During the period of the Roman Republic tax collection was tendered to private companies owned by the publicani (singular publicanus). These extracted money form the provincials unscrupulously to line their pockets. Livy wrote: "wherever there is a publicanus either public law is disregarded or the liberty of the allies is reduced to nothing." Julius Caesar abolished this system of tax collection and restored the custom of assigning this task to the cities in the provinces. Augustus handed this task to his own officials. In the imperial provinces the quaestors were replaced by the procuratores Augusti (imperial procurators) as the chief financial officers, who took direct charge of financial matters, including tax collection. These financial procurators were appointed by the emperor and were the agents of the emperor. The term procurator originally applied to agents, especially those who went away for Rome for some time on state business. They were direct subordinates of the emperor and therefore worked independently from the governors. They were responsible for the collection of rent in the imperial estates (Augustus has acquired large amounts of land from previous local rulers and potentates), tax collection, the supervision of mines and from paying civil servants and the soldiers. Thus, the financial system operated as an independent executive system. Good collaboration between legati Augusti pro praetore and procurators was advisable as the latter were the paymasters to the army. The building of fortifications was also supervised by the procurators. They belonged to the equestrian order or were freedmen who had been imperial slaves and thus they were not connected with the senatorial order. With the procurators the emperors gained direct control over finances in the imperial province. These men were also a source of independent information for the emperor. There were also procurators in the senatorial provinces to supervise the imperial estates in those provinces as well.