(iv.) _Finance._—Finance at Rome was always so intimately bound up with provincial control, that the division of the provinces into public and imperial implied of itself the existence of two separate financial departments. The Senate still asserts control over the _aerarium_, and gives instructions to the guardians of the chest. The qualification of these guardians varied from time to time. The dictator Caesar had in 45 B.C. given the charge to two aediles, but quaestors seem again to have been the presidents of the treasury[1878] until Augustus in 28 B.C. instituted two _praefecti aerarii Saturni_, chosen yearly from the ex-praetors by the Senate.[1879] Even this change was short-lived, and the praefects were soon replaced by two of the praetors of the year who received their _provincia_ by lot.[1880] Claudius in 44 A.D. restored the Republican method of administration through quaestors; but these were no longer to be annual officials designated by lot, but to be chosen by the Emperor for a period of three years.[1881] Finally under Nero (56 A.D.) the elements of the Augustan and the Claudian arrangements were combined[1882] in the provision that two ex-praetors should be appointed as praefects of the treasury, but that these should be named, generally for three years, by the Princeps.[1883] The fact that the Princeps appointed the guardians of the public chest was by no means an assertion that he controlled its funds, and, although his indirect influence on the _aerarium_ was unquestionably great, this treasury still remained in principle under the direction of the Senate alone. Even in the second century it voted a loan to Marcus Aurelius for carrying on a war.[1884]