The Hellenic states could not struggle to the height of their former greatness under the iron hand of Rome, but the fault lay chiefly in the weakness they had brought upon themselves before the days of Roman supremacy by their suicidal fury. Their part in history was played out, and they slowly perished of the wounds inflicted by their own hands. “It was beyond the power of Rome to renew the youth and creative energy of intellect in the Greek races,” says Hœck, “but what she had to give she gave. She preserved Anterior Asia from the worst of fates, that of falling a prey to the eastern barbarians; she saved the aftermath of Hellenic culture, and procured for this nation, as for others, a pleasant private life in the evening of its ancient historic existence.” By judicious regulation and admirable administration the monarchy healed the wounds which the free commonwealth had inflicted upon the subject countries. “The time was gone by when the right of the victor brought an endless train of the vanquished to the capital and when Rome took for her own the most glorious works of foreign art, the creations of a nobler age and race.” The requisitions and imposts were not small, the land tax and property tax, the poll tax and other subsidies, levied from the provincials in the senatorial provinces by quæstors for the _ærarium_ or state treasury, in the Cæsarian provinces by procurators for the imperial privy purse and military exchequer. Under the empire as under the republic the mines and the port and frontier duties were claimed by the government. And the obligation of military service was occasionally burdensome. Yet all these drawbacks were far more than counterbalanced by the state of order and equity which Augustus endeavoured to establish in all parts. The proconsuls and procurators were appointed either by the absolute authority of the emperor or with the concurrence of the senate, were responsible to the former for their conduct in office, and had fixed salaries and allowances for equipment and travelling expenses. The orderly business departments opposed a barrier against encroachments and arbitrary dealings on the part of governors or their legates and minor officers, and provided the appeal to the imperial tribunal as a protective measure. The civil and military supremacy of the emperor kept provincial officials within bounds. It became customary to commute payments in kind (tenths of grain, fifths of the vintage and oil harvest) into payments in money based on average prices and a moderate estimate; the burden of military service and taxation was mitigated by means of the exemption accorded to particular districts and communities, by security from devastating wars and hostile incursions, and by the fact that the leading positions and military honours were open to all.