The provinces paid tribute, which helped to pay for the armed services, various benefactions to supporters, a growing palace staff, and the public-works programs. Periodical censuses, carefully listing provincial resources, provided the basis for the two direct taxes: tributum soli, exacted from occupiers of provincial soil, and tributum capitis, paid on other forms of property (it was not a poll tax, except in Egypt and in certain backward areas). In addition, the provinces paid indirect taxes, such as harbour dues. In imperial provinces the direct taxes (tributa) were paid to the emperor’s procurator, an equestrian official largely independent of the governor. In senatorial provinces, quaestors supervised the finances; but, increasingly, imperial procurators also appeared. The indirect taxes (vectigalia) were still collected by publicani, who were now much more rigorously controlled and gradually replaced by imperial civil servants.
To reward his troops after faithful service, Caesar had settled them on lands mostly in the provinces, in veteran towns; and Augustus, for the same reason and to reduce the dangerous military presence in the state generally, resorted to the same procedure on a vast scale. Thus, in the space of a single generation, more than 120 new centres were organized across the empire in an explosion of urbanizing energy never equaled or even approached in later times. In the settlements called coloniae all residents were to be Roman citizens, and the form of government and many other aspects of life specified in their charters bore a thoroughly Roman character. Some coloniae, in further approximation to Italian models, enjoyed exemption from tribute. In the municipia only persons elected as magistrates were awarded Roman citizenship (after Hadrian, in Africa, admission was sometimes extended to the whole of the local senate); but the whole of the local aristocracy in the course of time would be in this way gradually incorporated fully into the state. In municipia, too, charters specified Roman forms of government. Urban centres that were wholly noncitizen, called civitates, enjoyed autonomy in their own affairs, under the governor’s eye; they paid taxes and administered the rural territory around them. In the west, many of them were eventually granted the status of municipia, and they adopted the originally Italian magistracies (duoviri and aediles, collectively quattuorviri) and senate (curia or ordo), normally numbering 100 members. The entire West rapidly came under the administration of urban centres of these three forms, without which the central government could never have done its job. Moreover, these centres radiated economic and cultural influence around them and so had an immense effect, particularly on the way of life of the more backward areas. In the east, however, urban centres, though equally important for government purposes, had already been in existence and long settled into their own culture and forms of government.
The provinces were generally better off under the empire. Appointment over them as governor was now and henceforth generally granted with the emperor’s approval. Because he thought of himself as in some ways the patron and defender of the provincial population, lax or extortionate officials could expect some loss of imperial favour, an end to their careers, or an even more severe punishment. Emperor worship
For this priceless gift of peace many individuals and even whole communities, in Italy and elsewhere, expressed their thanks spontaneously by worshiping Augustus and his family. Emperor worship was also encouraged officially, however, as a focus of common loyalty for the polyglot empire. In the provinces, to emphasize the superiority of Italy, the official cult was dedicated to Roma et Augustus; to celebrate it, representatives from provincial communities or groups of communities met in an assembly (Consilium Provinciae), which incidentally might air grievances as well as satisfactions. (This system began in the Greek-speaking provinces, long used to wooing their rulers with divine honours. It penetrated the west only slowly, but from 12 bc an assembly for the three imperial Gallic provinces existed at Lugdunum.) In Italy the official cult was to the genius Augusti (the life spirit of his family); it was coupled in Rome with the Lares Compitales (the spirits of his ancestors). Its principal custodians (seviri Augustales) were normally freedmen. Both the Senate and the emperor had central control over the institution. The Senate could withhold a vote of posthumous deification, and the emperor could acknowledge or refuse provincial initiatives in the establishment of emperor worship, in the construction for it, or in its liturgical details. The energy, however, that infused emperor worship was to be found almost wholly among the local nobilities. The army
It was Augustus’ soldiers, however, not his worshipers, who made him all-powerful. Their allegiance, like the name Caesar, was inherited from his “father,” the deified Julius. The allegiance was to the emperor personally, through a military oath taken in his name every January 1; and the soldiers owed it after his death to his son or chosen successor. This preference of theirs for legitimacy could not be ignored because they were now a standing army, something that the republic had lacked. Demobilization reduced the 60 legions of Actium to 28, a number hardly sufficient but all that Augustus’ prudence or economy would countenance. These became permanent formations, each with its own number and name; the soldiers serving in them were called legionaries. Besides the legionaries there was a somewhat smaller body of auxiliaries, or supporting troops. The two corps together numbered more than a quarter of a million men. To them must be added the garrison of Italy—the praetorian cohorts, or emperor’s bodyguard, about 10,000 strong—and the marines of the imperial fleet, which had its main headquarters at Misenum and Ravenna in Italy and subsidiary stations and flotillas on seas and rivers elsewhere (the marines, however, were not reckoned good combat forces). All these troops were long-service professionals—the praetorians serving 16 years; legionaries, 20; auxiliaries, 25; and marines, 28—with differing pay scales, the praetorians’ being the highest. In addition to their pay, the men received donatives, shares of booty, and retirement bonuses from a special treasury (aerarium militare) established in ad 6 and maintained out of the sales tax and Roman citizens’ death duties. Under Augustus the praetorians were normally Italians, but many legionaries and virtually all auxiliaries were provincials, mainly from the imperial provinces in the west, the legionaries coming from municipal towns and the auxiliaries from tribal areas. The tendency to use provincials grew, and by the year 100 the Roman imperial army was overwhelmingly non-Italian. Nevertheless, it helped greatly to Romanize the empire. The legionaries were Roman citizens from the day they enlisted, if not before, and the auxiliaries (after Claudius anyway) from the day they were discharged; and, though serving soldiers could not legally marry, many had mistresses whose children often became Roman citizens. The troops, other than praetorians and marines, passed their years of service in the “armed” imperial provinces—the auxiliaries in forts near the frontier and the legionaries at some distance from it in camps that showed an increasing tendency, especially after ad 69, to become permanent (some of them, indeed, developed into great European cities). There was no central reserve, because, although desirable for emergencies, it might prove dangerous in peacetime.