THE PROVINCES
OF THE
ROMAN EMPIRE

FROM CAESAR TO DIOCLETIAN

BY
THEODOR MOMMSEN

TRANSLATED
WITH THE AUTHOR’S SANCTION AND ADDITIONS
BY
WILLIAM P. DICKSON, D.D., LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

VOL. I

WITH EIGHT MAPS BY PROFESSOR KIEPERT

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1909

First Edition 1886
Reprinted with corrections 1909

TO

LEOPOLD KRONECKER

AND

RICHARD SCHÖNE

IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE

PREFACE

A wish has often been expressed to me that the History of Rome might be continued, and I have a desire to meet it, although it is difficult for me, after an interval of thirty years, to take up again the thread at the point where I had to let it drop. That the present portion does not attach itself immediately to the preceding, is a matter of little moment; the fifth volume would be just as much a fragment without the sixth as the sixth now is without the fifth. Besides, I am of opinion that, for the purposes of the cultured public, in whose minds this History is intended to promote an intelligent conception of Roman antiquity, other works may take the place of the Two Books, which are still wanting between this (the Eighth) and the earlier ones, more readily than a substitute can be found for that now issued. The struggle of the Republicans in opposition to the monarchy erected by Caesar, and the definitive establishment of the latter, are so well presented in the accounts handed down to us from antiquity that every delineation amounts essentially to a reproduction of their narrative. The distinctive character of the monarchical rule and the fluctuations of the monarchy, as well as the general relations of government influenced by the personality of the individual rulers, which the Seventh Book is destined to exhibit, have been at least subjected to frequent handling. Of what is here furnished—the history of the several provinces from the time of Caesar to that of Diocletian,—there is, if I am not mistaken, no comprehensive survey anywhere accessible to the public to which this work addresses itself; and it is owing, as it seems to me, to the want of such a survey that the judgment of that public as to the Roman imperial period is frequently incorrect and unfair. No doubt such a separation of these special histories from the general history of the empire, as is in my opinion a preliminary requisite to the right understanding of the history of the imperial period, cannot be carried out completely as regards various sections, especially for the period from Gallienus to Diocletian; and in these cases the general picture, which still remains to be given, will have to supply what is wanting.

If an historical work in most cases acquires a more vivid clearness by an accompanying map, this holds in an especial degree true of our survey of the Empire of three Continents according to its provinces, and but few of its readers can have in their hands maps adequate for the purpose. These will accordingly be grateful, along with me, to my friend Dr. Kiepert, for having, in the manner and with the limits suggested by the contents of these volumes, annexed to them, first of all, a sheet presenting a general outline of the Orbis Romanus, which serves moreover in various respects to supply gaps in those that follow, and, in succession, nine special maps of the several portions of the empire drawn—with the exception of sheets 5, 7, 8, 9—on the same scale. The ancient geographical names occurring in the volumes, and the more important modern ones, are entered upon the maps; names not mentioned in the volumes are appended only, in exceptional cases, as landmarks for the reader’s benefit. The mode of writing Greek names followed in the book itself has been displaced by the Latinising spelling—for the sake of uniformity—in several maps in which Latin names preponderate. The sequence of the maps corresponds on the whole to that of the book; only it seemed, out of regard for space, desirable to present on the same sheet several provinces such as, e.g. Spain and Africa.

PREFATORY NOTE

In the fifth volume of his Roman History, issued in 1885, Mommsen described the Roman provinces as they were during the first three centuries of our era. It has been called, by one specially qualified to judge, Otto Hirschfeld, the best volume of the whole work. It is indeed a wonderful book. Here Mommsen summed up with supreme mastery a vast and multifarious mass of detail. Thousands of inscriptions yielded up their secrets; all scattered archaeological discoveries found recognition; the vast and dim areas of the provinces took definite shape and colour. Now at length it became easy to discern the true character of the Roman Empire. Our horizon broadened beyond the backstairs of the Palatine and the benches of the Curia to the wide lands north and east and south of the Mediterranean, and we began to realise the achievements of the Empire—its long and peaceable government of dominions extending into three continents, its gifts of civilisation, language, and citizenship to almost all its subjects, its creation of a stable and coherent order out of which rose the Europe of to–day. The old theory of an age of despotism and decay was overthrown. The believer in human nature could now feel confident that, whatever their limitations and defects, the men of the Empire wrought for the progress and happiness of the world.

The book was at once translated into English by, or at least under the supervision of, the late Dr. W. P. Dickson, Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow. Twenty–five years before, the same translator had rendered the earlier volumes of the history into English, and rendered them to the satisfaction of all readers. The translation of the fifth volume was less happy. Its style was difficult, and its errors—at least in some chapters—were numerous and surprising. The ideal remedy for the evil would be a fresh version. But the ideal is seldom attainable in published literature, and good prose translations are particularly rare. When, therefore, the time came to reprint the book, it seemed best not to let it again appear as it was, but to attempt some revision, even though the existence of stereotyped plates confined that revision within very narrow limits. I have accordingly altered a large number of passages where Dr. Dickson’s rendering was unintelligible or inaccurate, and I have tried to take account of the few changes which Mommsen himself introduced into the original German down to the fifth and last edition of 1904. In doing this I have had valuable help, which I desire to acknowledge, from Dr. George Macdonald. That I have left many defects, both by accident and by the exigencies of the stereotyped plates, is inevitable. But the alterations run into several hundreds, and at any rate “the government which prohibited voluntary fireworks” (freiwillige Feuerwehren), the “tribes who dwelt in hurdles” (Hürden), and the “crescents which gave the signal