IMPERIAL FREEDMEN

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Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire BY A. M. DUFF, M.A., B.LITT. Sometime Scholar of Oriel College, Oxford; Assistant Lecturer in Greek, University of Aberdeen OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1928

The other treasury, the fiscus, consisted of all the state possessions entrusted to Caesar. To this chest accordingly belonged the revenue from the direct taxes of imperial provinces (and later from those of senatorial also), the bona caduca, and the lands in the provinces which before the Roman conquest had been the personal property of the previous rulers. Some of the indirect taxes, namely the vicesima libertatis and the portoria, went to the fiscus, at least if gathered from imperial provinces. By the end of the second century the fiscus claimed these taxes even when collected from senatorial provinces; and it is quite possible that this had been the case from the establishment of the Principate. Except in the spheres covered by the aerarium militare and the patrimonium, the fiscus bore all the expenses of the army and navy and of the manysided administration which Caesar directed.

The date of the establishment of the fiscus is still a matter of controversy, some following Mommsen in believing it to be Augustan, and others, with Hirschfeld, holding that it did not come into existence till the reign of Claudius. Without pretending to settle the question or discuss it in detail, one may remark here that the need for some central office for the state moneys entrusted to Caesar existed as much in the time of Augustus as in that of Claudius. The early emperors must have had a head department to co-ordinate accounts from provincial bureaux. So, in spite of the facts that Augustus never mentions the fiscus in the Monumentum Ancyranum, and that Suetonius, speaking of Augustus' reign, refers to the departmental fisci rather than the central fiscus, the view that it was Augustan seems the more probable.

Although the fiscus was never legally the private property of the Princeps, and was for the first two centuries always distinct from the patrimonium, it may have often been found convenient in the early Empire to administer both treasuries on parallel lines. Freedmen controlled directly by Caesar were at first in charge of them.

The control of the fiscus was naturally in the hands of the a rationibus, who, as we have seen, became thereby the most powerful financial officer in the Empire. The patrimonium was directed by procurators, who were at first imperial freedmen, and until the reign of Hadrian it was only on exceptional occasions that knights obtained the control of it. In the second century, on the other hand, equestrian procurators are the rule; no doubt, the change is to be attributed to the same measure which swept the freedmen from the court offices.

These were the central treasuries and their administrators. Freedmen never had any concern with either the aerarium Saturni or the aerarium militare, but, until the time of Hadrian, the two most important of the state treasuries were under their control. A consideration of the revenue which filled these chests will show what part freedmen played in its collection.

In the first place the direct taxes (tributum capitis and tributum soli) made a large contribution. In senatorial provinces, for a time at least, they were collected by the quaestor and went to the aerarium Saturni. In imperial provinces the fiscus claimed these taxes and the officers responsible were the procuratores provinciarum. These officials were generally knights, but instances are known of imperial freedmen exercising the office both before and after Hadrian. Their duties were not confined to the collection of tribute, for they existed not only in imperial but also in senatorial provinces. In the latter at first they were responsible for the Caesarian domains and beyond them had no authority. In the former they both collected the direct taxes and supervised the administration of the domains. However, as the aerarium declined and the tributa originally destined for it were gradually transferred to the fiscus, it fell more and more to procurators to collect the tributa of senatorial as well as imperial pro vinces. Finally, therefore, in both classes of province, the procurator provinciae was the supreme financial officer. His importance did not end there. Though of lower rank than the legate or proconsul in charge of the province, a procurator was often in a more favoured position. Generally it was the governor whose treason or rapacity the Emperor feared, and one of the unofficial duties of the procurator was to act as a check on his superior. The unrestrained and all but irresponsible power of the proconsul had ruined many a fair province under the Republic; the Caesars, however, encouraged their procurators to be on the alert for the first signs of misconduct on the part of governors. The procurator was not to be the mere tool of the legate; he was to be Caesar's trusted ally against a man who might prove dangerous to Caesar or injurious to his province.

