stead of the five years' interval prescribed
by the law of 702,(26) the commencement of the governorship probably
was in the ancient fashion annexed directly to the close of the official
functions in the city. On the other hand the distribution
of the provinces among the qualified candidates, which had hitherto
been arranged sometimes by decree of the people or senate,
sometimes by concert among the magistrates or by lot, passed over
to the monarch. And, as the consuls were frequently induced
to abdicate before the end of the year and to make room for after-
elected consuls (-consules suffecti-); as, moreover, the number
of praetors annually nominated was raised from eight to sixteen,
and the nomination of half of them was entrusted to the Imperator
in the same way as that of the half of the quaestors; and, lastly,
as there was reserved to the Imperator the right of nominating,
if not titular consuls, at any rate titular praetors and titular
quaestors: Caesar secured a sufficient number of candidates
acceptable to him for filling up the governorships. Their recall
remained of course left to the discretion of the regent as well as
their nomination; as a rule it was assumed that the consular governor
should not remain more than two years, nor the praetorian
more than one year, in the province.

In the Administration of the Capital

Lastly, so far as concerns the administration of the city which was
his capital and residence, the Imperator evidently intended for a time
to entrust this also to magistrates similarly nominated by him.
He revived the old city-lieutenancy of the regal period;(27)
on different occasions he committed during his absence the administration
of the capital to one or more such lieutenants nominated by him
without consulting the people and for an indefinite period,
who united in themselves the functions of all the administrative
magistrates and possessed even the right of coining money
with their own name, although of course not with their own effigy
In 707 and in the first nine months of 709 there were, moreover,
neither praetors nor curule aediles nor quaestors; the consuls too
were nominated in the former year only towards its close,
and in the latter Caesar was even consul without a colleague.
This looks altogether like an attempt to revive completely
the old regal authority within the city of Rome, as far as the limits
enjoined by the democratic past of the new monarch; in other words,
of m