ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that under Augustus, the provinces of the Roman Empire were basically of two types the imperial provinces and the so-called public provinces. One of the criteria by which a Roman Emperor may be judged lies in the quality of the appointments that he made to senior posts, especially those carried with them a military responsibility and the de facto command of legions. Until his later years, at least, Nero's appointments were generally sound men such as Gaius Suetonius Paullinus and Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. In his last few years, however, the Emperor appears to have preferred in senior military commands men who may not necessarily have been less efficient, but whose social status, would rein in their political ambitions. During the early part of Nero's reign, a plan to complete a flood-protection embankment on the Rhine started by Nero's great-grandfather, Nero Drusus, led to disputes between Roman officials in the German military districts and in neighbouring Gallia Belgica.