The indirect taxation of the Empire was conducted through three principal channels: the vicesima libertatis, or five per cent. tax on liberated slaves; the vicesima hereditatum, or five per cent. legacy duty; and the portoria, or duty on imports. 1 The rate of the last varied in amount according to the customs district, which was usually larger than the average province. For each tax there was a central bureau in Rome under a procurator, who was generally a knight but in exceptional cases a freedman. The revenue brought in was passed on to certain treasuries, that of the vicesima hereditatum to the military chest and that of the others to the fiscus, except perhaps in senatorial provinces at first. The collection, to begin with, was left to societies of publicani or conductores, who bought the right to exact particular taxes. They paid lump sums to the central bureaux in Rome and gambled on the number of manumissions, the frequency of deaths and the vivacity of import trade. These societies were never allowed to pursue under the Empire the infamous career of extortion which had been theirs under the Republic. The bureau of each special tax had procurators as its representatives in all parts of the Roman world. Their duty was to control the activities of the tax-farmers and to see that they exacted no more than their due. These officials were generally knights but sometimes freedmen. The procurators of indirect taxes gradually came to have more extensive duties. If no society undertook to farm a tax in a certain district, then the nearest procurator had to arrange for its direct collection, or else another procurator was appointed for the task. By degrees the direct method of collection superseded the system of middlemen. From the reign of Hadrian onwards the legacy duty was collected directly by imperial procurators, and, in the case of the customs and the manumission tax, the last society of middlemen became extinct before the year 200. The cause is probably to be found in the vigilance of the procurator. Till the end of the Republic tax-farming was one of the most lucrative professions owing to the deceptions which could be practised upon simple and ignorant folk. But in the imperial age the controlling officer did his work well. The trade of tax-collecting had never been a pleasant one to respectable citizens; it now lost its glamour in the eyes of everyone, when immoderate profits were out of the question.

Very similar was the case of the imperial domains. The revenues from most of these went to the fiscus and were received by the financial secretary. The lands could be exploited for very different purposes. Some could be used for cultivation, others for pasture. Many estates, again, consisted in mines, forests or quarries. As with the indirect taxes, the revenues from them could be collected either directly by imperial officials, or indirectly through middlemen who hired the right of administering the property. In the case of mines and quarries a procurator might be put in charge, and the workers would be imperial slaves or condemned criminals. The whole profits would thus go to the state. On the other hand, the state might not possess a sufficient number of labourers, and might not be in a position to afford the capital for purchasing more. Then the right of working the mine or quarry would be leased to a private capitalist, who would make what profit he could out of it. Imperial procurators in charge of mines, quarries and fisheries, were either freedmen or knights. Freedmen probably lost ground gradually to their equestrian rivals, though as late as Severus Alexander we find a freedman administering the purple fisheries in Achaea, Epirus and Thessaly.

Two systems were also in vogue for arable and pastoral lands. Either each separate domain (saltus) was under some imperial official who resided on the estate, and worked it partly by slaves and partly by small rent-paying tenants (coloni); or one or several domains might be leased to conductores who themselves worked them by slaves or tenants. But in this case also an imperial procurator was generally present to check oppression on the part of the conductores, a duty which sometimes he did not perform, as we learn from the appeal of the coloni to Commodus. 1 In provinces where the state-lands were of considerable area, as in Africa, the separate domains were grouped together in tracts or regions (tractus or regiones). For the supervision of each tract, whether this meant control of conductores or direct administration of the land, an imperial procurator was appointed. Ultimately, all the Caesarian domains in a province, whether they were lands, quarries, mines or fisheries, were placed under the authority of the procurator provinciae. As regards the condition of these various officials, the superintendents of separate estates must have always been imperial slaves or freedmen, those of tracts sometimes freedmen and sometimes knights, the latter gradually displacing the former; while, as we have seen above, the procurator of the province was generally, though by no means always, a knight.

Finally, the revenue of the Empire was continually being increased by the estates of persons who were condemned on a capital charge (bona damnatorum), who died without qualified heirs (bona caduca), or who made Caesar their heir (hereditates). In the case of the bona damnatorum for a long period no constant rule appears to have been observed. Though probably their general destination was the fiscus, there were several occasions on which they enriched one of the other treasuries. The bona caduca almost certainly went regularly to the fiscus. Separate departments for these two items of revenue were not evolved until late in the second century. Then, however, the bona damnatorum and the bona caduca fell under the control of separate procurators, who were sometimes freedmen and sometimes knights. More important were the estates left to Caesar. Starting as a mere branch of the patrimonium, the bureau for hereditates in the time of the Flavian Emperors became an independent department under a procurator of its own, while the directorship of the patrimonium correspondingly declined in importance. Further, it must have had offices in the provinces as well as a central one in Rome. The procurators in charge at first were freedmen, but after the time of Hadrian knights were regularly appointed to these positions.

