rts, each 1000 strong, under the command of two
praetorian prefects of equestrian rank. The praetorians were recruited
exclusively from the Italian peninsula, and enjoyed a shorter term of
service and higher pay than the other corps.

*Conditions of service.* It was not until 6 A. D. that the term of
enlistment and the conditions of discharge were definitely fixed. From
that date service in the praetorian guard was for sixteen years, in the
legions for twenty and in the _auxilia_ for twenty-five. At their
discharge the praetorians received a bonus of 5000 denarii ($1000), while
the legionaries were given 3000 denarii ($600) in addition to an
assignment of land. The discharged legionaries were regularly settled in
colonies throughout the provinces. To meet this increased expense Augustus
was obliged to establish a military treasury (the _aerarium militare_),
endowed out of his private patrimony, and supported by the revenue derived
from two newly imposed taxes, a five per cent inheritance tax (_vincesima
hereditatium_) which affected all Roman citizens, and a one per cent tax
on all goods publicly sold (_centesima rerum venalium_).

*The fleets.* For the policing of the coast of Italy and the adjacent seas
Augustus created a permanent fleet with stations at Ravenna and Misenum.
Conforming to the comparative unimportance of the Roman naval, in contrast
to their military establishment, the personnel of this fleet was recruited
in large measure from imperial freedmen and slaves. Only after Augustus
were these squadrons and other similar ones in the provinces placed under
equestrian prefects.

The military system of Augustus strongly emphasized and guaranteed the
supremacy of Italy and the Italians over the provincials. Both the
officers and the elite troops were drawn almost exclusively from Italy or
the latinized parts of the western provinces. In like manner the
reservation of the higher grades of the civil administration, the second
prop of Roman rule, for Roman senators and equestrians, as well as the
exclusion of the provincial imperial cult from Italian soil, marked
clearly the distinction between the conquering and the subject races of
the empire. Yet it was Augustus himself who pointed the way to the
ultimate romanization of the provincials by the bestowal of citizenship as
one of the rewards for military service and by the settlement of colonies
of veterans in the provinces.

IV. THE REVIVAL