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Lex Provinciae and Governor’s Edict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

B.D. Hoyos
B.D. Hoyos*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

The administrative framework of a newly annexed Roman province is generally taken to conform to a regular and predictable pattern. The conquering general, with the help of ten commissioners sent from Rome, laid down a basic lex for the new territory; the edict of each successive governor confirmed or modified details of administrative and legal business.

But Roman conquests were often haphazard affairs. A procedure as schematic as this is not, in fact, warranted by our evidence: lex and edict not only resembled each other much more closely, but (as will be argued in this paper) can often be regarded as essentially the same type of ordinance. Their relationship in turn reveals considerable flexibility in Roman provincial rule.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 7 , 1973 , pp. 47 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1973

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References

1 Marquardt, J.Römische Staatsverwaltung, Vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1881), pp. 500–1;Google ScholarTh. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, Vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1887), pp. 685Google Scholar and 692 n. 8; Arnold, W.T.The Roman System of Provincial Administration, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1914), pp. 27–8;Google ScholarStevenson, G.H.CAM, Vol. 9 (1932), p. 40,Google Scholar and Roman Provincial Administration (Oxford, 1939), pp. 68–9; de Martino, F.Storia della costituzione romana, Vol. 2 (Naples, 1954), pp. 283–5.Google Scholar

2 Livy, xxx 43.4 and 44.14.

3 Livy xlv 17.1.

4 Cf. the ten ambassadors sent to restore peace between Prusias of Bithynia and Attalus of Pergamum in 154 (Polyb. xxxiii 7.1–4 and 12–13.4). On the death of Micipsa of Numidia in 118 ten legati were sent to regulate the affairs of the kingdom, though annexation was not contemplated (Sail. B.J. 16). In 102 ten others went to Spain on a diplomatic mission to try to keep the Celtiberi at peace with Rome (App. Iber. 99.430 and 100.434).

5 Achaia: Polyb. xxxix 4.15–16; Paus. vii 16. 6 (9); Cic. Att. xiii 6.4 (6A in OCT). Africa: App. Lib. 135.639–42.

6 See CAH, Vol. viii, pp. 303–5; 484.

7 App. Iber. 99.428.

8 Cic. II Verr. ii 13.32, 16.39–40.

9 Str. xiv 1.38 / C646.

10 Plut. Luc. 35.5, 36.1; Cic. Att. xiii 6.4 (6A in OCT). On the ten commissioners sent to Caesar in 56, probably as commanders for his legions, see Balsdon, J.P.V.D.JRS 52 (1962), 137–8.Google Scholar

11 Livy Per. 100.

12 Cic. loc.cit. ‘hoc etiam accepi, non solitos majores nostros eos legare in decern qui essent imperatorum necessarii’; Plut. Luc. 35.5 ‘… the commissioners who had been sent out to regulate the affairs of Pontus, on the supposition that it was a secure Roman possession’ (Loeb trans.).

13 Plin. Ep. x 79–80; Magie, D.Roman Rule in Asia Minor, Vol. 1 (Princeton, 1950), pp. 368–9.Google Scholar

14 Caes. BC i 29.3, 61.3; ii 18.7 (beneficia and clientelae of Pompey in Citerior); cf. Plut. Pomp. 21.1; [Auct.] Bell. Hisp. 42.2 (Metellus’ extra taxes in Ulterior). The coloniae Valentia and Metellinum probably date from the same period (Wilson, A.J.N.Emigration from Italy in the Republican Age of Rome [Manchester, 1966], pp. 40–2 and 31Google Scholar), as did the town of Pompaelo (note Str. iii 4.10 / C161). Miltner, F. assumes ‘die Mitarbeit der wahrscheinlich von ihm selbst [Pompey] erbetenen senatorischen Zehner – kommission’ (RE 21 2.Google Scholar 2086), but there is no evidence for such a request or such a commission.

