ABSTRACT
One implication of the previous chapter is that it will be hard to apply a single concept of government throughout the Roman empire. Moreover, even if we disregard the allied kingdoms and free cities, those peoples directly subject to a Roman magistrate were not administered or controlled in the continuous all-pervasive way that recent colonial experience might lead us to assume. The nature of Roman government in the empire principally depended on the governor, the Roman magistrate in the field, and it is with him that this chapter will be primarily concerned. However, administration can only be understood in the light of major policy decisions. Roman governors were notorious in the Republic and even under the Principate for taking important decisions themselves. Yet they were not only in theory answerable to the senate and Roman people but in fact increasingly subject to instructions from them in the Republic, and under the Principate both answerable and subject to emperor and senate.
