors every year. Statius says, “A short reign does not spare peoples.” Charles V did not readily change magistrates.
§ 2. The Roman custom of renewing provincial Magistrates annually conduced neither to the security of the state nor to the advantage of the provinces. The cause which did not produce security was the wickedness of those men who, if they had not been able to seize the state by continuing Magistracies, would have ruined it by some other crime. Machiavelli, book 3 of the Discourses on the Republic, chapter 24, contends that Rome was brought to destruction by the prolongation of magistracies; but he attends, not rightly to the cause of the evils,
but to that which immediately preceded the evil. The words of Machiavelli’s discourse are as follows:
If anyone carefully examines the form of the Roman state, he will discover that the primary cause of its destruction arose from Agrarian disputes and from the prolongation of magistracies. If provision had been made against these diseases in time, public liberty could have been longer-lasting and more peaceful. For although no seditions appear to have arisen at Rome because commands were prolonged, it is nevertheless established that those whose Magistracies were prolonged attained such authority and power as was pernicious to public liberty. Indeed, if all those whose Magistracies were ever continued had been like Lucius Quinctius, no danger to public liberty could have been created from that matter. For when there were disputes between the plebs and the fathers, and the plebs had again created the same Tribunes for the following year—because they considered them fit to resist the fathers—and the fathers for the same reason wished to prolong Quinctius’s consulship, he resisted vehemently and did not permit the fathers to imitate the plebs in a matter that was of evil example; and by great exertion he obtained the election of new Consuls. If the other Roman citizens had imitated him, they would by no means, through a most evil example, have dissolved the ancient decree of the Senate concerning the continuation of Magistracies; nor would the continuation of Magistracies have led to the prolongation of command, a thing which brought destruction upon the state.
The first man whose command was prolonged at Rome was Publius Philo. For when he was besieging Palaepolis and, near the end of his consulship, seemed to have victory in his hand, they sent him no successor, but prolonged his command and declared him Proconsul. Although this had been decreed by the Senate for the public good, in the course of time it passed into a most evil precedent and introduced tyranny into the state. For the farther from the City a war had to be waged, the more necessary that prolongation of command appeared. Hence it came about that fewer Roman citizens could excel in military affairs, since fewer became Commanders, and all the glory of war returned to a certain few whose commands were prolonged. Furthermore, a commander who had long commanded an excellent army could easily bind it to himself, so that, having in some fashion forgotten the Senate and People of Rome, it acknowledged only the commander’s fasces. For these reasons it came about that both Marius and Sulla could lead an army against the state and seize it. These evils would never have befallen the Senate and People of Rome if that prolongation of Magistracies and Commands had not been in use.
If you object that such great affairs could not have been conducted by the Roman people in places so remote from the City unless the Magistracies of the Commanders had been continued, I reply that perhaps so great a height of empire could have been attained more slowly, but that empire would afterward have been more enduring, and a Monarchy could not have been introduced so quickly after public liberty had been abolished.
He is too hostile to long commands, although without prolonged or perpetual commands no empire has long endured. I seem to hear Gaius thundering in a most shameful cause: “Well done, Petronius! You have not learned to listen to a commander; you are swollen by Magistracies continued until now.” It is established that the examples of all states, and especially of the Roman state, may be set against Machiavelli.
But let us examine examples. The Kings of the Persians had Satraps in long and almost perpetual commands; before them, so did the Chaldeans and Assyrians. Nebuchadnezzar set Daniel and his companions over affairs, chapter 3; Darius did the same in chapter 7. But if we consider the states of Greece, what was accomplished by them except through distinguished men whose commands they prolonged? The Athenian Commanders Pericles, Nicias, Demosthenes, Cleon, Tolmides, and Myronides are illustrious in Thucydides, distinguished by great victories, whether naval or terrestrial, at Cythera, Megara, Corinth, Pylos, the Peloponnesus, and in Boeotia. Nor did those who were worse than these command for only a year: Alcibiades, Thrasybulus, Theramenes, and Archippus. For Miltiades, Cimon, Themistocles, and Chabrias held longer commands. No people was ever more unjust toward its Commanders and Princes than the Athenian people, through envy and perpetual suspicion lest they either excel or exercise tyranny; nevertheless, it could not defend itself without the commands of brave men, and indeed prolonged ones.
