The provinces of Achaia and Macedonia underwent no great change; they had both long since grown accustomed to the Roman rule, and though the former (which embraced the territory of ancient Greece up to the Cambunian and Ceraunian mountains and the islands of the Ægean Sea) had not, like the latter, renounced all interest in political life, but had sided with one party or the other in the wars of the Roman despots, the Romans of those days were too ardent admirers of Greek culture to visit the transgressions of individuals upon the mother of humane studies as Sulla had done. Cæsar, Antony, and Augustus forgot with equal magnanimity the support which Pompey and Brutus had found amongst the fickle Hellenes, and requited their misdeeds with benefits. Augustus, however, tempered the full flood of favour which Antony had outpoured upon Athens, by emancipating the island of Samos, where he had several times made a long stay. But great as was the consideration extended to Hellas, her vital force was broken; she had lost the capacity of rising to healthy political life.
Augustus devoted the closest attention to his adoptive father’s Celtic conquests and his own acquisitions on the Nile. The wide region of Gaul, on the far side of the Alps, received its first stable provincial organisation at his hands. Cæsar, its conqueror, had not had time to secure and consolidate what his sword had won by a permanent organisation; the old system of local divisions was still in force, taxation was unequal and arbitrary. Augustus put an end to this lax condition of things; in an assembly of the most distinguished chiefs and elders at Narbo he defined afresh the divisions of the country, and at the same time undertook a census of the inhabitants and their landed property, with a view to a more equitable distribution of the public burdens.
Three new provinces were added to the old provincial territory, which last bore from that time forth the name of Narbonensian Gaul. They were Aquitania, from the Pyrenees and Cevennes to the Loire; Gallia Lugdunensis, between the Loire, Seine, and Marne, and extending to Lugdunum on the east; and Belgica, the great northern tract, in which the Sequani and Helvetii were also included. The new towns of the Rhone—Vienna, Lugdunum, Augustodunum (Autun), and Burdigala (Bordeaux)—soon vied with the old province in wealth, commercial activity, and culture, with Massilia, Nemausus, Arelate, and Narbo. Lugdunum (Lyons), whither the military roads led from every side, rose to great importance. At the point where the Araris (Saone) mingles with the Rhodanus the Gallic tribes erected a magnificent memorial and temple to the emperor Augustus, and the anniversary of its dedication was thenceforth kept as a national holiday, with musical and gymnastic entertainments.
In the north, Augusta Trevirorum (Trèves) became the centre of Roman civilisation; under the benediction of peace agriculture, industry, and prosperity arose on all sides. The country on the left bank of the Rhine, inhabited for the most part by German tribes, was placed under a separate military administration under the name of Upper and Lower Germania. To guard the Rhenish frontier from the warlike Germans, strong permanent camps and bulwarks were erected along the river, and the army of occupation was gradually raised to eight legions. Then began the building of cities on the banks of the beautiful frontier river. Cologne was specially favoured by exemption from taxes and other privileges.
Augustus devoted the same care and circumspection to the ordering of his possessions beyond the Mediterranean. The territory of Carthage and the kingdom of Numidia, formerly divided into two proconsulates, were now united to form the province of “Africa.” This was bordered on the west by the independent kingdom of Mauretania, which Augustus after some hesitation bestowed upon Juba, a loyal and devoted subject prince, till the time came for its incorporation into the world-empire in the reign of Claudius. To the east of the great Syrtis the fertile region of Cyrene stretched right to the borders of Egypt, and was combined with Crete to form a second province.
If Augustus left these two provinces to be administered by the senate, he kept his own grasp all the more firmly upon the province of Egypt, which extended from the oasis of the desert to the Arabian Gulf, and from the river delta to the rocky mountains of Syene. A military advanced post in Ethiopia was withdrawn at a later time, for it was no part of Augustus’ scheme to enlarge the borders of the empire. The emperor regarded Egypt as his own special domain and watched over it jealously. No senator was allowed to travel through the country without his express permission; the administration and the supreme command of a very considerable army of occupation were in the hands of a trustworthy man who possessed his full confidence. The care which Augustus bestowed upon agriculture, irrigation, and trade was well repaid by the fertility of the country and its advantageous situation. In the first period of Roman dominion Egypt attained a height of prosperity which threw the years of the Pharaohs and Ptolemies into the shade.
Egypt not only became the granary of the hungry populace of the capital, but its fine garments of linen and cotton were highly prized commodities, even as they had been in the remote past; while the passion for scribbling which possessed the Romans made the papyrus leaf an important article of export. Moreover Alexandria was the emporium and mart for both Indian and Arabian wares, for delicate fabrics of cotton, from the ordinary calico to the most valuable tissues which constituted the costliest dress of Roman women and were even the chosen wear of effeminate men. These last were called Seric robes, and were made from a product of the silkworm, the genesis and local habitation of which was shrouded in mysterious obscurity all through antique times.
More than a hundred Roman merchantmen sailed yearly from the Red Sea to the west coast of India and the Persian Gulf, to procure in their native places the treasures of the tropics and the costly wares of eastern lands and seas—spices and drugs, incense and myrrh, odorous ointments and dyestuffs, ivory, precious stones, pearls, and other articles of luxury—to sell at a great profit in Rome and Baiæ and the splendid seats of the nobility. The Seric (Chinese), Indian, and Arabian commodities which annually found their way through Alexandria to Italy are said to have amounted in value to over £1,440,000 or $7,200,000. But this great prosperity redounded less to the advantage of the natives than of the ruling race.
The oppressive system of taxation introduced by the Ptolemies was still in force, and became so intolerable in course of time that the people repeatedly had desperate recourse to violent remedies, thus merely increasing their own misery and helping the province forward on the road to poverty, decay, and desolation. The succeeding emperors were constantly under the necessity of carrying on campaigns in the Nile region, on account of the mischief done by the bucoles or cattle-herds, those numerous robber bands which dwelt in the impenetrable reed-swamps on the middle arm of the Nile, keeping their women and children safe on small barges and themselves undertaking hostile raids on the neighbouring districts, in defiance of all forms of civil order.
In all this regulation and organisation we can plainly trace the plan of a sagacious ruler, who intended to put an end to the lax conditions that prevailed under the republic, with its exactions and arbitrary dealings, to check offences against property, and to mould the state into a durable monarchical form. What Cæsar had begun in times of violent agitation and party strife, his more fortunate successor accomplished on a magnificent scale under more peaceful circumstances. Protected from oppression and ill treatment by laws and ordinances, the provinces rose to renewed prosperity; many of them like Gaul, Spain, and the Alpine tribes now entered for the first time upon a political and civilised existence worthy of the name.