Such in brief outline were the revenues of the Empire. In the first century freedmen played a great part in the collection of them and, as the confidential servants of the Emperor, must have been personages of high importance. In the second century, however, especially after the accession of Hadrian in 117, their power was on the wane. Knights began to occupy regularly not only posts which had been shared between the two orders in the preceding century, but even the more important of those which had been the exclusive possession of the freedman.

We now come to administration. If we except the court offices, the positions of the greatest importance were never in freedmen's hands. All military commands were denied to them. Senators invariably filled the post of legatus legionis ; young men of senatorial or equestrian birth became praefecti alarum, praefecti cohortium and tribuni militum. The praefectus vigilum was always a knight, and the praefectus praetorio sometimes a senator but usually a knight. The supreme governor of a province, whether senatorial or imperial, was regularly a member of the Senate, except in the case of Egypt and the third class provinces. Here knights were entrusted with the command. Moreover, senators received certain lesser appointments, such as the city prefecture, and the curatorships of roads, of public works and of the Tiber's banks.

However, in several departments of general utility, such as those concerned with food and water supply, the imperial post and mint, the public libraries, Caesar's journal and the games he gave to the people, freedmen climbed high up the ladder of preferment. The case of the watersupply had better be taken first, because it was controlled by two separate bureaux between which a clear distinction must be made. On the one side was a public department which kept in repair the aqueducts supplying Rome, and which provided that water ran freely into the fountains of the city. This bureau was under the curatores aquarum, who were senators, and their adiutores, who were either senators or knights. On the other side was a Caesarian department which organized the manufacture of pipes for the transfer of water from the aqueducts to the imperial palaces and official buildings, and which issued licences to those citizens who wished to tap the imperial water supply. This bureau was under a procurator aquarum, a freedman in the earliest times of the Empire.

It was a well-paid office, in the third century worth 100,000, sesterces a year, and the procurator would also have the frequent opportunity of accepting bribes from those who applied for water. In this bureau it is clearly seen from the evidence of the pipes themselves how the knights gradually gained upon the freedmen, though they never succeeded in ousting them altogether. In the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. XV. ii. p. 907, are collected the names of the officers under whom the pipes were made. Now the pipes which show such names yield results which fall into four main classes. A pipe may have been made under a freedman procurator; or under an equestrian procurator; or, again, the officer in charge is not called procurator at all, and is probably in the senatorial department of the curatores aquarum--Caesar may have been out of pipes at an urgent time and may have sent an order to the senatorial factory; or, lastly, no official is mentioned, and the pipe is merely said to be provided by the Emperor's patrimonium. For the purposes of studying the office of procurator aquarum, the last two classes may be omitted. Accordingly, the following table shows the libertine and equestrian, procurators who are known from the inscriptions on pipes. Reign.

From this it may be seen that during the first century the office was entirely under freedmen of the Emperor. The knights first gained a foothold under Trajan, but their best time was under Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. Under M. Aurelius, freedmen seem to have regained some portion of their ancient prerogatives.

The corn supply was from the first under the superintendence of a knight who bore the title of praefectus annonae. He too had to be in constant touch with the financial secretary to Caesar, because it was from the bureau of that official that he obtained the capital necessary for the performance of his duties. He had several officers under him, such as an assistant prefect of the corn supply, a procurator for the Ostia department of the corn supply, and a procurator of the port of Ostia. Freedmen are known to have held all these posts, but in the second century they are constantly filled by knights. Probably it was Hadrian who expelled the freedmen even from these subordinate positions.

The same emperor, or his predecessor Trajan, deprived the freedmen of their authoritative offices in the imperial post and mint. During the first century a freedman directed the post under the title of a vehiculis. Afterwards the postmaster general was dignified with the title of praefectus vehiculorum, and the office was henceforth filled by knights. Similarly, in the case of the mint, freedmen probably directed it at first, though they did not hold the title procurator monetae. In the reign of Trajan, however, we come across an equestrian procurator monetae. The directorship has passed to the knights, and only the subordinate positions can now be held by the Emperor's servants.