15 Livy xxv 40.1 and 4; xxvi 30.10; Plut. Marc. 23.7 (Marcellus). (His acta were criticized by the Syracusans and some senators, but ratified nonetheless: Livy, 26 29–32.Google Scholar) Livy xxvi 40.15–16; xxvii 5.3–5 and 8.18 (Laevinus, Fabius).

16 For which see below, at n. 27.

17 II Verr. ii 123; RE xiv s.v. ‘Manilius (37)’ and ‘Mamilius (5)’; RE iv s.v. ‘Cornelius (337)’; Finley, M.I.Ancient Sicily (London, 1968), p. 127, cf. 130.Google Scholar

18 Zonar. ix 10.1 records instructions from the Senate to him to this effect, and Scipio afterwards boasted of turning the reguli he found there into reges (Livy xxxvii 25.9; Polyb. xi 33.3-8; cf. Badian, E.Foreign Clientelae [Oxford, 1958], p. 119;Google ScholarSpranger, P.in Madrider Mitteilungen 1 [I960], 128).Google Scholar

19 Livy xxxii 28.11.

20 The general rebellion in 197 suggests this: cf. Livy’s remarks at xxxiv 28.1–2, and see also Crawford, M.H. in Num. Chron7 9 (1969), 82–3,Google Scholar who suggests an attempt to impose Roman standards on the Spanish coinage for tribute purposes. Sumner, G.V. in Arethusa 3 (1970), 85–102,Google Scholar contests the view that there was at any rate a territorial demarcation in 197.

21 Livy xxxiv 21.7; Plut. Cato Mai. 11.4.

22 So too Badian, For. Cl., p. 121; Bosch Gimpera, P.and Aguado Bleye, P. in Historia de Espana (ed. Menéndez Pidal, R.), Vol. 2 2 (Madrid, 1955), pp. 63 and 85 n. 48.Google Scholar

23 BC ii 21.2–3 and 5; Livy Per. 110; Dio xliii 39.4–5.

24 Dio liv 25.1 (without further details); cf. 23.7 (town foundations in Spain and Gaul, 15 B.C.). Dio also suggests an earlier settlement of affairs, in 27 B.C. (liii 22.5), but this seems to have been less thorough.

25 App. Lib. 135.639.

26 Str. xiv 1.38 / C646; Magie, RRAM, Vol. 1, pp. 154–8.Google Scholar

27 Dio xxxvii 20.3; Str. xii 3.1 / C541; Plin. Ep. x 79 (minimum age for local magistracy). 112 (entrance-fee for local senate), 114 (local citizenship).

28 Local courts: II Verr. ii 15.37–16.39, 37.90 (the key provision: ‘ut cives [Siculi] inter sese legibus suis agerent’). Corn (vadimonium): iii 40.92. Local statutes: ii 50.125 (cf. the ‘leges Scipionis’, 123).

29 Marshall, A.J.JRS 58 (1968), 105.Google Scholar E.g. II Verr. ii 13.32, 15.37, 16.39.

30 As is clear from the references in II Verr., above all iii 6.14–15; also ii 13.32, 26.63 etc.

31 Cf. II Verr. ii 16.40 ‘imperatorie … auctoritas, legatorum decern … dignitas, senatus consultum … quo consulto P. Rupilius de decem legatorum sententia leges in Sicilia constituerai’; cf. iii 15. 38 ‘iura Siculorum quae habent a senatu populoque Romano’. The latter phrase does not mean a formal comitial lex validated Rupilius’ settlement: other evidence is against it, as will appear. The individual provisions of a lex provinciae might be spoken of as separate ‘leges’: cf. II Verr. ii 13.32, 16.40; Livy Per. 100; Plut. Marc. 23.7 (“νόμους”).

32 It is clearly a regular formula: cf. Cic. II Verr. ii 13.32, 16. 39–40, 37.90; Ps.-Ascon. p. 212 (= p. 264 Stangl); Livy xxx 43.4, 44.14; xlv 17.1.

