The majority of these _praefecti_ were, at the beginning of this period, of Italian origin, taken from the leading families of the country towns, the class which formed, under the rule of the Flavian emperors who were themselves sprung from it, the backbone of the Roman bureaucracy. The Romanization of the Western provinces led to an increasing proportion of men from the provincial _municipia_ being admitted into the imperial service, but until the reign of Marcus the Italian element still predominated. The _praefecti_ mentioned on five diplomata from Pannonia Superior and two from Dacia dated 133, 138, 136-46, 148, 149, 157, and 145-61 were natives of Sassina, Bovianum, Faventia, Suessa, Rome, Hispellum, and Picenum.[297] The accession of Septimius Severus possibly accelerated the speed at which the provincial element was increasing, but there is not, as has been suggested by von Domaszewski, any sign of a violent and wholesale exclusion of Italians from this branch of the service. This point may be illustrated by the following inscriptions of Italian _praefecti_, which can be dated after 193: VIII 9359. Caesarea. M. Popilius Nepos domo Roma, a _praefectus_ of the Ala Gemina Sebastenorum in Mauretania Caesariensis. The inscription honours a procurator who is dated by Cagnat to 201-9. _A. E._ 1908. 206. Puteoli. T. Caesius Anthianus, a native of this town, was _praefectus_ of the Cohors II Augusta Thracum at the beginning of the third century. The earliest provincial _praefecti_ came from the thoroughly Romanized districts of Spain and Gallia Narbonensis, natives of which appear even in the pre-Flavian period. These were followed in the course of the second century by representatives of nearly all the Western provinces; Africa in particular sent _praefecti_ from its many flourishing towns to almost every frontier during the latter half of the second century, and the accession of the African Septimius Severus at its close possibly gave his fellow countrymen a specially favoured position in the succeeding period.