Nor did the Lacedaemonians act otherwise once they had become powerful, as the same Xenophon says in Ἐν Λακεδαιμονίων πολιτείᾳ:
Οἶδα γὰρ πρότερον μὲν Λακεδαιμονίους αἱρουμένους οἴκοι τὰ μέτρια ἔχοντας ἀλλήλοις συνεῖναι μᾶλλον ἢ ἁρμόζοντας ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι καὶ κολακευομένους διαφθείρεσθαι. Καὶ πρόσθεν μὲν οἶδα αὐτοὺς φοβουμένους χρυσίον ἔχοντας φαίνεσθαι, νῦν δὲ εἰσί τινες καὶ καλλωπιζόμενοι ἐπὶ τῷ κεκτῆσθαι. Ἐπίσταμαι δὲ καὶ πρότερον τούτου ἕνεκα ξενηλασίας γιγνομένας καὶ ἀποδημεῖν οὐκ ἐξόν, ὅπως μὴ ῥᾳδιουργίας οἱ πολῖται ἀπὸ τῶν ξένων ἐμπίμπλαιντο. Νῦν δ᾽ ἐπίσταμαι τοὺς δοκοῦντας πρώτους εἶναι τοῦ διακατέχειν ὡς μηδέποτε παύωνται ἁρμόζοντες ἐπὶ ξένης.
For I know that formerly the Lacedaemonians much preferred to live together at home while possessing moderate means rather than to be magistrates in cities and be corrupted by flatterers. And formerly, indeed, they feared lest they should appear to possess any gold; but now I know some who glory in it. Nor am I ignorant that, for this reason, foreigners were formerly customarily expelled and travel abroad was not permitted, lest citizens draw cunning and deceit from foreigners. But at the present time I know that those who appear to be foremost apply themselves especially to this: that they may never lay down a magistracy abroad. And formerly, certainly, they labored to be worthy of command; but now they labor to command rather than to be worthy of command. If, therefore, they sought not merely prolongations but perpetuities of command, it readily appears that those commands were not merely annual; for otherwise they would seek duration in vain.
But let us inspect the Roman state. Tiberius, whom Lipsius calls skillful in commanding, drew annual commands out to great length. Tacitus says in book 1:
It was also a custom of Tiberius to continue commands and to keep most men to the end of their lives in the same armies or jurisdictions. Various causes are reported. Some say that, through weariness of new care, he preserved decisions once made as perpetual; some, through envy lest more men should enjoy them. There are those who think that, as his disposition was crafty, so his judgment was anxious; for he did not seek eminent virtues and, on the other hand, he hated vices: from the best men he feared danger to himself, and from the worst public disgrace. By this hesitation he was at last carried so far that he entrusted provinces to some men whom he was not going to permit to depart from the City.
Fescenninus Niger also argued many things to this effect in Spartianus. “He was of such authority,” he says, “that he wrote first to Marcus and then to Commodus, when he saw that the provinces were being overturned by the easy changing of administrations. First, that no successor should be appointed to any provincial Governor, Legate, or Proconsul before five years, because they laid down their power before they knew how to administer. Then he urged that no new men should approach the governing of the state except through military administrations, and that Assessors should administer in those provinces in which they had sat as Assessors. Severus and then many afterward maintained this, as the Prefectures of Paulus and Ulpian prove: they had been on Papinian’s council, and afterward, when the one had served at the bureau of records and the other at the bureau of petitions, they were immediately made Prefects. It was also his rule that no one should sit as Assessor in his own province,
and no one should administer at Rome unless he were a Roman, that is, sprung from the City.”