Inscriptions mention a number of officials in charge of libraries. Almost certainly the Palatine librarian and the literary adviser were one and the same person; the duties of both seem to be performed by the Sextus whom Martial entreats to find a place for his epigrams in the imperial library. But there were in addition a number of stateendowed libraries whose supervision was entrusted to other officers. To be in charge of one of the minor libraries, or even to have the general responsibility for them all, did not bring one into such close connexion with Caesar as did the court office of literary adviser, but it carried with it some social dignity, since the state, recognizing the need, was putting more and more money aside for the endowment of education. Accordingly the superintendence of libraries, at first committed to slaves or freedmen, was transferred, probably by Hadrian, to men of a higher rank, namely the knights.

The secretaries for organizing the games and spectacular shows given by the Emperor, and the editors of the imperial journal, were sometimes freedmen and sometimes knights. The former never seem to have been excluded from these posts, which probably did not give much opportunity for bribery or embezzlement. Confined to imperial freedmen at first, they were thrown open to knights in the second century, but they never were the exclusive possession of the equestrian order. Another title is found among inscriptions, a copiis militaribus; this officer was either the director of a recruiting bureau, or else a departmental official in the financial secretariate entrusted with the funds for army expenses. The position certainly started in the hands of freedmen, but there is not enough evidence to determine when, if at all, it was transferred to the knights.

The directors of all these administrative departments must have been in close touch both with the general secretariate and with the fiscus or the patrimonium. From the former they received imperial orders; to one or other of the latter they sent in annually their accounts for the past year and their estimates for the coming one; since it was only from one of the finance bureaux that they could obtain the capital they needed.

So much for the chiefs of departments; each had an ample staff put under his authority. Inscriptions show accountants and chief accountants (tabularii, principes tabulariorum), clerks (a commentariis), treasurers (arcarii) and paymasters (dispensatores) serving the procurators mentioned above. These were always imperial slaves or freedmen. For the sake of efficiency emperors preferred to have permanent employees; so they filled such posts with their own dependants. They would have none of the free-born citizen who might come and go as he pleased. Indeed even in senatorial bureaux, the departments for public works, roads, metropolitan administration (under the curator operum publicorum, curator viarum, praefectus urbis), imperial freedmen sometimes occupied the lower positions. The share of imperial freedmen in the civil service was therefore very extensive. Certainly many high offices were never open to them; others, which they at first monopolized or shared with the knights, they gradually forfeited. But the humble clerks and accountants who were indispensable to the imperial system, the lowly employees who were largely responsible for its efficiency, the men whose labour never won the renown of the highly placed, but who were nevertheless the bulwarks of the Empire,--these were the slaves and freedmen of Caesar.

Posts in the army were never given even to imperial freedmen, though the permanent fleets at Misenum and Ravenna were sometimes under their charge. Generally speaking, up to the reign of Nero, the prefect of the fleet (praefectus classis) was a freedman. Under that emperor a knight commanded the fleet at Ravenna and a freedman that at Misenum. The last freedman to hold the office was Moschus during the brief reign of Otho. Henceforth the command was regularly entrusted to knights. The post was one of high rank and dignity; it often came at the end of a long series of procuratorships, as in the case of the elder Pliny. It seems to have been invested even with some jurisdiction in the environs of the naval base. Clodius Quirinalis had opportunity to make his authority hated round Ravenna.

One or two exceptional positions, to which individual freedmen attained, deserve mention. The governorship of Egypt, with three legions under Augustus and two until Hadrian's reign, was, with the exception of the praetorian prefecture, the highest prize of a knight's career. But on one occasion during the reign of Tiberius this important charge was committed temporarily to a freedman. Another instance is more familiar. It concerns Felix, the brother of Pallas, and governor of Judaea during part of St. Paul's captivity in Caesarea. Small provinces like Judaea, Sardinia, Raetia and Noricum were not considered important enough to be placed under the command of a senatorial proconsul or a Caesarian legate. Procurators regularly of equestrian rank were accordingly given the direction of them. Felix, however, was a freedman of Claudius. He made abundant use of the exceptional favour shown him. Even from a poor prisoner like St. Paul he hoped to accept a bribe, and for the sake of popularity he retained him under arrest, and finally on quitting the province 'left Paul bound', though he well knew there was no legal charge against him. Tacitus has left an epigrammatic account of his reign. 'With all manner of brutality and lust, he exercised the power of a monarch in the spirit of a slave.'

