Other cities of a less favoured description were governed directly as præfectures, by an officer sent from Rome, who centred in himself all the higher branches of administration: in these cities the functions of the Ordo were greatly curtailed; little was left them but to attend to the police of the town and markets, the determination of trifling civil suits, the survey of roads or buildings; and, in conjunction with the heads of the guilds (“collegia opificum”) the vain and mischievous attempt to regulate wages and prices. On the other hand a few cities had what was called the Jus Italicum, or right to form a free corporation, in every respect identical with those of the cities of Italy, that is to say identical in plan with that of Rome itself. The provinces of the Roman empire must have contained many of these privileged states which thus enjoyed a valuable pre-eminence over their neighbours, the reward of public services: but history has been sparing of their names, and in western Europe, three only, Cologne, Vienne and Lyons are particularly mentioned[771]. In all the cities which had not this privilege, after the close of the fourth century we find a particular officer called the Defensor, who was not to be one of the curiales, who was to be elected by the whole body of the citizens and not by the curiales only, and who must therefore be looked upon in a great degree as the representative of the popular against the aristocratic element, as the support of the Cives against the Senatus and Duumvir. In the cities of Gaul, the bishops for the most part occupied this position, which necessarily led to results of the highest importance, from the peculiar relation in which it placed them to the barbarian invaders[772]. From all these details it appears that very different measures of municipal freedom were granted under different circumstances. ----- Footnote 771: Savigny, Röm. Recht. i. 53. Footnote 772: The Bishops were the most valuable allies of Clovis in his aggressive wars. Without their co-operation that savage Merwing would perhaps never have established the Frankish pre-eminence in the Gauls. -----