Augustus also permitted Governors to hold long administrations. First, he made the Prefecture of the City, which was a great dignity, almost perpetual. He transferred Varus from Syria into Germany. In his testament he gave Tiberius the command that he should entrust the state to those who were strongest in practical knowledge and experience. But he could not have given it to experienced men if they were changed every year.
Yet Julius became more powerful than his fatherland from a prolonged province; so too did Sulla and Marius. Thence came Roman servitude.
I reply that the power of citizens is necessarily increased by continued or repeated Magistracies, just as it is by one Magistracy held once. But that which supplies a cause of greater power is not always to be avoided. For in truth a great part of the Roman citizens considered prolongation salutary. Moreover, unless indomitable Gaul, always formidable to Rome—unless the Batavians, Germans, and Helvetians—had faced a sufficiently vigorous and prudent Commander while the state was struggling with the Asian, Mithridatic, and Pirate Wars, the highest interests would have been placed in peril.
But the custom of continuously continuing or repeating Magistracies existed from the very beginning of the state. Brutus, Postumius, Quinctius, Camillus, Manlius, the Fabii, the Papirii, the Curii, the Fabricii, Africanus, Paulus, Metellus, and even Sulla and Marius held continued commands. The consular fasti themselves exhibit several consulships and triumphs; for whenever the state was in danger—and it is always in some danger—it looked to great and experienced men.
But let us weigh Machiavelli’s arguments. When the plebs had created the same Tribunes because they were fit to resist the fathers, the Fathers also wished to prolong Quinctius’s consulship; he himself resisted this because it was of evil example.
I am accustomed to marvel when I see history employed so childishly. Quinctius the Consul did not refuse prolongation because he considered it an evil precedent and an occasion for tyranny, whatever he pretended, but for other reasons. First, because the Senate had thus decreed: “Neither shall the Tribunes carry a law in that year, nor shall the Consuls lead the army out of the City. For the rest, the Senate judges that Magistracies should not be continued and that the same Tribunes should not be reelected, as being contrary to the state.” Second, the Consul himself adduces this and other reasons:
I should marvel, Conscript Fathers, if your authority with the plebs is so empty that you yourselves diminish it. For because the plebs dissolved a decree of the Senate concerning the continuation of Magistracies, you yourselves also wish it dissolved, lest you yield to the rashness of the multitude—as though to possess more license and levity were to possess more power in the state. For it is assuredly more frivolous and empty to abolish one’s own decrees and resolutions than those of others. Imitate, Conscript Fathers, the unreflecting crowd, you who ought to be an example to others; sin by the example of others rather than have others act rightly by yours, provided that I do not imitate the Tribunes and do not permit myself to be declared Consul contrary to the decree of the Senate. But you, Gaius Claudius, I exhort both to restrain the Roman people from this license and to persuade yourself of this concerning me: I shall receive it as though, not my honor had been impeded by you, but the glory of despising honor had been increased, and the envy which threatened from its continuation had been lightened.
Thus spoke Quinctius, who not only could not seize a tyranny but despaired that the Fathers could defend themselves from the tyranny of the plebs. Here there is no reasoning concerning the danger of tyranny. But what he says is greatly to be noted: that the envy which threatens from a continued honor is lightened by the creation of a new Consul. For the plebs greatly feared Lucius Quinctius, since it would have him as an angry Consul, supported by the favor of the Senate, his own virtue, and three sons. Already before this the fiercer of his sons, Caeso, had been driven into exile, and Quinctius himself was compelled to pay the money for which his son had given bail. Livy says: “The money was exacted cruelly from the father, so that, after all his goods had been sold, he lived for some time across the Tiber, as though banished, in a hut.” Deservedly, therefore, he refused continuation through fear of envy, although, if we consider the matter, the authority of the Senate prolonging the consulship could be preferred to the fear of Quinctius refusing it.
