has been given the privilege of wearing a sword.  It is permitted not only to senators but also to knights who have this function.  This is the condition of the case.—­All the propraetors alike employ six lictors:  as many of them as do not belong to the number of ex-consuls are named from this very number.[3] Both classes alike assume the decorations of their position of authority when they enter their appointed district and lay them aside immediately upon finishing their term.

[-14-] It is thus and on these conditions that governors from among the ex-praetors and ex-consuls have been customarily sent to both kinds of provinces.  The emperor would send one of them on his mission whithersoever and whenever he wished.  Many while acting as praetors and consuls secured the presidency of provinces, as sometimes happens at the present day.  In the case of the senate he privately gave Africa and Asia to the ex-consuls and all the other districts to the ex-praetors.  He publicly forbade all the senators to cast lots for anybody until five years after such a candidate had held office in the City.  For a short time all persons that fulfilled these requirements, even if they were more numerous than the provinces, drew lots for them.  Later, as some of them did not govern well, this I appointment, too, reverted to the emperor.  Thus they also in a sense receive their position from him, and he ordains that only a number equal to the number of provinces shall draw lots, and that they shall be whatever men he pleases.  Some emperors have sent men of their own choosing there also, and have allowed certain of them to hold office for more than a year:  some have assigned certain provinces to knights instead of to senators.

These were the customs thus established at that time in regard to those senators that were authorized to execute the death penalty upon their subjects.  Some who have not this authority are sent out to the provinces called “provinces of the senate and the people",—­namely, such quaestors as the lot may designate and men who are co-assessors with those who hold the actual authority.  This would be the correct way to speak of these associates, with reference not to the ordinary name but to their duties:  others call these also presbeutai, using the Greek term; about this title enough has been said in the foregoing narrative.  Each separate official chooses his own assessors, the expraetors selecting one from either their peers or their inferiors, and the ex-consuls three from among those of equal rank, subject to the approval of the emperor.

There were certain innovations made also in regard to these men, but since they soon lapsed this is sufficient to say here.

[-15-] This is the method followed in regard to the provinces of the people.  To the others, called provinces of the emperor, which have more than one citizenlegion, lieutenants are sent chosen by the ruler himself, generally from the ex-praetors but in some instances already from the ex-quaestors or those who had held some office between the two.  Those positions, then, appertain to the senators.