The _municipia_ were not subject to tribute.
When a whole people had resisted the Roman power with great obstinacy, had displayed a readiness to revolt upon every occasion, and had frequently broken their faith, they were reduced into what the Romans called the form of a province: that is, they lost their laws, their liberties, their magistrates; they forfeited the greatest part of their lands; and they paid a heavy tribute for what they were permitted to retain.
In these provinces the supreme government was in the praetor sent by the senate, who commanded the army, and in his own person exercised the judicial power.

Where the sphere of his government was large, he deputed his legates to that employment, who judged according to the standing laws of the republic, aided by those occasional declarations of law called the praetorial edicts.

The care of the revenue was in the quaestor.
He was appointed to that office in Rome; but when he acted in a judicial capacity, it was always by commission from the praetor of the province.[19] Between these magistrates and all others who had any share in the provincial government the Roman manners had established a kind of sacred relation, as inviolable as that of blood.[20] All the officers were taught to look up to the praetor as their father, and to regard each other as brethren: a firm and useful bond of concord in a virtuous administration; a dangerous and oppressive combination in a bad one.
But, like all the Roman institutions, it operated strongly towards its principal purpose, the security of dominion, which is by nothing so much exposed as the factions and competitions of the officers, when the governing party itself gives the first example of disobedience.
On the overthrow of the Commonwealth, a remarkable revolution ensued in the power and the subordination of these magistrates.

For, as the prince came alone to possess all that was by a proper title either imperial or praetorial authority, the ancient praetors dwindled into his legates, by which the splendor and importance of that dignity were much diminished.
The business of the quaestor at this time seems to have been transferred to the emperor's procurator.

The whole of the public revenue became part of the fisc, and was considered as the private estate of the prince.