Finally, other things which occurred in this contest are proof to us that the consulship was not refused because the Romans disapproved its continuation and repetition. For in place of Quinctius and his colleague there were created as Consuls Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, for the third time, and Lucius Cornelius Maluginensis. Why did they not fear tyranny in Fabius? There is no less danger in repeated Magistracies than in continued ones.
Machiavelli nevertheless objects, on the contrary, that from the prolongation of command it came about that fewer Roman citizens could excel in military affairs, since fewer became Commanders, and that all the glory of war returned to a certain few whose commands were prolonged.
But this did not cast down the spirits of brave men. For when they observe that some among the many who have waged wars are held in great glory, when they see their command prolonged, see them reelected, and see them summoned again to great works, they are equipped by emulation. Virtue has sharper spurs if its activity is not concluded by the course of only one year. If it is pressed by a successor and the possibility of returning is cut off, it easily grows obsolete. But his judgment that men cannot excel in military affairs because fewer become Commanders is contrary to experience. David had the bravest soldiers and most excellent Commanders, yet David was King and Joab Commander of the army. Who hoped for command while Alexander lived? Who was Commander in Macedonia while Philip reigned, supported by several sons? And yet in his court there was a great abundance of the greatest Commanders; had they not dashed against one another, they could easily have obtained the whole world. Assuredly, more than thirty Commanders were equal to any King, although more had perished partly in war and partly through Alexander’s cruelty. The Macedonians therefore became great Commanders, Generals, and Kings, not by commanding in turns, but by serving under Philip, the most cautious of Kings. Familiarity with a great King, consultations, and exercises made them great. Such were those who led ranks under Pompey and Julius; such are those who flourished under the Prince of Parma and Spinola. Supreme honor indeed excites men to the hard rudiments of war; but without it military skill can and commonly does subsist. No prudent man chooses a Commander so that he may learn to wage war; the experiment is too insolent when the entire state is in danger.
But the army obeyed its commander rather than the Senate; this was caused by the prolongation of command. Hence Marius, Sulla, and Julius.
Hence laws and plebiscites were compelled.
It seems to me that the fault lay not so much in prolonging command as in—
§ 2 (continued).
creating such Magistrates in the beginning—or, to speak more correctly, in prolonging command for such men. I am speaking finally of liberty destroyed under Julius; for Marius and Sulla deserved very well of the fatherland, although through the contest of parties they ruined everything. Nor here was the fault of Marius and Sulla greater than that of others. Florus has excuses for the Commanders rather than for the soldiers, book 3, chapter 21:
I would somehow bear it with a more equitable mind if plebeian commanders, or at least evil nobles, had furnished leadership for the crime. But when—O crime!—such men, such Commanders, the glories and ornaments of their age, Marius and Sulla, furnished even their own dignity for the worst crime, the state was agitated, so to speak, by three constellations. In the first, light and moderate, cruelty arose in a tumult greater than the war itself against the commanders of the armies. Soon, in a second and bloodier one, victory raged through the vitals of the whole Senate. The last surpassed not only civic but also hostile madness, when the fury of arms rested upon the strength of all Italy and hatreds raged so far that there were none left to be killed. The beginning and cause of the war was Marius’s insatiable hunger for honors, when through the Sulpician law he disturbed the province allotted to Sulla. But Sulla, impatient of the injury, immediately wheeled his legions about and, Mithridates being postponed, poured a double battle line into the City through the Esquiline and Colline Gates.
