Excerpt from Some Phases of the Problem of Provincial Administration Under the Roman Republic With a government so constituted how did the problem of govern ing the provinces present itself and what solution was found? The first provinces of the Roman people were Sardinia and Sicily, taken for the purpose of keeping Carthage at a safe distance from Italy. Having annexed them, Rome was obliged to provide in some fashion for their government. A brief experience sufficed to convince the Romans that the tranquillity and safety of these provinces required the presence in them Of a Roman governor armed with the imperium; that is, a Roman magistrate. But all the magistrates were then fully occupied at Rome. The Obvious course to follow under these circumstances was to increase the number of magistrates with im periam and send the new magistrates to the provinces. As it was out of the question to increase the number of consuls, the praetors were chosen and the number increased from two to four. At the same time, as it was customary for a magistrate holding an independent command to be accompanied by a quaestor, the number of quaestors was increased to meet the new needs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.