The Colas c26.52

c26.52

'It had its own expenses on its buildings (fortifications), streets, its forum, its basilicas, its temples, its public baths and its theatre, its roads and its bridges. It established schools and appointed teachers, as it appointed its doctors. . . In short, the city and its . . . . territory was constituted like a veritable state. We do not mean to say by this that it was independent. To think of it as a free community under the simple suzerainty of the empire would be exaggerated and inexact. It had to obey all the orders of the imperial government. It opened its portals to a pro-consul every time he wished to visit it, and we may go further and say that nearly all its acts were submitted to the governor of the province for his approbation. But what we should note here is first that the imperial government had no agent always present in the city, and secondly that the city had a complete organism and a life of its own. It possessed its directing senate, its corps of magistrates, its jurisdiction, its police, its treasury, its goods movable and immovable, its public fund, its schools, its clergy and its high priests. None of all these came to it from outside: magistrates, professors, priests, every one was found within. Doubtless it was not a free state; it was at any rate a state'.