Caesar and Pompey became powerful through prolonged commands, but the envy of other citizens caused them to abuse their power. “The cause of so great a calamity,” says Florus in book 4, chapter 2, “was the same as that of all others: excessive prosperity. For when Quintus Metellus and Lucius Afranius were Consuls, when Roman majesty was powerful throughout the whole world and Rome was singing recent victories and the Pontic and Armenian triumphs in Pompey’s theaters, Pompey’s excessive power stirred envy among idle citizens, as commonly happens. Metellus, because his Cretan triumph had been diminished, and Cato, always hostile to powerful men, began to disparage Pompey and oppose his acts. This resentment drove him astray and impelled him to seek supports for his dignity. By chance Crassus then flourished in lineage, wealth, and dignity, yet wished for greater resources. Gaius Caesar was elevated by eloquence, spirit, and now also the consulship; nevertheless, Pompey towered over them both. Thus, since Caesar desired to acquire dignity, Crassus to increase it, and Pompey to retain it, and all alike were desirous of power, they easily agreed upon invading the state. Therefore, when each strove by their mutual strength for his own distinction, Caesar invaded Gaul, Crassus Asia, and Pompey Spain. Three very great armies were held, so that now the command of the world was occupied by the partnership of three Princes. That domination lasted ten years, since they were held together by mutual fear. After the death of Crassus among the Parthians and the death of Julia, Caesar’s daughter, who, married to Pompey, maintained the harmony of father-in-law and son-in-law by the bond of marriage, rivalry immediately broke forth. Caesar’s resources were now suspect to Pompey, and Pompey’s dignity burdensome to Caesar; neither the one endured an equal nor the other a superior.”
Nor is it so marvelous that powerful men were offended when, in return for their deserts, for enlarging the Empire, for bringing safety to the fatherland, and for innumerable dangers, they saw insult and new dangers. Such men ought not to have been trusted from the beginning. There were so many forewarnings concerning Caesar that the Romans’ being deceived was not a matter of error but of will. When friends resisted Sulla as he deliberated about killing him, Sulla said that they had no understanding if they did not see many Mariuses in that boy. They knew that, when twenty talents were demanded of him, he had given the Pirates fifty and had killed them without a Magistrate’s knowledge.
Since he gave so many indications of tyranny, Caesar did not steal upon men unaware. Plutarch relates it thus in his life:
By dinners, his table, and, in sum, the splendor of the rest of his life, he gradually gathered power in the state. His envious rivals, supposing that this would shortly vanish when his expenditures failed, safely permitted him to become illustrious in the state. But late, when his resources had now become immense and overpowering, and they perceived them openly breaking out into a change of affairs, they observed that the beginning of no matter should be judged small, since continuation does not fail immediately to render it great, and since by being despised it obtains the advantage of not being impeded. Therefore Cicero, who seems first to have regarded Caesar with suspicion and to have feared his serenity in governing the state, as one fears serenity at sea, and who considered the sharpness hidden beneath his humanity and flattery, said that in all his other undertakings and actions he discerned a tyrannical disposition. “But when,” he said, “I see his hair arranged so carefully and see him scratching his head with one finger, on the other hand this man does not seem to me likely to conceive so great an evil in his mind as to overthrow the Roman state.”
They knew that before he had held any Magistracy he possessed a debt of thirty-one million two hundred thousand sesterces, as is found in the same author, and that he had contracted this through great expenditures and splendor. He had placed images of Marius on the Capitol; all men cried that he was contriving a kingdom; fear of his audacity seized all. Lutatius Catulus, accusing him in the Senate, said: “Caesar no longer attacks the state by tunnels, but now by siege-engines.” Since he was suspected in the conspiracy of Catiline, how could they doubt what he would do, when he publicly protested in the Senate that he would pass over to the people? Why did the Senate itself not decree the Agrarian laws and colonies? What of the claim that, while Aedile, he conspired with Crassus to slaughter the Senators? What of the fact that he terrified his enemies with a numerous household? The Senate knew all these things. Therefore it brought it about by largesse that not Lucceius but Bibulus should be designated Consul with him, as Tranquillus teaches. The Senate also contrived that provinces involving the least business—that is, woods and hills—should be decreed to the Consuls. For what would he not do in a province, when at home he compelled his colleague Bibulus and the Senate to confine themselves through fear? So much so that the tyranny was mocked in verses:
Nothing has lately been done under Bibulus, but under Caesar; For I remember nothing done when Bibulus was Consul.
