| abstract
| - Already an authoritative member of the Senate, after achieving praetorian rank in sui anno (in his year), Faustilon wasted no time upon receiving the titles and authority of his adoptive father. While Caesar Agricola had streamlined taxation, reorganized the army, and expanded the census, the state still operated on a bureaucracy designed in piecemeal over centuries of modifications to the institutions of the Old Republic. Even 400 years after Augustus, Rome governed its territories using political instruments loosely tacked onto the Senatus Romanus and the Princeps Civitatis. Although this emperor, who would be remembered as Sapiens (the Wise), would not fix the situation, he did create more stable institutions and much needed magistracies. As his first action, Faustilon announced that the size of the officium (staff) of the central government would be restricted, as magistrates, emperors, and the Senate had increased their numbers of accountants, aides, servants, scribes and other assistants to inordinate proportions to ease their burdens. Some senators hired their own assistants but there were hundreds of civil servants on public salaries, in a system completely lacking in organization. Under the new decree, there would be maximum and minimum limits for the numbers of each type of assistant and specific boundaries of this sort would be assigned to particular magistracies. These limits fell far below earlier numbers, prompting one brave senator to object to the emperor they would have to work much harder with so few people to delegate tasks. Before continuing his speech, Faustilon simply responded, "Sic." ("Precisely"). As another measure, Faustilon created more magistracies for senators to pick up the slack from the reductions in the public staff. Neither magistrates nor regular senators were paid for their services to Rome, a benefit of having an aristocratic class governing the state, so it was cheaper to give duties to senators than to hire them assistants. By replacing apparitores (civil servants) with magistrati (magistrates), the emperor effectively reduced the load on the treasury by delegating more tasks to the Senate. Faustilon named one of his closest supporters, Gaius Rabirius Valius, as the Magister Fiscalis (Master of the Purse), a new magistracy with absolute authority over quaestores and responsible for analyzing public spending records to inform the Senate on financial decisions. Another companion, Lucius Domitius Aquilla, was named Proprinceps, a new magistracy intended as a close advisory position beside the princeps. Since an emperor wielded nearly absolute power in practice, Faustilon thought that having a person who was second to the emperor, almost but not quite as a co-ruler, would moderate the qualities of the absolute monarch, by giving him an adviser who could not be lawfully reprimanded by an emperor for any reason. A Proprinceps had the sacrosanctity of a censor but the authority to act on behalf of the princeps civitatis. Most importantly, Faustilon saw the Proprinceps as a close adviser to himself and to future emperors, since a Proprinceps was more free to speak his mind. Although an emperor could not reprimand his Proprinceps, his behavior was at the mercy of the censores and any of his executive decisions could be overruled by the emperor, regardless of the delay in the emperor's response. Furthermore, after the death of an emperor, a Proprinceps would also lose his office and become vulnerable to judgement by the next emperor. In any case, Faustilon had created two high magistracies for senators to pursue and tremendously enlarged the powers of the Senate, by giving senators the authority to elect every future Magister Fiscalis, Proprinceps, and now the consul of each foederata (federation of provinces). Of course, the first citizen reserved the power to overturn most of these appointments (with the exception of Proprinceps). Other lesser positions were created for senators, covering the administrative tasks of managing the city of Rome and of supervising the activities of provincial governors, the fiscal tasks of supervising the mints and the logging of tax information, and the legal tasks of auditing the album iudicum (list of licensed judges) and hearing the petitions of commoners to the Senate. On the whole, the new emperor had attempted to reinvigorate the Senate by expanding its responsibilities and powers. As a way of ensuring the participation of senators, Faustilon imposed hefty fines for senators (and civil servants) who failed in their duties. For example, a senator would incur a 3000 denarii fine if he missed senatorial assemblies for two weeks in a row, unless he had specific duties keeping him outside the capital or was on a period of personal leave (as senators were entitled to have). This restriction was sharply distinguished the reign of Faustilon from earlier periods, when the majority of senators were fine with avoiding the Senate altogether and quorum had become an almost foreign concept. Fiscatores (tax collectors) and censitores (census-takers) similarly faced fines for specific failures of their duties but the penalties were more modest. [the word fiscator began to be used by politicians to distinguish tax collectors from the accounts of the treasury, viz. the Fiscus] Throughout the rest of his reign, Faustilon continued to reorganize the way Rome governed its empire. The spheres of quaestor and of governor in a province were more clearly delineated, removing any authority that governors had over tax collection. With the earlier removal of judiciary powers from governors, the task of governing a province was reduced to an administrative role, with the usual benefit of providing an income for senators in the middle of their careers. Also, a formal advisory council for the office of first citizen was codified through constitutional laws, bringing an end to the practice where each emperor built his own cohort of advisers from sycophants and companions, without regard for the variety of expertise he would need. Membership in this Concilium Civium (Council of Citizens) constituted an additional duty for several magistrates - in both old and new offices. There were no formal meetings of the Concilium. Instead, participation meant that the magistrate had to be available when the first citizen sought his advice and had to inform the emperor of issues within his jurisdiction. Upon creation, the Concilium consisted of ten magistrates: the Proprinceps, the Magister Fiscalis, the Praetor Urbanus, the Magister Officiorum (Master of the Staff), the Praefectus Argentarius (Overseer of Banks), the Praefectus Tabularius (Chief Archivist), Praefectus Annonae (Overseer of the Provisions), the Praefectus Memoriae (Overseer of Public Relations), the Magister Correctores (Master of Overseers), and the Magister Militum (Master of the Soldiers). Some of these offices had no