consuls
and sixteen praetors, but, as the Imperator directly nominated
eight of the latter and the distribution of the provinces
among the competitors depended solely on him,(83) they were
in reality bestowed by the Imperator. The functions also
of the governors were practically restricted. The superintendence
of the administration of justice and the administrative control
of the communities remained in their hands; but their command
was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants
associated with the governor,(84) and the raising of the taxes
was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially
to imperial officials,(85) so that the governor was thenceforward
surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent
on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military
hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline.
While hitherto the proconsul and his quaestor had appeared as if
they were members of a gang of robbers despatched to levy contributions,
the magistrates of Caesar were present to protect the weak
against the strong; and, instead of the previous worse than useless
control of the equestrian or senatorian tribunals, they had to answer
for themselves at the bar of a just and unyielding monarch.
The law as to exactions, the enactments of which Caesar
had already in his first consulate made more stringent,
was applied by him against the chief commandants in the provinces
with an inexorable severity going even beyond its letter;
and the tax-officers, if indeed they ventured to indulge
in an injustice, atoned for it to their master, as slaves
and freedmen according to the cruel domestic law of that time
were wont to atone.

Regulation of Burdens

The extraordinary public burdens were reduced to the right proportion
and the actual necessity; the ordinary burdens were materially lessened.
We have already mentioned the comprehensive regulation of taxation;(86)
the extension of the exemptions from tribute, the general lowering
of the direct taxes, the limitation of the system of -decumae- to Africa
and Sardinia, the complete setting aside of middlemen in the collection
of the direct taxes, were most beneficial reforms for the provincials.
That Caesar after the example of one of his greatest democratic
predecessors, Sertorius,(87) wished to free the subjects from the burden
of quartering troops and to insist on the soldiers erecting
for themselves perm