The Republican general had often followed up a successful campaign by assigning lands and planting colonies. These acts had been done at the mandate of the people; but the new commander-in-chief needed no such permit. The Princeps divides territories that belong to the Roman people and establishes colonial settlements at his will. The gift of the franchise had also been entrusted at times to the Republican commander,[1600] and now it is placed wholly in the hands of the Emperor. He grants these gifts both to communities and to individuals. He gives Latin rights to _peregrinae civitates_,[1601] and citizenship to Latin towns, while he may alter the nominal _status_ of a community by changing a _municipium_ into a colony, or a colony into a _municipium_.[1602] His right of conferring citizenship on individuals was equally unquestioned,[1603] and he might remedy the defect of birth by giving _ingenuitas_ to a freedman.[1604] With the _imperium_ too is obviously connected the administration of those provinces which were peculiarly entrusted to the care of the Princeps. The government of these provinces, as well as the maintenance of the army, necessitated a financial administration, separate from that of the state and peculiar to himself, and this was accompanied by a right of coinage. His criminal and civil jurisdiction over citizens as well as soldiers are also connected with some undefined idea of the _imperium_, while his power of legal interpretation, although specially conferred, does not differ essentially from that of the praetor, and is to be traced to the same source. The detailed consideration of these powers must be deferred until we treat of that separation of authority between Caesar and the Senate which gave its formal character to the Principate.