Such in outline were the offices which gave the imperial freedman his opportunity. It has already been shown how unique were the prospects of amassing large fortunes from the great secretariates. Similarly in the provinces and imperial domains freedmen could, if they were clever enough to conceal it from other officials, reap vast profits either by direct extortion or by coming to an agreement with the farmers of taxes. But, apart from this, many a freedman exercised an influence over the Emperor which even his office did not warrant. Apparent good service lulled an unwary sovereign into what was often a false security. Reposing entire confidence in his freedman, he would allow him to assume imperial responsibilities totally outside his office. Besides, many emperors of the first century were men of such weak character that they were easily swayed by gracious and winning manners. Indeed the favourites of Galba and Vitellius excited homosexual passions in their masters' minds. Thus, partly because of their official powers and partly because of their excessive influence over certain emperors, imperial freedmen gained an ascendancy in the Empire the like of which has never in another nation fallen to a series of low-born upstarts. Isolated cases may come from Byzantine and Russian annals, but the Roman Empire enjoys an unenviable distinction. She possesses the longest list of menials who rose to guide the destinies of a state.

To these omnipotent parvenus nobles of senatorial rank cringed as if they themselves were the bondmen. While in exile Seneca, as already indicated, was careful to flatter the freedmen of Claudius; the terms he employed have come down to us in the Consolatio ad Polybium. It was through Narcissus that Vespasian obtained the command of a legion in Germany. The whole Senate thought fit to abase itself before Pallas. It offered him the praetorian insignia together with 15,000,000 sesterces; and a public vote of thanks was offered to one who, sprung from Arcadian kings, thought less of his own ancestry than of the public service and permitted himself to be numbered among Caesar's servants. Pallas sent Claudius to tell the Senate that he accepted the honour but declined the financial assistance, preferring to abide in his former poverty. Forthwith the multi-millionaire was commended for his old-fashioned frugality!

Nobles of a later age, when freedmen were not so prominent in politics, were moved by their pride to express the disgust they felt. Pliny gives vent to the most violent indignation at the insolence of Pallas and the servility of the Senate. He is enraged to think that Pallas contemptuously refused the Senate's gift, but one is compelled to feel that his anger would have been the same had it been accepted. 3 So too he holds that great freedmen and little emperors go together. 4 Tacitus also resented the interference of freedmen in politics. He observed that national calamities and the ascendancy of freedmen run concomitantly. 'For even they play a political role during the misfortunes of the state.'

Of course the destinies of freedmen always depended on the character of the sovereign. Under strong princes their opportunities for peculation were never so great, and their insolence in aristocratic society could never proceed to such wanton excesses. A brief review of the fluctuations in the fortunes of imperial freedmen from reign to reign will shed incidental light on the uses they made of their power. During Augustus' reign they were kept well in check. The first emperor, anxious to conciliate prominent Republican families, was not the man to allow undue liberties on the part of his freedmen. Yet even in his time exceptions occurred. Licinus, a Gaul, was given a procuratorship in his native country and was allowed to pillage it at will. In Juvenal he figures with Pallas as the type of the freedman who has made his fortune by questionable means.

Tiberius was by nature a disciplinarian. His cautious adherence to the policy of Augustus was likely to prevent excesses among his freedmen. Tacitus gives him the credit of administering his palace through a small number of freedmen. Towards the end of his reign, however, a change took place. A freedman became temporarily prefect of Egypt. Freedmen began to decide state issues. M. Julius Agrippa the Elder (the Herod of Acts xii) thought it advisable to bestow lavish presents on the freedmen of the Emperor.

These cases were still isolated exceptions. Freedmen may have had influence in the reign of Tiberius; they never dominated the Empire. It was in the succeeding reigns that their power reached its zenith. Hitherto the character of the Emperor had been against them; now they had a series of princes from whom, with adroit flattery, they could obtain their heart's desire. An infatuate butcher, a weak-willed pedant, and a distracted aesthete, were powerless to resist the influence of men who were ready to aid them in crime or soothe their troubles with adulation. From the reign of Caligula dates the ascendancy of Callistus. 'He wielded a power nothing short of absolute through his vast possessions and the general fear with which he was regarded! Such is Josephus' description of this creature. Seneca had seen the first master of Callistus vainly beg admission at the house of his former slave.