33 ‘Ex P. Rupili decreto quod is de decem legatorum sententia statuii, quam illi [i.e. the Sicilians] legem Rupiliam vocant’ (ii 13.32).

34 Cf. Badian, E.Athenaeum 34 (1956), 116,Google Scholar with n. 4 ‘the lex provinciae itself was (or could be) only an edict reinforced by auctoritas’.

35 II Verr. ii 16.40.

36 Cf. ibid, ‘tu ausus es pro nihilo prae tua praeda tot res sanctissimas ducere?’

37 Ibid. 39.

38 Fam. xiii 48.

39 See e.g. Stevenson, Rom. Prov. Adm., pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

40 Cic. Att. vi 1.15 (he borrowed from Scaevola’s Asian edict of c. 95 B.C.); Fam. iii 8.4 (he also incorporated matter from his predecessor’s edict, as well as matter that was ‘tralaticium’). See Buckland, W.W. ‘L’Edictum provinciale’, Rev. hist. du droit fr. et étr. (1934), 81–96;Google ScholarMarshall, A.J. ‘The structure of Cicero’s edict’, AJP 85 (1964), 185–91.Google Scholar

41 Att. vi 1.15 (shackleton Bailey's text, 1968)

42 Ibid, (‘ut Graeci inter sese disceptent suis legibus … li se αύτονομίαν adeptos putant’); vi 2.4.

43 II Verr. i 43.112.

44 Ibid. 117–8.

45 Plin Ep. x 112, 114; above, n. 17.

46 II Verr. ii 37.90.

47 Val. Max. viii 15.6; Cic. Att. vi 1.15 ‘multaque sum secutus Scaevolae’; Kübler, RE s.v. ‘Mucius (22)’, 438–9.

48 Badian, ‘Q. Mucius Scaevola and the province of Asia’, Athenaeum 34 (1956), 114–16Google Scholar (esp. 116 ‘the edict of Q. Mucius Scaevola now in fact took the place of the relevant part of the lex provinciae’).

49 Att. vi 1.15.

50 Fam. xiii 48.

51 SirHill, G.Historv of Cyprus, Vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 206–9Google Scholar (Cato), 226 (Lentulus); Oost, S.J. in Cl. Phil. 1 (1955), 98–112.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBadian, E. in JRS 55 (1965), 112–13Google Scholar affirms no organization by Cato. Cic. Att. v 21. 6 gives a possible provision of Lentulus’ law (‘evocari ex insula Cyprios non licet’).

52 Marshall, A.J. ‘Cicero’s letter to Cyprus’, Phoenix 28 (1964), 209–10,Google Scholar thinks that Cilicia’s and Cyprus’ lex cannot have contained judicial clauses; but cf. previous note and the discussion below (in text); also n. 48.

53 App. Iber. 43.179, 44.180–2 (Gracchus), 50.214 (Marcellus).

54 Livy Per. 55; App. Iber. 75.321; Str. iii 1.6 / C139; Diod. xxxiii 1. 4; Steph. Byz. S.V. Βρουτοδρία.

55 Livy. Per. 41; Festus p. 86 L; App. Iber. 43.179. He may also have refounded lliturgi in Ulterior (by the upper Baetis river): see Blanco, A. and Lachica, C.Archivo esp. de Arqueol. 33 (1960), 193–6,Google Scholar for an inscription honouring him as deductor.

56 CIL ii 5041 = ILS 15.

57 The Senate had remitted some of the elder Gracchus’ terms, between 179 and 154 (App. lber. 44.183) and was reluctant to ratify Marcellus’ (49.208-10; Polyb. xxxv 3.4–9). It rejected the terms made by Mancinus with Numantia (App. 80.349; Broughton, , MRR, Vol. 1, p. 484).Google Scholar In 102 a governor established a town for his Celtiberian auxiliaries (App. 100.433). In Sicily it was ‘ex senatus consulto’ that Greek coloni had been added to Agrigentum by a governor (Cic. II Verr. ii 50.123; cf. above, at n. 17).