been looked on as crown property, which was heritable only by the successor to the throne. The bequeathal of this property, which was implied when the Princeps selected an heir, might thus be regarded as a mode of designation; although, if the destined heir did not succeed, the patrimonium passed to his successful rival. It was probably due to the uncertainty of the tenure of the patrimonium that with Septimius Severus we find the creation of a new aggregate of private property, the res privata,[1] the administration of which was kept quite distinct from that of the patrimonium. All Caesar's property, whether held in trust for the state or for the crown, or applied to the needs of his family, was equally administered by his own private servants. Of these we shall speak when we deal with the functionaries of the Princeps as a whole.
Another treasury under imperial control, which served a public purpose, was that established for supplying pensions to discharged soldiers. The want of it had been severely felt in the last years of the Republic, when the mercenary army looked for its final rewards to plunder or the political influence of its generals; and, when Augustus created a professional army by the introduction of the long-service system, he found it necessary to establish a pension fund for those who had given twenty of the best years of their life to the practice of arms. The result was the aerarium militare, which the Emperor endowed with a large capital,[2] and to which, as fixed sources of revenue, the two taxes of the vicesima hereditatum and the centesima rerum venalium were assigned.[3] The administration of this chest was given to three praefects (praefecti aerarii militaris), who remained three years in office, and were chosen from ex-praetors, originally by lot but later by the Princeps.[4](170 million sesterces) ex patrimonio meo detuli."]
- ↑ Vita Severi 12 "interfectis innumeris Abani partium viris . . . omnium bona publicata sunt. . . . Tuncque primum privatarum rerum procuratio constituta est." The ordinarily accepted view of the relations of these two departments to one another is that of Hirschfeld and Marquardt, viz. that the patrimonium was the inalienable crown property, the res privata the strictly personal property of the Princeps. Karlowa (Rechtscgeshichte i. p. 505) takes an exactly oppositive view of their relations, based partly on the fact that extant inscriptions show the procurator rationis privatae to have had a higher rank than the procurator patrimonii.
- ↑ Mon. Anc. iii. 39 "HS milliens et septingentiens ?
- ↑ Dio Cass. lv. 25; Tac. Ann. i. 78.
- ↑ Dio Cass. l.c.; cf. Tac. Ann. v. 8 (vi. 3).
