death; his jurisdiction was
not confined by any forms of trial, or rules of proceeding, and the
execution of the sentence was immediate and without appeal. The
choice of the enemies of Rome was regularly decided by the legislative
authority. The most important resolutions of peace and war were
seriously debated in the senate, and solemnly ratified by the people.
But when the arms of the legions were carried to a great distance
from Italy, the general assumed the liberty of directing them against
whatever people, and in whatever manner, they judged most advantageous
for the public service. It was from the success, not from the justice,
of their enterprises, that they expected the honors of a triumph. In the
use of victory, especially after they were no longer controlled by
the commissioners of the senate, they exercised the most unbounded
despotism. When Pompey commanded in the East, he rewarded his soldiers
and allies, dethroned princes, divided kingdoms, founded colonies, and
distributed the treasures of Mithridates. On his return to Rome, he
obtained, by a single act of the senate and people, the universal
ratification of all his proceedings. Such was the power over the
soldiers, and over the enemies of Rome, which was either granted to, or
assumed by, the generals of the republic. They were, at the same time,
the governors, or rather monarchs, of the conquered provinces, united
the civil with the military character, administered justice as well as
the finances, and exercised both the executive and legislative power of
the state.

From what has already been observed in the first chapter of this work,
some notion may be formed of the armies and provinces thus intrusted
to the ruling hand of Augustus. But as it was impossible that he could
personally command the regions of so many distant frontiers, he was
indulged by the senate, as Pompey had already been, in the permission
of devolving the execution of his great office on a sufficient number of
lieutenants. In rank and authority these officers seemed not inferior to
the ancient proconsuls; but their station was dependent and precarious.
They received and held their commissions at the will of a superior,
to whose auspicious influence the merit of their action was legally
attributed. They were the representatives of the emperor. The emperor
alone was the general of the republic, and his jurisdiction, civil as
well as military, extended over all the conquests of Rome. It