The Romans having subdued Sicily, proceeded to prepare a constitution, or, in other words, having rendered the place subservient to themselves, they took measures for supplying a livery. Being tired of the old pattern, they devised something new, and produced an article of the following fashion:--They made Sicily a province; but those whose province it is to say what a province was, have left us in some doubt as to its precise meaning. The best definition is that which derives the word from Providentia, a duty, or a thing that ought to be done, and the provinces of the Romans were sometimes done indeed, though in a sense more modern and familiar than classical. A province, instead of becoming a part of Rome, retained its national existence, though such existence was scarcely worth having, for it was accompanied by a loss of sovereignty,--a condition that may be compared to that of a body living after its head was off. A governor was sent annually from Rome with a long train of officials, and the appointment being only for a year, leaves no doubt that the holder for the time being made the most he could of it. His staff included two Quæstors or tax-collectors, and a number of Præcones or auctioneers, who were always ready to sell off, in the event of a seizure. Sicily was, in fact, in a state of complete servitude to Rome, the only anomaly in the relationship consisting in the fact that the master, or rather the mistress, received the wages, instead of paying them. The amount was fixed at one-tenth of the wine, the oil, the olives, and other products of the soil; so that much of the fat of the land became the perquisite of the mistress of Sicily. These tenths were called _decimæ_, and so ruinous was their effect on the place whence they were drawn, that the words decimation and destruction have become nearly synonymous. The constitution of Rome had remained much the same during the period to which the present chapter refers, though the aristocracy of birth was beginning to give way to the far more objectionable aristocracy of money. Such was the influence of wealth, that the Quæstors or tax-collectors became members of the Senate as vacancies occurred, and the enormous riches of these persons proved how much of the public money, of which they had the entire handling, stuck to their fingers. FOOTNOTES: [41] The word "tyrant" meant, originally, nothing more than a sovereign who had arrived at supreme power by rather irregular means; but, as power thus obtained was most commonly abused, the words "tyrant" and "tyranny" became universally odious. [42] The curious reader, who is disposed to go over to Rome, will find the work of art alluded to in the text at the southern extremity of the vestibule, just at the foot of the staircase leading to the upper apartments, and close to a marble statue of Augustus.