The court of Claudius, as previously shown, was dominated by freedmen. The only checks upon them were the wives and mistresses of the Emperor. Indeed the person who counted for least in the palace was probably Claudius himself. Seneca describes in the Apocolocyntosis how the deceased prince absent-mindedly gave an order in heaven. 'You might have thought they were all his own freedmen; so little notice did they take of him'. The two most favoured of these freedmen were Pallas and Narcissus. They acquired enormous sums by dishonest means. Pallas had amassed three hundred million sesterces before the death of Claudius, while his rival in crime died worth four hundred millions. When Claudius' treasury was low, it was wittily suggested that an easy remedy would be found if he took these two freedmen into partnership. This pair joined Callistus, and the three formed what was perhaps the most infamous triumvirate in Roman history. Commanding the three great secretariates among them, they, together with Messallina, distributed broadcast offices and commands, pardons and punishments, in the name of their imperial master. The nefarious traffic was carried on in such a way that Claudius in obeying their wish or whim often acted in ignorance. This emperor's gauche enquiries after persons he had put death have generally been ascribed to absent-mindedness. Often, however, he may have really been kept in ignorance till he asked the awkward question. After Narcissus has compassed the ruin of Messallina, we find a contention between the allpowerful trio as to who is to be Caesar's next consort. Indeed it is only because their opinions are divided that any other party has any say in the matter; and then it is not Claudius but the powerful senator Vitellius who, choosing between the three alternatives, adopts that of Pallas, and elevates Agrippina to the throne of an empress.

The reign of Nero saw no abatement in the power of imperial freedmen. When Agrippina was accuses of treason, freedmen were present to hear her defence. After her acquittal the conspirators against her were punished; but Paris, the freedman and actor who belonged to Nero's aunt, being the well-wishing comrade of the Emperor's debaucheries, escaped. One of Nero's freedmen, Polyclitus, was actually employed as an arbitrator between a senator and a knight; for when Suetonius Paullinus, the legate of Britain, had disputes with his procurator, Polyclitus was sent to settle their differences. He proceeded to the island with the gorgeous train of an Oriental potentate, but the barbarians failed to comprehend why their conqueror, whose energy and courage their rugged chivalry had begun to admire, should bow the knee to a slave. 4 When Nero went on his theatrical tour to Greece he left the freedman, Helius, in charge of Rome. Twelve years before this menial had been employed by Nero to murder Silanus; he was now absolute master of the imperial city--apparently there was no senatorial praefectus urbis at the time--with unrestrained power of life and death. 'The Roman Empire was enslaved to two tyrants, and I cannot say which was the worse.' Such was the judgement of Dio. Along with Polyclitus, his second in command, Helius played the brigand with striking success. Everything lay open to his pilfering hands, for no reference to Nero was necessary before even a confiscation or execution. He sought to increase his favour with his master by executing Sulpicius Camerinus because the agnomen 'Pythicus' which his family bore seemed to rival the recent victories of Nero at the Pythian games.

Freedmen were almost as notorious in the three short reigns which followed, except that Galba and Otho executed some of the most infamous favourites who had served their predecessors, and that Vitellius strove to exclude freedmen from the highest court offices. Helius, Polyclitus and Patrobius all paid the extreme penalty under Galba; but Halotus, one of the most abandoned of all Nero's creatures, who possibly was the poisoner of Claudius, was not only spared, but presented with a high procuratorship. Galba's own freedman, Icelus, gained a notorious ascendancy over his master, and some of the worst excesses of Nero's reign were repeated by his career of political brigandage. Otho had him executed amid public rejoicings, but did not scruple to put Moschus, his own freedman, in charge of the whole fleet or to impose upon him the duty of spying on the conduct of the upper classes. Vitellius did not carry out the spirit of his reform in the secretariate. Even in his short reign he allowed his freedman Asiaticus to rival Polyclitus and Patrobius in crime.

