as of salt, wood, and hay when travelling, were strictly defined by law; any pronounced extortion, oppression, or dishonesty laid him open to impeachment; and such a charge was tolerably certain to be brought.  Among so many governors it was inevitable that a number should have been impeached.  We know of twenty-seven instances, resulting in twenty condemnations and only seven acquittals.  The emperors at least looked sharply to their own provinces; nor would they readily tolerate any gross irregularity in those other provinces which were nominally controlled by the Senate.  On leaving his province every governor must make out duplicate copies of his accounts, one to be left in the province, one to be forwarded to Rome.

In the Acts of the Apostles we have mention of two governors of senatorial provinces—­in other words, two “proconsuls”—­Gallio in Achaia (or Greece), and Sergius Paulus in Cyprus.  It is instructive to compare the lenient and common sense attitude of these trained Roman aristocrats with that of the turbulent local mobs who dealt with St. Paul in Asia Minor, Judaea, or Greece.  Of the minor governors of smaller provinces—­styled “agents” or “factors” of Caesar—­we meet with Pontius Pilate, Felix, and Festus.

It remains only to remark that, while the Senate’s treasury, which received the revenues from the senatorial provinces, paid the expenses of their management and also of the administration of Italy, the emperor’s treasury, which received the revenues from the other provinces, provided for their administration, for the pay of the army, for the corn and water of Rome, for public buildings, for the great military roads, and for the imperial post.  Nevertheless the emperor could handle all this latter money exactly as he chose, and it is upon this chest that Nero was drawing for all his lavish prodigalities and his undeserved and wasteful bounties.  Yet even Nero was scarcely so bad as Caligula, who managed to spend L22,000,000 in less than one year.

CHAPTER VII

ROME:  THE IMPERIAL CITY

In the year 64 the capital of the Roman Empire was, it is true, a large and splendid city and an “epitome of the world,” but it had not yet reached either its zenith of splendour or its maximum, of size.  Many of the largest and most sumptuous structures of which we possess the records, and in most cases the ruins, were not yet built or even contemplated.  There was no Colosseum; there were no Baths of Trajan, Caracalla, or Diocletian.  The Column of Trajan, still soaring in the Foro Traiano, and of Marcus Aurelius, now so conspicuous in the Piazza Colonna, are of a later date.  So also are the three great triumphal arches which are still standing—­those of Titus, Severus, and Constantine.  The Mausoleum of Hadrian, now stripped of its outward magnificence of marble and sculpture, and known as the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, was not built for two generations.  On the Palatine Hill the palaces of the Caesars were wide and lofty, but not more than half so spacious and imposing as they became by the end of the following century.