2-4. The Fragmentation of the Imperial Provinces
The aspect of the provincial government, as ordered by the new monarchy, differed profoundly from that which it had worn in the age of the early Principate. To diminish the danger of military revolutions Diocletian carried to a conclusion a policy which had been adopted in part by his predecessors. The great military commands in the provinces which had often enabled their holders to destroy or to imperil dynasties or rulers were broken up; and the old provinces were severed into fragments. Spain, for example, now comprised six divisions, and Gaul fifteen. Within these fragments, still named provinces, the civil power and the military authority were, as a rule, not placed in the same hands. The divisions of the Empire now numbered about a hundred and twenty, as against forty-five which existed at the end of Trajan's reign. Twelve of the new sections lay within the boundaries of Italy, and of the old contrast between Italy and the provinces of the Principate, few traces remained. Egypt, hitherto treated as a land apart, was brought within the new organisation.
The titles of the civil administrators were various. Three, who ruled regions bearing the ancient provincial names of Asia, Africa, and Achaia, were distinguished by the title of proconsul, which had once belonged to all administrators of senatorial provinces. About thirty-six were known as consulares. This designation ceased to indicate, as of old, the men who had passed the consulship: it was merely connected with the government of provinces. The consularis became technically a member of the Roman Senate, though he ranked below the ex-consul. So also with the provincial governors who bore the common title of praeses, and the rarer name of corrector. This last appellation belonged, in the fourth century, to the chiefs of two districts in Italy, Apulia and Lucania, and of three outside. It denoted originally officers who began to be appointed in Trajan's reign to reform the condition of municipalities. The precedence of the correctores among the governors seems to have placed them, in the West, after the consulares, in the East after the praesides.
Sometimes the title of proconsul was for personal reasons bestowed on a governor whoso province was ordinarily ruled by an officer of lower dignity. But, such an arrangement was temporary. The old expressions legatus pro practore or procurator, in its application to provincial rulers, went out of use. After the age of Constantine new and fanciful descriptions of the provincial governors, as of other officers, tended to spring into existence. A few frontier districts were treated (as was the case under the Principate) in an exceptional manner. Their chiefs were allowed to exercise civil as well as military functions and were naturally described by the ordinary name for an army commander (dux).
The proconsuls possessed some privileges of their own. Two of them, the proconsul of Africa and the proconsul of Asia, were alone among provincial governors entitled to receive their orders from the emperor himself; and the Asian proconsul was distinguished by having under him two deputies, who directed a region known as Hellespontus and the Insulae or islands lying near the Asiatic coast. All other administrators communicated with the emperor through one or other of four great officers of state, the Praefecti Praetorio. Their title had been originally invented to designate the commander of the Praetorian Cohorts, whom Augustus called into existence. The control of these was usually vested in two men. Now and then three commanders were appointed. Some emperors, disregarding the danger to themselves, allowed a single officer to hold command. Men like Sejanus under Tiberius and Plautianus under Septimius Severus were practically vice-emperors.
As time went on, the office gradually lost its military character. Sometimes one of the commanders was a soldier and the other a civilian. During the reign of Severus Alexander the great lawyer Ulpian was in sole charge, being the first senator who had been permitted to hold the post. The legal duties of the Praefect continued to grow in importance. When the Praetorian Cohorts brought destruction on themselves by their support of Maxentius against Constantine, the Praefectus Praetorio became a purely civil functionary.
The four Praefecti were distinguished as Praefectus Praetorio: Galliarum, Italiae, Illyrici, and Orientis, respectively. The first administered not only the ancient Gaul, but also the Rhine frontier and Britain, Spain, Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily. The second in addition to Italy had under him Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and some regions on the upper Danube, also most of Roman Africa; the third Dacia, Achaia, and districts near the lower Danube besides Illyricum, properly so called; the fourth all Asia Minor, in so far as it was not subjected to the proconsul of Asia, with Egypt and Thrace, and some lands by the mouth of the Danube. It will be seen that three out of the four had the direction of provinces lying on or near the Danube. Probably on their first institution and for some time afterwards all the Praefecti retained in their own hands the administration of some portions of the great territories committed to their charge. Later the Illyrian praefect alone had a district, a portion of Dacia, under his own immediate control. Apart from this exception, the Praefecti conducted their government through officials subordinated to them.
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