The paper addresses an important new document published recently by Gary Reger (Chiron 50 [2020], 253–85), a letter of the emperor Septimius Severus from AD 197, responding to complaints of the Lycian koinon concerning the abuses of power in criminal investigations by soldiers ‘sent into the cities (τοὺς πεμπομένους εἰς τὰς πόλεις)’ in the aftermath of the defeat of Pescennius Niger. The imperial letter is of particular interest in a province where survival of strong local jurisdiction at the federal level is probable in the Antonine period, and can be usefully to an earlier letter of Severus from Syedra, concerning abuses by subordinates of Niger (SEG LXIV 1496). The paper attempts to put these developments in the broader context of the evolution of Roman provincial capital jurisdiction. This session will be a part of a larger congress.