he learns the methods of provincial government in readiness for the time when he himself may be made a governor, whether by the senate or by the emperor.  His next step upward will be to the post of aedile, one of the officials who control the streets, public buildings, markets, and police of Rome.  By the age of thirty he may arrive at the second highest step on the official ladder, in a position which qualifies him to preside over a court of law.  Or it may bring with it no greater function than that of presiding over “games” in the circus or amphitheatre, and of spending a liberal sum of money of his own upon making them both magnificent and novel.  After this he may receive from the emperor the command of a brigade—­the 12,000 men composed of a legion and its auxiliaries—­perhaps at Cologne or Mainz, perhaps at Caerleon-on-Usk, perhaps near Antioch.  In this position his movements are subject to the authority of the governor of the province, who is the “lieutenant” or “deputy” of His Highness in the larger capacity, while he himself is but a “lieutenant” of Caesar as commanding one of his legions.

He may now himself be appointed governor to a province, but hardly yet to those which are the “plums” of the empire.  There is still one highest post for him to fill.  This is the consulship.  Under the republic the two consuls had been the highest executive officers of the state, and the year was dated by their names.  Nominally they were still in the same position, and the sane emperors made a point of treating them with all outward respect.  They took precedence of all but “His Highness the Head of the State.”  But whereas under the republic there had been but two consuls holding joint office for the year, under the emperors the post had become to such a degree complimentary, and there were so many nobles who desired the honour or to whom the emperor was minded to grant it, that it became the custom to hold the position only for two months, so that twelve persons in each year might boast of being ex-consuls or having “passed the consul’s chair.”

Publius Silius, we may suppose, passes up each step of the ladder, or what was called the “career of honours,” and becomes senatorial governor of no less important a province than “Asia”—­that nearer portion of Asia Minor which contained flourishing cities like Smyrna, Ephesus, and Rhodes.  In that office, as in any other which he may hold, it behoves him to comport himself with caution and modesty.  If he is a man of unusual influence or popularity he will do well to keep the fact concealed.  There must be nothing in his demeanour or his speech to lay him open to a charge of becoming dangerous to the emperor.  That emperor is Nero; and even stronger and saner emperors than Nero watched suspiciously the behaviour of aspiring men.

CHAPTER XIX

ROMAN RELIGION—­STATE AND INDIVIDUAL