Among the extraordinary acts of power executed by the former we may remark the foundation of twenty-nine cities, and the distribution of three or four millions sterling to his troops.

The ratification of his acts met with some opposition and delays in the senate See Plutarch, Appian, Dion Cassius, and the first book of the epistles to Atticus.] From what has already been observed in the first chapter of this work, some notion may be formed of the armies and provinces thus intrusted to the ruling hand of Augustus.

But as it was impossible that he could personally command the regions of so many distant frontiers, he was indulged by the senate, as Pompey had already been, in the permission of devolving the execution of his great office on a sufficient number of lieutenants.

In rank and authority these officers seemed not inferior to the ancient proconsuls; but their station was dependent and precarious.
They received and held their commissions at the will of a superior, to whose auspicious influence the merit of their action was legally attributed.

[10] They were the representatives of the emperor.