The Historians' History of the World 06

Augustus laid the foundation of the great system of roads, which connected the provinces with one another and with imperial Rome. Military roads, the construction and extent of which fill us with admiration to this day, gave facilities for traffic in all directions. They were adorned with milestones, all of which took their start from the golden milestone which Augustus himself had set up in the midst of the Forum, and provided with stations (mutationes) and hostelries (mansiones), the former for changes of couriers or horses and conveyances,—for the military roads were also used for the state post organised by the emperor,—the latter for accommodation at night. Means of transit by water were also increased, and distance ceased to form a gulf of separation. Armies could move with great rapidity from any part of the empire to any destination, and the emperor’s commands could be transmitted to the remotest regions. Daily journals carried the news of what occurred at Rome in the briefest possible time to all quarters of the world; Rome was the centre of the empire and the heart of the body politic.

The careful scheme of colonisation which Augustus undertook after the example of Cæsar and carried out on an immense scale, and which was also pursued by succeeding emperors, contributed above all things to disseminate Roman culture, speech, and jurisprudence, and to impress a uniform character upon the whole of the great empire. The results of imperial colonisation were in the highest degree beneficial. For while in barbarous lands they sowed in virgin soil the seeds of a noble civilisation and a workable system of law and political organisation, they infused fresh vigour into old and moribund civilisations and furnished them with stable political and judicial institutions; thus supplying the men of the toga who were dispersed all over the whole empire with a centre and fulcrum for their commercial and industrial activity. At the same time they offered the emperor the most satisfactory means of providing for his discharged legionaries and establishing settlements of impoverished Romans and Italians.

To add a greater attraction to this emigration beyond sea the colonies were as a rule endowed with the full rights of Roman citizenship, and rendered capable of a free and dignified political existence. They were exempted from the jurisdiction of the local governor, they elected their own town council and magistrates in common assembly, their suits were decided according to Roman law, and in short the colony was a Rome in miniature, a daughter plantation, where the language, religion, customs, and social habits of the mother city grew up in wholesome soil, and the various elements of the population united under the ægis of equality of political and civil rights to form a single municipal community.

If the foreign element preponderated in any provincial town, or if, for other reasons, it was undesirable or impracticable to rank it among Roman colonial cities, it was admitted to the status of a municipium. These latter possessed the rights of Roman citizenship and were assigned to a tribus like the colonies, but they differed from them in their municipal and magisterial system and sought justice according to their local laws and legal formulæ and not according to Roman institutions. They were free cities in which few Romans lived, if any. As a rule their constitution was based on that of the Italian municipal organisation. In every province there were municipia of this character, and in organising them local tradition was treated with the utmost consideration. They promoted the civilisation of the natives, disposed them favourably towards Roman institutions, and familiarised them with Roman life.