After the peace, the Romans formed Sicily into a province. In a province, a Roman commander, either still holding a curule office or with a prolonged _imperium_, carried on the government, and had the same power over the country as in times of war, by virtue of the _lex de imperio_. It is a false notion, that in the provinces the inhabitants had no right of ownership; they had indeed, though not according to Roman, but according to provincial law. There were in the provinces _civitates liberæ_, _civitates foederatæ_, and subjects. The confederate states were treated like the Italian allies: some of them had the land as their own, and paid taxes on it, sometimes in proportion to the produce, and sometimes at a fixed rate; others indeed lost their ownership in it, so that it might be disposed of by the Roman republic; but retained the enjoyment of it on paying a rent. This was done when the provinces rebelled again and again, and were reconquered; and thus it came to pass that in several states the land was almost entirely forfeited to the Roman republic, whilst in others it was not so at all. This was not understood by the later writers, as Theophilus, and even Gaius himself already. From that time, there was generally a prætor and a quæstor in the province of Sicily. Hiero remained independent as did the free cities in Italy, and likewise the state of the Mamertines, Tauromenium, Centoripa, and other towns in the interior. The war was ruinous to the Romans, whom it impoverished, and consequently to their morals also; for wounds like these do not always heal after the return of peace. During a struggle of this kind, contractors and the very dregs of the rabble grow rich, and the old citizens become poor: the first Punic war is therefore one of the first causes of the degeneracy of the Roman people. In the course of this war, there must have been many changes of which we have few or no records; we only know of some small matters. In the year of the city 506, as we have now been able to learn from Lydus _de Magistratibus_, a second prætor was appointed, who was to administer the laws to the _peregrini_. A great change had therefore taken place, that foreigners were to have a _persona_ in Rome, instead of being obliged to be represented by a citizen as formerly: in this we acknowledge an important diminution of the spirit of faction. Suetonius says of a Claudius, who without doubt belongs to the beginning of the first Punic war, that he had resolved upon ruling Italy by means of the clients: this is one of the proofs which show that the clientship had a dangerous character, and how beneficial it was to dissolve that connexion. Yet the prætor was not restricted to his civil jurisdiction; Q. Valerius commanded the fleet besides, and another prætor we meet with at a later period in Etruria. We also find in Livy by no means in every year a prætor for the _peregrini_. The phrase _prætor