Force

Tranquillity for Italy, peaceful conditions in the provinces, the security of the Empire: these are listed by Julius Caesar as the basic achievements for a statesman(Civil War 3, 57,4). The prime means of attaining them was the army, and the military tone of Roman power from the Emperor down to equestrian prefects is clear from the documents cited in the previous chapter, especially 4, 5 and 9. Whatever else a governor achieved in his term of office it was success in maintaining peace in his province (Pliny, Letters 10,117), sometimes in advancing Roman power beyond it, that was recorded on monuments set up in his honour and that won him the insignia of a Triumph (the ceremony of the full Triumph had soon come to be reserved for the Emperor and his kinsmen).