As they had framed the action de pecuniis repetundis against the avarice and rapacity of the provincial governors, they made at length a law[23] which, one may say, was against their virtues.  For they prohibited them from receiving addresses of thanks on their administration, or any other public mark of acknowledgment, lest they should come to think that their merit or demerit consisted in the good or ill opinion of the people over whom they ruled.  They dreaded either a relaxation of government, or a dangerous influence in the legate, from the exertion of an humanity too popular.

These are some of the civil and political methods by which the Romans held their dominion over conquered nations; but even in peace they kept up a great military establishment.  They looked upon the interior country to be sufficiently secured by the colonies; their forces were therefore generally quartered on the frontiers.  There they had their stativa, or stations, which were strong intrenched camps, many of them fitted even for a winter residence.  The communication between these camps, the colonies, and the municipal towns was formed by great roads, which they called military ways.  The two principal of these ran in almost straight lines, the whole length of England, from north to south.  Two others intersected them from east to west.  The remains show them to have been in their perfection noble works, in all respects worthy the Roman military prudence and the majesty of the Empire.  The Anglo-Saxons called them streets.[24] Of all the Roman works, they respected and kept up these alone.  They regarded them, with a sort of sacred reverence, granting them a peculiar protection and great immunities.  Those who travelled on them were privileged from arrests in all civil suits.

As the general character of the Roman government was hard and austere, it was particularly so in what regarded the revenue.  This revenue was either fixed or occasional.  The fixed consisted, first, of an annual tax on persons and lands, but in what proportion to the fortunes of the one or the value of the other I have not been able to ascertain.  Next was the imposition called decuma, which consisted of a tenth, and often a greater portion of the corn of the province, which was generally delivered in kind.  Of all other products a fifth was paid.  After this tenth had been exacted on the corn, they were obliged to sell another tenth, or a more considerable part, to the praetor, at a price estimated by himself.  Even what remained was still subject to be bought up in the some manner, and at the pleasure of the same magistrate, who, independent of these taxes and purchases, received for the use of his household a large portion of the corn of the province.  The most valuable of the pasture grounds were also reserved to the public, and a considerable revenue was thence derived, which they called scriptura.  The state made a monopoly of almost the whole produce of the land, which paid several taxes, and was further enhanced by passing through several hands before it came to popular consumption.