December 8, 2014 at 3:30 pm
#16630
Jason Jewell
Participant
This might simply be a reference to the assigning of regular oversight of a particular area to a particular official or group of officials rather than trying to deal with things by the Senate and emperor ad hoc as they show up. In a way, that is approaching the problem of governance more efficiently. Without at least a rudimentary bureaucracy in support, Senate appointees like the quaestors might have been overwhelmed as the empire grew. I don’t know if you can attribute the Pax Romana to the advent of bureaucracy, though.