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

484 From Principate to Monarchy
The prince's
edict.
lb. SI.
by consuls and tribunes, when the freedom of the Roman
people was still in its vigor, and arrangements were subsequently
made to insure an exact correspondence between
the amount of income and the necessary disbursements.
Certainly some restraint,
they admitted, must be put on
the cupidity of the revenue collectors, that they might
not by new oppressions bring into odium what for so
many years had been endured without a complaint.
Accordingly the prince issued an edict that the regulations
about every branch of the public revenue, which
had hitherto been kept secret, should be published; that
claims which had been dropped should not be revived
after a year; that the praetor at Rome, the propraetor or
proconsul in the provinces, should give judicial precedence
to all cases against the collectors; that the soldiers should
retain their immunities except when they traded for a
profit, with other very equitable arrangements, which
for a short time were maintained and were subsequently
disregarded.
IV.
Vespasian's Administration
His military
discipline.
Suetonius,
Vespasian, 8.
A ncient
World, 468-
71-
His
buildings.
Suetonius,
Vespasian, 9.
He let slip no opportunity for reforming the discipline
of the army. When therefore a young man came perfumed
to thank the emperor for having appointed him to command
a squadron of horse, Vespasian turned away in disgust,
and with this sharp reprimand— "I should prefer to
have you smell of garlic"—revoked the commission.
Among his new public buildings was his temple of Peace
near the Forum, and on the Caelian Mount that of Claudius,
which Agrippina had begun but Nero had almost destroyed.
A third was an amphitheatre in the middle of
the city, for he found that Augustus had planned such a
work. He purified the senatorial and equestrian ranks.