precedents in earlier permanent offices but resembled temporary positions that previous emperors had given to their chosen companions. The newer magistracies may merit description. The most powerful new office aside from Proprinceps was the Magister Correctores, a position with authority to impeach provincial governors and reorganize provincial cabinets. His duties were to survey the state of the provincial governments (whether proconsular or imperial) and maintain the sanctity of Roman Law outside Italy. Provincial governors had a tendency to autocratically run their provinces so an office with oversight on this behavior would be a moderating influence. Other members of the concilium had more responsibilities than powers, although their authority was nearly absolute within specific jurisdictions. For example, the Magister Officiorum completely managed the staff that served the Senate and first citizen, even deciding who could work as a civil servant (apparitor) and where these officials would be allocated. In effect, this magistrate served as the chief of staff for the Emperor of Rome, coordinating the support staff of the entire central government. Similarly, the Magister Militum organized the supply chain that fueled the military operations of the empire. Although a legion locally procured most of its supplies, Rome needed to stay informed about these procurements. Furthermore, Norican steel (norica) solely came from contracts with smiths in the province of Noricum, originally forcing creative measures from local commanders to acquire the highly desirable material. With a Magister Militum, the Legion could procure norica for all of its legionaries. In general, this bureaucratic office permitted more widespread connections between different legions spread across the empire, despite receiving no authority over troops in its own right. Four of the councillors were minor magistracies called praefecti, invested with potestas rather than proper imperium. The only new prefect was the Praefectus Memoriae. His tasks included the arrangement of the public appearances of the emperor; the organization of letters sent from governors, generals, and foreign leaders to the emperor; and personally hearing petitions from senators to the emperor. On the other hand, this prefect had an informal role of gathering information on public opinion toward the emperor and organizing programs to improve this image. Overall, the Praefectus Memoriae was responsible for the public image of the Senate and first citizen, often informally playing a role in the creation and dissemination of imperial propaganda. More than reorganizing the bureaucracy, the reforms of Faustilon extended to the infrastructure of the capital. Across the Tiber, construction started in 363 on a new public building, the Basilica Antonina, intended as a repository for all future records from the nationwide census. Similarly, one of the dining halls in the Domus Augustana, the palace of the emperor, was converted in 366 into a repository for tax and public spending records. These respective vaults of codices and scrolls were open to any magistratus (public official) - magistracy being the only restriction on entering the new basilica. With this in mind, Faustilon made detailed regulations for magistrati and apparitores that enforced meticulous bookkeeping at key junctures in the bureaucratic process. In addition to the above archives, a vault was built far from the Tiber on the Collis Vaticanus, storing documents naming every magistrate throughout the years and another vault in Mediolanum (Milan) was made to store the service records of every citizen who ever served in the Legion after the vault's construction. Some of these records could be thrown away when no longer necessary but recent data would be useful for public affairs. With immediate access to such extensive records, public accountants could more easily predict future costs of public works or military actions. Public budgeting became easier and cheaper by 369 when the last of these archives was completed. Through his unprecedented restructuring of the government, Faustilon had earned the unrestrained respect of senators, a situation that had many in the Senatus and Populus of Rome referring to him (by the 370's) through the cognomen Sapiens (Wise). Early in his reign, Faustilon convinced the Senate to revalue the denarius to 95.2% silver purity and the aureus from 8.00 grams of gold to a more hefty 8.45 grams. At last, the purity of the national currency had returned to levels only seen under Augustus. Sapiens readily admitted that his revaluation would not have been possible without the rich gold supplies feeding the empire from its newest province of Nubia. As further currency reform, the brass sestertius was replaced by a 2.50 gram sestertius composed of 74.8% silver and 23% brass. In general, the purity of currencies fluctuated over the last two hundred years - as with Constantine devaluing coins upon his return to Rome and Agricola reversing that decision - but only the historic increases in the value of coinage have been worth mentioning here in detail. Even without legislative authority, the emperor still wielded tremendous executive power over his empire, possessing the ability to determine spending for the whole government, if he so desired. In exercise of this power, Sapiens sent almost a dozen magistrates to supervise the purchase of over 80 million denarii of Nubian gold for building a gold reserve in Byzantium. Over 1,283 talents (41,440 kg) of gold were transported for storage in the Aerarium (national treasury house). Although one ship sank outside a port in Crete, this action left the empire with a marvelous store of value on one of the most reliable commodities in a classical economy. This measure had the additional benefit of allowing the government to mint gold coins in large quantities when necessary. In general, Sapiens was motivated by the observation that the price of gold had risen about 30% over the last century despite the falling of other more mundane prices such as grain and olive oil (i.e. despite deflation). The procured talents were forged into 125,995 libralea - a 328.9 gram gold bar that the government could use for large scale expenditure. Before the end of the year, Sapiens proposed that a permanent committee should be formed to advise emperors on finances. This Decemviri Argentarii would consist of ten moral philosophers and businessmen, chosen for their expertise in the judgement of the Magister Fiscalis. The committee would have the unique authority to veto spending, taxing, or other fiscal decisions on the part of the Senate or the emperor and had the duty of issuing written reports on the state of the economy based on an evaluation of recent census and tax records. These reports could be sold to merchants for a substantial profit.
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