The close of the civil wars heralded an emperor who kept freedmen in check better than any before, with the possible exceptions of Augustus and Tiberius. Neither under Vespasian nor under Titus do we hear of any scandalous oppression or peculation on the part of freedmen. They held the great court offices, it is true; the reform in 69 was not lasting; but their crimes are now a thing of the past. Suetonius records a story that Vespasian appointed the most rapacious of his freedmen to procuratorships in the provinces, so that he could execute them and confiscate their augmented properties. If there is any truth in this, it is that the Emperor was more than a match for his servants. Yet even over this wary prince the worthless Hormus seems to have exercised some influence. The reigns of Nerva and Trajan ushered in a new era as far as freedmen were concerned. While the age of the 'Five Good Emperors' was one of humanitarian progress in legislation affecting slavery, it was also one in which insolence and corruption among the great freedmen were repressed with an iron hand. Pliny bestows eloquent praises upon Trajan for the new order of things. 'The majority of emperors, though the despotic masters of citizens, were the slaves of their freedmen. . . . You entertain the highest respect for your freedmen, but always such respect as befits their station. Your belief is that the reputation of honesty and good service is a liberal and sufficient reward'. When one of his freedmen, Eurythmus, was accused of forgery, the prosecutors feared to press the charge. The Emperor reassured them with the magnanimous words, 'He is no Polyclitus and I no Nero'. Yet even this prince was believed to be swayed occasionally by his freedmen. Hadrian is said to have stooped to bribe Trajan's freedmen in order to make sure of his accession.

But, if this is true, all hopes that Trajan's servants may have cherished of influencing his successor vanished at the outset of his reign. The new emperor proved himself the most implacable foe of libertine power that the Empire had yet seen. 'He desired his freedmen neither to be known in public affairs nor yet to possess influence with himself; in his own words he attributed the vices of freedmen to all his predecessors on the throne; he punished all his own freedmen who made any boast about him.' The sweeping changes which he made in the civil service have already been shown. Yet such was the charm of the Oriental servant that even Hadrian showed marked favour to his freedman Antinous. The latter became so prominent that for a short time almost every fresh piece of sculpture was an Antinous in some form or another.

After Hadrian, Antoninus Pius was a stern repressor of peculation on the part of his procurators. He allowed his freedmen to take no liberties, and neither his courtiers nor his servants made profit by disseminating rumours of his mood. Under the gentle Marcus Aurelius freedmen regained some of their ancient power, chiefly because Verus was indulgent to them. Geminus and Agaclytus were notorious for their influence. Then the accession of Commodus soon brought a revival of the times of Claudius and Nero, and freedmen enjoyed a regular carnival under that weak-willed prince. Chief among them was the chamberlain Cleander, who was able to sell the highest offices of state as he wished.

The riches that freedmen amassed by fair means or foul were generally spent in the most extravagant luxury and ostentation. In their mansions were some of the wonders of furniture which are mentioned in Pliny Natural History. Nomius, a freedman of Tiberius, had a costly citron-wood table; Callistus in the time of Claudius possessed a most pretentious dining-room with thirty pillars of oriental alabaster. Four such ornaments from the East had sufficed for a whole theatre two generations before. Martial describes how Entellus, a freedman of Domitian, laid out magnificent gardens in which he sought to rival Alcinous. Similarly imperial freedmen were always ready to display their wealth and win popularity by means of gladiatorial shows.

Yet they could occasionally sink their love of self in a genuine desire to promote the interests of their fellowcitizens. Posides, a freedman of Claudius, developed a hot well near Baiae and constructed baths for the people of the neighbourhood. So another imperial freedman restored baths at Anagnia; a temple at Neapolis was the gift of another. Of course ostentation may have been the motive here also, but it is at least equally likely that public spirit prompted beneficence.

Naturally eminence was often accompanied by extreme peril. A freedman in the Emperor's confidence not infrequently was entrusted with some dangerous enterprise. Helius was ordered to murder Silanus; Anicetus was charged with the removal of the far more formidable Agrippina. Having emerged unscathed from one perilous venture, a man might soon be plunged into another. Anicetus was a second time approached by Nero on the subject of ruining Octavia.

