GOVERNMENT WITHOUT BUREAUCRACY 49proconsuls as well as legates of the emperor. This practice was apparently
initiated by Augustus himself, and shows that he was not merely interested
in asserting his superior authority on an ad hoc basis.^35 Unfortunately our
only detailed knowledge of the content of mandata is derived from the
younger Pliny’s untypical experience from about AD 109 as a special emissary
of the emperor Trajan with the rank of legate in the normally proconsular
province of Bithynia/Pontus ( ILS 2927; Pliny, Ep. 10). If we took Pliny as a
model governor, we might fi nd it easy to believe that gubernatorial actions
were as a rule closely monitored by emperors. His general brief^36 was to try
to bring to heel a province that had established a reputation for
maladministration, corruption and civil disorder. But he also received a
number of specifi c instructions, which he incorporated in an edict, ranging
from the examination of city accounts to the suppression of potentially
subversive associations; a minor persecution of Christians was an unintended
consequence of this clause in the edict ( Ep. 10.96–7). However, a normal
governor, in particular a proconsul, might not have received such detailed
instructions, nor have reported back to his emperor so regularly seeking
advice, approval or sanction for his actions. Moreover, although Pliny’s
successor Cornutus Tertullus had the same status and responsibilities ( ILS
1024), there is no sign, and no likelihood, that there was a signifi cant
multiplication of special legates in proconsular provinces in the second
century.
Nevertheless, not only the governor’s formal powers but also his
discretionary authority were signifi cantly reduced in our period. An anecdote
from the reign of Hadrian suggests that part of the responsibility lay with
the governor. At a drunken gathering in Spain, a young man was tossed in
the air from a military cloak and died of injuries received in the fall. The
governor punished the offenders lightly, but apparently unnecessarily asked
the emperor to comment. Hadrian was thus given the chance of overruling
the governor (he did not do so), and of penning the jurisprudential maxim:
‘even in the case of more serious offences, it is of concern whether the action
was intentional or accidental’ ( Mos. Rom. Leg. Coll. 1.11.1–3). But it would
be idle to blame governors for the erosion of their powers. The root cause is
to be found in the arrival of monarchy, which deprived the senate of its
central authority in the state, silenced its more independent members and
replaced them with a new breed of deferential senators of undistinguished
backgrounds, of whom Pliny may be taken as representative.^37
The identifi cation of standard patterns or general trends in governor- city
or emperor- city relationships is equally diffi cult. Pliny’s contacts with the
cities of Bithynia-Pontus are no more likely to have been typical than his
dealings with Trajan. His Letters record a quite unusual degree of interference
on the part of the governor in the administrative affairs of the cities, both
those few that possessed special rights and the majority that did not. Pliny
had been ordered to examine the accounts of all the cities in his province,
including those privileged cities, such as ‘free and federate’ Chalcedon and