Thus, by way of jest, men dated documents “in the consulship of Julius and Caesar.” Finally, through conspiracies he obtained the decree of Gaul to himself for five years. Tranquillus, chapter 22:
Therefore, with his father-in-law and son-in-law supporting him, from the entire abundance of provinces he chose the Gauls above all, whose advantage and opportunity offered suitable material for triumphs. At first, indeed, by the Vatinian law he received Cisalpine Gaul with Illyricum added; presently he received Gallia Comata also through the Senate, because the Fathers feared that, if they themselves refused it, the people would give him this province too. Elated by this joy, he did not restrain himself from boasting a few days afterward in a crowded Senate that he had obtained what he desired against the will and amid the groans of his adversaries, and that henceforth he would leap upon the heads of them all. And when someone said insultingly that this would not be easy for any woman, he replied, as though alluding to it, that Semiramis too had reigned in Assyria and that the Amazons had once held a great part of Asia.
Then he bound the annual Magistrates to himself. Tranquillus, chapter 23:
Therefore, to secure the time to come, he regarded it as a matter of great importance always to bind the annual Magistrates to himself and to assist no others among the candidates, or permit them to attain honor, except those who had covenanted to defend him in his absence. From some he did not hesitate to exact an oath and even a written bond concerning this agreement.
Caesar therefore was already ruling before this. For the Senate, which he alone wished extinguished, after Caesar had received Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum from the people, voluntarily added Gallia Comata, lest the people give him this also. Caesar’s power lay in the favor of the people, then in conspiracy and the purchase of powerful men. Meanwhile he nevertheless added much to the Empire, when all things would have been in danger unless the Gauls had been defended by a vigorous Commander. Therefore it was not long command, but—as commonly happens—the favor of the people and fear among the aristocracy that imposed that tyrant upon the City and the world. He was already a tyrant when he ordered his command to be continued.
Accordingly, I do not approve annual Magistracies: both for the reasons set forth above and because transitions of government offer an opportunity for great and evil undertakings. It is also easier to endure one evil man than many. It is difficult for provincials to accommodate themselves to the variety of characters in different men, who are not merely contrary to one another but burden those who pleased their predecessors. Elsewhere I have said how greatly departing and returning Governors burdened the provinces with gifts and coronation gold. But what is most foul is this: those who think that they have obtained the single, almost unique, opportunity in their entire life to become rich use it most shamefully and avariciously; and since they fear trials and punishments, they attempt every abomination.
§ 3. Therefore, unless many other errors concur, the prolongation of commands is not sufficient for the destruction of a state. Nor did Julius first overthrow liberty when, after two five-year periods spent subduing Gaul, he waged many wars whose outcome was not easy; rather, he did so when by force and fear of death he compelled his colleague the Consul and the Senate to abstain from the Senate-house, and by the same fear drove them, though most hostile and unwilling, to decree to him an extraordinary five-year command in both Gauls and Illyricum; and when, after forming a conspiracy with Pompey and Crassus, he extorted a second five-year period. Thus, before the prolongation, he was already more powerful and had oppressed liberty.
Others attempted the state with greater danger, although success failed them. Spurius Cassius endeavored through Agrarian laws to bind the plebs to himself; his father killed him. Maelius had planned to purchase it more effectively by largesse and would have accomplished it had Servilius Ahala not stabbed him in the middle of the Forum. They cast Manlius down from the Capitol when he was suspected of tyranny. These are the arts of all who wish to reign in a popular state. The Tribunes themselves advanced by this art. Florus, book 3, chapter 13.
§ 4. The Tribunician Power stirred up the causes of all seditions. In appearance, indeed, it sought the favor and support of the people through Agrarian, grain, and judicial laws, for the protection of the plebs, for whose aid it had been instituted; but in reality it was acquiring domination. In all these things there was an appearance of equity. For what is so just as for the plebs to recover its right from the fathers, lest the people, victor over nations and possessor of the world, live as an exile from altars and hearths? What is so equitable as for the needy people to live from its own treasury? What is more effective for the right of equalizing liberty than that, while the Senate governs the provinces, the authority of the equestrian order should at least rest upon the dominion of the courts? But these very things returned to destruction. The wretched state was the merchandise sold for its own ruin: judicial power transferred from the Senate to the equestrians suppressed the revenues, that is, the patrimony of the Empire; and the purchase of grain exhausted the treasury, the very sinews of the state. How could the plebs be brought back to the fields without overthrowing their possessors, who were themselves part of the people and who, through long time, possessed the seats left to them by their ancestors as though by hereditary right?