From his very master the freedman favourite had much to fear. Consummate tact was needed with capricious princes like Caligula and Nero, especially when there were hosts of rivals who were ready to place a false construction on every word. Moreover, the riches of imperial freedmen often excited the Emperor's avarice. It was believed, and probably correctly, that both Pallas and Doryphorus owed their death to their own ill-gotten gains. With a treasury almost emptied by extravagance, Nero poisoned two of those with whom he had shared the results of his earlier confiscations.

But the most stormy crisis through which an influential freedman had to steer his craft was a change of rulers. The death of the reigning Emperor might remove the sole stay of a favourite's power. Forthwith would ensue a tempestuous interval while the new monarch's favour was still in doubt. Many a freedman failed to weather the storm. Narcissus ruined Messallina, but in the question of the Emperor's next consort he was unfortunate enough to support the wrong candidate. He incurred the hostility of Agrippina, for whose ascendancy his execution of the previous empress had nevertheless paved the way. When Claudius died, Agrippina lost no time in hunting her opponent to death. Similarly, as we have seen, some of Nero's creatures soon followed their master out of this life, and the ascendancy of Icelus lasted no longer than that of the sovereign he served. Vespasian was quick to crucify Asiaticus, the most notorious of Vitellius' favourites.

High office, however, even under Gaius, Nero or Domitian, if discharged with integrity, did not necessarily involve the final doom that overtook so many imperial freedmen. If they were honest in the fulfilment of their duties, secretaries of state neither amassed those fortunes which excited their master's cupidity, nor occasioned the cries for vengeance with which populace and aristocracy invoked succeeding sovereigns. At the same time, their salaries were such as to enable them to live in comfort and moderate luxury. The best example of the freedman who combined greatness with safety is the father of Claudius Etruscus, whose career Statius commemorated in the third poem of the third book of his Silvae. Entering the imperial household in the reign of Tiberius, he was freed either by him or by Claudius; he came into personal contact with Caligula and under Claudius rose to prominence. The death of that monarch did not affect his fortune; he lived unscathed through the terrors of Nero's reign and the bloody revolutions which followed; through the comparative calm of the first two Flavian reigns he enjoyed one of the highest offices of state, the financial secretariate. He fell into disgrace under Domitian, but his old age saved him from a heavy penalty. A short period of relegation to the Campanian coast was soon succeeded by a restoration to favour. Finally he died at a ripe old age, mourned by at least one duteous son and surrounded by splendid but probably not inordinate wealth. He had served ten sovereigns, of whom six had perished by violent death. Well might Statius say, 'Thou unscathed hast duly borne the yoke of princes that have changed so oft; on every main thy craft has sailed secure!' Such was the brilliant life of this happiest of the great freedmen. The success which attended his life through stormy years is the best testimony to his general honesty.

Very probably there were many like him. Much is related of the peculation, extortion and crime of Pallas and Icelus. There is no doubt that Helius and Asiaticus were among the greatest blackguards in history. But it is the iniquities of these scoundrels that Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio thought worth recording. No one ever troubled to give the careers of the more honourable; they were not exciting enough. Yet the general prosperity and good government which prevailed in the first two centuries of the Roman Empire was of a standard the like of which not many other imperial powers can boast. Whereas extortion and corruption were the rule under the Republic, they became the exception under the Empire. The world as a whole was well administered, though the courts of Claudius and Nero were dominated by infamous freedmen. Even the dissolute and pleasure-loving Commodus sided with the coloni against the unjust procurator and conductores. When the Empire was established, Tacitus says, the provinces welcomed the change. He does not say they repented afterwards, Republican though he was in his sympathies.

If imperial government reached such a high level, to whom is the praise due? Much has to be accorded to the genius of Augustus, who organized such a system of checks and counter-checks among the various officials in charge that provincial misgovernment was well-nigh sure to be reported. Another share of the credit has to be ascribed to the governors and the lower officers, knights and freedmen, who bore authority in the provinces. But on the home department also depended something. Even to Narcissus and Epaphroditus belongs some portion of the praise. Orientals were the superiors of the Romans in business ability. Many a freedman exercised this ability honestly and energetically, be it in the home department or in the provinces and imperial domains. Perhaps he feared the punishment that threatened slackness and corruption; but just as possibly he was attached by gratitude to the master who had set him free, or by public spirit to the people whom he governed or whose needs he supplied, especially if, as was not unlikely, that people was of the race from which he himself was sprung.