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14It was thus and on these conditions that the custom was established of sending out ex-praetors and ex-consuls respectively as governors of the two classes of provinces. In the one case, the emperor would commission a governor to any province he wished and when he wished, and many secured provincial commands while still praetors or consuls, as sometimes happens even at the present day. 2In the case of the senatorial provinces, he assigned Asia and Africa on his own responsibility to the ex-consuls, and all the other provinces to the ex-praetors; but by public decree, applicable to all the senatorial governors, he forbade the allotment of any senator to a governorship before the expiration of five years from the time he had held office in the city. 3For a time all who fulfilled these requirements, even if they exceeded the number of the provinces, were allotted to governorships; but later, inasmuch as some of them did not govern well, the appointment of these officials, too, was put in the emperor’s hands. And thus it is, in a manner of speaking, the emperor who assigns these governors also to their commands; 4for he always orders the allotment of precisely the number of governors that there are provinces, and orders to be drawn whomsoever he pleases. Some emperors have sent men of their own choosing to these provinces also, and have allowed certain of them to hold office for more than a year; and some have assigned certain provinces to knights instead of to senators.
5These were the principles established at that time in regard to the particular class of senators who had the right to inflict the death penalty upon their subjects in the provinces. For it should be stated that there is a class who have not this right,—those, namely, who are sent to the provinces styled the “provinces of the senate and people,”—I mean those who serve either as quaestors, being designated by lot to this office, or asassessors to those who hold the actual authority. 6For this would be the correct way for me to style these officials, having regard not to their name, but to their duties as just described, although others in hellenizing their title call these also “envoys.” Concerning this title, however, enough has been said in what precedes. 7As to assessors in general, each governor chooses his own, the ex-praetors selecting one from their peers or even from their inferiors, and the ex-consuls three from among those of equal rank, subject to the emperor’s approval. For, although a certain change was made in regard to these men also, yet it soon lapsed and it will be sufficient to mention it at the proper time.
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