Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

76 SENECAinstitutions had been modelled on those of republicanRome, and unlike those of Rome hadendured in reality as well as in name. Of municipalmagistrates the duumviri, answering tothe consuls, presided over the municipal senateand exercised judicial powers ;the aediles werein charge of works and buildings and of thepolice ; while the quaestors administered therevenue. These magistrates were all elected bythe people,^ and were expected by public opinionto show their sense of the honour conferredupon them by a gift to their city. Aqueducts,roads, temples, theatres were habitually presentedto their fellow-citizens by magistratesduring their term of office. Thus the labour ofthe community was directed to public and notto private uses by those to whom the possessionof money had given the power of choosing itsdirection, and great prosperity was the result.'The whole world is full,' wrote the rhetoricianAristides under the Antonines, ' of gymnasia,fountains, porticoes, temples, workshops, andschools ... all the towns are radiant with eleganceand splendour, and the land has becomeone vast garden.'In Rome itself all was not so well. Theadministration was, it is true, well conducted bySeneca and Burrhus, to whom the emperor leftthe whole business of government. But the detestablecharacter of the degenerate aesthete onthe throne began so early as the year 56 to makeitself felt. The public atrocities which followed*The suffrage was universal and the elections by ballot.