For what else did Gnaeus and Gaius Gracchus ever do? The one carried Agrarian laws and his brother defended them; both were quickly killed by the faction of the nobility. Caesar, proceeding by the same road, was brought after a longer crisis to twenty-three wounds. Apuleius pressed the Gracchan laws more sharply; but after he had now dominated for three years and had killed Gaius Memmius, a candidate for the consulship, the people covered him with stones and clubs after a siege, and he was torn to pieces even in death. Drusus, after bestowing everything and obtaining what he intended, died. All these men acted in the same way as Julius; the only thing lacking was that they did not depart into provinces from which they could purchase the favor of Magistrates.
§ 5. Furthermore, I do not approve commands of Governors which are at once very long and great. By them Governors are rendered powerful, and even more savage and less obedient to command. Provinces must therefore be divided, as was prudently done by the Romans of old. The consular provinces were Nearer Spain, Farther Spain, Gaul on this side of the Alps, Gaul beyond the Alps, Illyricum, Dalmatia, Cilicia, and Syria. The Praetorian provinces, however, were: 1. Sicily; 2. Sardinia and Corsica; 3. Africa and Numidia; 4. Macedonia, Achaea, and Greece; 5. Asia, Lydia, and Caria, with Mysia and Ionia; 6. Pontus and Bithynia; 7. Crete; 8. Cyprus. If this distribution had been preserved, scarcely anyone could have become more powerful than the state. For beyond these provinces stood Rome and the strength of Italy. Next, all had neighboring Governors as rivals. Third, if any possessed an army, they were harassed by neighboring barbarians. This law was violated in Caesar’s case when three provinces were combined into one.
Augustus also produced security for himself by a prudent division. Dio, book 53, page 341:
Ἔθνη τε μὲν ἀσθενέστερα ὡς καὶ εἰρηναῖα καὶ ἀπόλεμα τῷ δήμῳ ἀπέδωκε, τὰ δ᾽ ἰσχυρότερα ὡς καὶ σφαλερὰ καὶ ἐπικίνδυνα, ἢ ὅτι πολεμίους τινὰς παροίκους ἔχοντα, ἢ αὐτὰ καθ᾽ ἑαυτὰ μέγα τι νεωτερίζειν δυνάμενα, κατέσχε.
He gave the weaker provinces to the people, as peaceful and secure from war, but retained the strong ones, as doubtful and nearer to danger, or those which had neighboring enemies, or which by themselves could contrive some great revolution.
Those belonging to the People and Senate were Africa, Numidia, Asia, Greece, Macedonia, Dalmatia, Cyrenaica, Sicily, Crete, Sardinia, and Baetica, all the more peaceful provinces. The rest belonged to Caesar. The following Emperors most prudently divided them further so that they might diminish the power of each Governor. Accordingly, there were ten provinces in Egypt; eleven in Asia and as many in Pontus; six in Thrace and as many in Macedonia or Greece; five in Dacia. In Africa there were three consular provinces—Carthaginian, Byzacena, and Tripolitan—and not only these but others also. Justinian divided Africa into seven provinces which obeyed Governors. The Notitia Imperii records seventeen in Italy, of which eight were consular; there were also seventeen in Gaul and seven in Spain. Experience taught this multiplication, lest Governors could easily gather strength for rebellion. The King of the Spains now uses no other method: he assigns the West Indies to different Viceroys, one of whom resides at Lima and the other at Mexico; he divided the East Indies among three Governors. For if the individual men are moderately powerful, none will ever equal the other Governors, much less the King himself.