The chief property of the state in the later Republic was the income derived from the provinces, and it is obvious that the Senate determined its amount when it ratified the terms of the _lex provinciae_. But the older source of revenue—the public domains of the state—was also subject to its control. It granted the occupation or the use of public lands and decreed their alienation by sale or gift.[1372] It also accepted or rejected gifts and bequests to the state, and the proposal of Ti. Gracchus that the people should deal with the movable property left by Attalus III., king of Pergamus,[1373] struck at one of the most undisputed of senatorial prerogatives. The most important estimates of those items of revenue and expenditure which varied from time to time were, as we have seen,[1374] made every five years by the censors. But the Senate exercised the right of directing, even of reversing, the arrangements made by these officials; the appeal against an oppressive contract was made to them,[1375] and during the vacancy in the censorship they designated the magistrates who were to preside over new financial assignments.[1376] The control over the treasury, both in the voting of large supplies or in detailed expenditure for definite purposes, was complete. The provincial budget, comprising the allowances for the different governors, was voted by the Senate, and this _senatus consultum de provinciis ornandis_[1377] was one of its most effective means of controlling the magistracy. The special sums voted for military or any other purposes were either directly paid[1378] or credited by the quaestors to the commanders abroad or to the home officials.[1379] We have already seen that it was only the consul who could order the quaestors to pay without a permit from the Senate;[1380] but, as the consul after the time of Sulla rarely took the field, the Senate’s control of expenditure was finally uninterrupted even by this survival.