It released the free states, _liberæ civitates_, from dependence upon governors, and authorised them to govern themselves by their own laws and their own magistrates.[1148] Cicero himself considered this measure as the guarantee of the liberty of the provinces;[1149] for, in his speech against Piso, he reproaches him with having violated it by including free nations in his government of Macedonia.[1150] Lastly, a separate proviso regulated the responsibility and expenses of the administration, by requiring that on going out of office the governors should deliver, at the end of thirty days, an account explaining their administration and their expenses, of which three copies were to be deposited, one in the treasury (_ærarium_) at Rome, and the others in the two principal towns of the province.[1151] The proprætors were to remain one year, and the proconsuls two, at the head of their governments.[1152] The generals were in the habit of burdening the people they governed with exorbitant exactions. They extorted from them crowns of gold (_aurum coronarium_), of considerable value, under pretence of the triumph, and obliged the countries through which they passed to bear the expenses of themselves and their attendants. Cæsar remedied these abuses, by forbidding the proconsuls to demand the crown before the triumph had been decreed,[1153] and by subjecting to the most rigorous restrictions the contributions in kind which were to be furnished.[1154] We may judge how necessary these regulations were from the fact that Cicero, whose government was justly considered an honest one, admits that he drew large sums from his province of Cilicia eight years after the passing of the law Julia.[1155] The same law forbad all governors to leave their provinces, or to send their troops out of them to interfere in the affairs of any neighbouring State, without permission of the Senate and the people,[1156] or to extort any money from the inhabitants of the provinces.[1157] The law by similar provisions diminished the abuse of free legations (_legationes liberæ_). This was the name given to the missions of senators, who, travelling into the provinces on their own affairs, obtained by an abuse the title of envoy of the Roman people, to which they had no right, in order to be defrayed the expenses and costs of travelling. These missions, which were for an indefinite time, were the subject of incessant[1158] complaints. Cicero had limited them to a year: Cæsar prescribed a still narrower limit, but its exact length is unknown.[1159]