sense of liberty became less exquisite, the
advantages of order were more clearly understood; and the praefect, who
seemed to have been designed as a terror only to slaves and vagrants,
was permitted to extend his civil and criminal jurisdiction over the
equestrian and noble families of Rome. The praetors, annually created as
the judges of law and equity, could not long dispute the possession
of the Forum with a vigorous and permanent magistrate, who was usually
admitted into the confidence of the prince. Their courts were deserted,
their number, which had once fluctuated between twelve and eighteen,
[106] was gradually reduced to two or three, and their important
functions were confined to the expensive obligation [107] of exhibiting
games for the amusement of the people. After the office of the Roman
consuls had been changed into a vain pageant, which was rarely displayed
in the capital, the praefects assumed their vacant place in the senate,
and were soon acknowledged as the ordinary presidents of that venerable
assembly. They received appeals from the distance of one hundred miles;
and it was allowed as a principle of jurisprudence, that all municipal
authority was derived from them alone. [108] In the discharge of his
laborious employment, the governor of Rome was assisted by fifteen
officers, some of whom had been originally his equals, or even his
superiors. The principal departments were relative to the command of a
numerous watch, established as a safeguard against fires, robberies,
and nocturnal disorders; the custody and distribution of the public
allowance of corn and provisions; the care of the port, of the
aqueducts, of the common sewers, and of the navigation and bed of the
Tyber; the inspection of the markets, the theatres, and of the private
as well as the public works. Their vigilance insured the three principal
objects of a regular police, safety, plenty, and cleanliness; and as
a proof of the attention of government to preserve the splendor and
ornaments of the capital, a particular inspector was appointed for the
statues; the guardian, as it were, of that inanimate people, which,
according to the extravagant computation of an old writer, was scarcely
inferior in number to the living inhabitants of Rome. About thirty years
after the foundation of Constantinople, a similar magistrate was created
in that rising metropolis, for the same uses and with the same powers.
A perfect equality was established bet