A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

•466 The Founding of the Principate
The founding
of the
principate.
Dio Cassius,
liii. 12.
The beginning
of this
selection evidently
refers
to the passing
of a law
which gave
him consular
power over
certain provinces
for ten
years.
A ncieni
World, 451 f.
Provincial
arrangements.
dignity, but of power I held no more than those also held
who were my colleagues in any magistracy.
In this way he had his headship ratified by the senate
and the people. As he washed even so to appear to be
democratic in principle, he accepted all the care and superintendence
of public business on the ground that it required
expert attention, but said that he should not personally
govern all the provinces and those that he did
govern he should not keep in his charge perpetually. The
weaker ones, because (as he said) they were peaceful and
free from war, he gave over to the senate. But the more
powerful he held in possession because they were slippery
and dangerous and either had enemies in adjoining territory,
or on their own account were able to cause a great
uprising.
His pretext was that the senate should fearlessly
gather the fruits of the finest portion of the empire
while he himself had the labors and the dangers: the real
purpose of this plan was that the senators be unarmed
and unprepared for battle, while he alone had arms and
kept soldiers.
Africa and Numidia, Asia and Greece with Epirus, the
Dalmatian and Macedonian territories, Sicily, Crete, and
Libya adjacent to Crete, Bithynia with the adjoining
Pontus, Sardinia and Bsetica, were
consequently held to
belong to the people and senate. Caesar's were the remainder
of Spain, the neighborhood of Tarraco and Lusitania,
all Gauls (Narbonensis, the Lugdunensis, Aquitania,
and Belgica). . . . These provinces, then, and the socalled
Hollow Syria, Phoenicia and Cilicia, Cyprus and
the Egyptians, fell at that time to Caesar's share. Later
he gave Cyprus and Gaul adjacent to Narbo back to the
people, and he himself took Dalmatia instead.
This was
also done subsequently in the case of other provinces as