IMPERIUM ROMANUM

I use the term principatum as the equivalent of the Greek hegemonikon, meaning that part of anything which must and ought to have supremacy in whatever context. Thus it follows that the element which contains the ruling principle of the whole of nature must also be the most excellent of all things and the most deserving of authority and sovereignty . . . .

You see, if there is any kingly power in the minds of men, it must be under the domination of a single element, and thus (for that is the best part of the mind) there is no room for the passions, for anger, for rash action, as long as reason is in control . . . .
How then can you be doubtful as to your position about the State? For in the matter of the State, if its management is committed to more than one person, you can see that there will be no authority which can take command, since indeed, unless authority is one, it cannot exist at all.

Nothing moreover is so completely in accordance with the principles of justice and the demands of nature (and when I use these terms, I wish it to be understood that I mean law) as is government, without which existence is impossible for a household, a city, a nation, the human race, physical nature, and the universe itself. For the Universe obeys the divine principle; seas and lands obey the Universe, and human life is subject to the decrees of supreme law. . . .

The City of Rome from its very beginning had Kings. Lucius Brutus brought into existence liberty and the consulship . . . the domination of Cinna and of Sulla were not of long duration . . . the military might of Lepidus and of Antony gave way to Augustus, who, when the whole world was exhausted by civil wars, received it into his control, and was given the title of Princeps.

Wars, both civil and foreign, I undertook throughout the world, on land and sea, and when victorious I spared all citizens who asked for pardon. The foreign nations which could with safety be pardoned I preferred to save rather than destroy.

All Italy, of its own free will, took an oath in my name, and demanded me as its leader in the war which I won at Actium. The provinces of The Gauls, the Spains, Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia swore according to the same formula.

I extended the boundaries of all the provinces which were bordered by peoples which were not subject to our empire.

Let me remind this Court of the differences in the system of land taxation between Sicily and our other provinces. In the others, either a fixed tax [vectigal certum] which is called a 'tribute' [stipendium], as for example that imposed on the Spaniards and most of the Carthaginians, which may be considered as the reward of victory and penalty of defeat; or else the tax system is regulated by censors' contracts as in Asia under the Lex Sempronia. But to the Sicilian city-states we granted conditions of trust and friendship (amicitiam fidemque), by which their former rights were maintained, and their positions as subjects of Rome remained the same as it had been under their own rulers. A very few of them our ancestors subdued by force of arms; though the territory of these few thus became the property of the Roman state, it was restored to their possession, and this land is regularly subject to the censors' contracts. Two cities, that of the Mamertines and Tauromenium, have special treaties of alliance (foederatae civitates) and no contracts are made for collecting the tithe (decuma) from them. Five others, though not allies by treaty, are free states exempt from taxation (sine foedere immunes civitates ac liberae): Centurpia, Halaesus, Segesta, Halicyae, Panhormus. With these exceptions, all the lands of the Sicilian cities are subject to the payment of the tithe (ager decumanus), and were so, under regulations voluntarily made by their own inhabitants, before the days of Roman sovereignty. I would draw your attention to the wise action of our forefathers in this matter. Having secured to our country, by the acquisition of Sicily, a valuable source of strength in peace in war, they were so earnestly resolute to secure and maintain the loyalty of its people, that they refrained from imposing any new tax (vectigal) upon Sicilian land, but even from altering either the conditions of sale of the right to collect the tithe or the time and place of such sale, so that the Sicilians should continue to sell these rights at a fixed time of the year, locally in Sicily, and, finally, as provided by the laws of Hiero . . . .