Pompey's sons and the last remnants of their party were overthrown in Spain at Munda.

C. CONSTRUCTIVE WORK.1

The first effort of the

445. Clemency and Reconciliation. new ruler went to reconcile Italy. All respectable classes there had trembled when he crossed the Rubicon, expecting new Marian massacres or at least a new Catilinian war upon property. But Caesar maintained strict order, guarded property rights carefully, and punished no political opponent who laid down arms. Only one of his soldiers had refused to follow him when he decided upon civil war. Caesar sent all this officer's property after him to Pompey's camp; and he continued that policy toward the nobles who left Italy to join Pompey at the close of the first campaign, even when their actions, in some cases, savored of treachery. On the field of victory, too, he checked the vengeance of his soldiers, calling upon them to remember that the enemy were their fellowcitizens; and after Pharsalus he employed in the public service any Roman of ability, without regard to the side he had fought on. In Gaul, Caesar's warfare had been largely of the cruel kind so common in Roman annals, but his clemency in the civil war was without example. It brought its proper fruit, however; and almost at once all classes, except a few extremists, became heartily reconciled to his government.

446. The Form of the New Monarchy. The old republican forms continued for the most part. Except for some brief intervals, the senate deliberated, and consuls and praetors were elected, as before. But Caesar drew the more important powers into his own hands. He received the tribucinian power for life, and likewise the authority of a life censor. He was already

tious destroyer of his country's liberty. Read the story in Plutarch's Life of Cato.

1 Warde-Fowler, 326-359; How and Leigh, 539-551; Merivale, Triumvirates, 135, 139, 157-170; Mommsen, bk. v. ch. xi.

head of the state-religion as Pontifex Maximus. Now he accepted also a dictatorship for life and the title of Imperator for himself and his descendants. Probably (like Cromwell in England later) he would have liked the title of king, since the recognized authority, and forms that went with it, would have helped to maintain order; but when he found that term still hateful to the unthinking populace, he seems to have designed this hereditary Imperatorship, with its ancient significance of the supreme imperium, for the title of the new monarchy. Had he succeeded in setting up a strictly hereditary government, the world would have been spared many of the worst evils of the next four centuries.

447. General Measures of Reform. The measures of reform embraced Rome, Italy, and the empire. A bankrupt law on the general lines followed by modern legislation released all debtors from further personal obligation, if they surrendered their entire estates to their creditors,- and so the demoralized society was given a chance at a fresh start. A commission to reclaim and allot public lands was put to work. Landlords were required to employ at least one free laborer for every two slaves. Italian colonization in the provinces was pressed vigorously, to the mutual advantage of Italy and of the outside empire. In his early consulship (59 B.C.), Caesar had refounded Capua; now he did the like for Carthage and Corinth, and these noble capitals that had been criminally destroyed by the narrow jealousy of republican Rome, rose again to wealth and power. Eighty thousand landless citizens of Rome were provided for beyond seas; and by these and other means the helpless proletariat in the capital, dependent upon free grain, was reduced from three hundred and twenty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. Beyond doubt, with longer life, Caesar would have lessened the evil further. Rigid economy was introduced into all branches of the government. Taxation was equalized, reduced, and made more productive. A comprehensive census was taken for all Italy, and measures were

under way to extend it over the empire, as was done later by Augustus. Caesar also reformed the calendar1 and the coinage; began the codification of the irregular mass of Roman law; created the first public library (belonging to the public, as well as designed for its use); built a new Forum; drained the Pomptine marshes; and began other vast public works in all parts of the empire.

448. The Provinces. The system of provincial administration was made over. The old governors had been ignorant and irresponsible tyrants, with every temptation to plunder their charge. Under Caesar they became the trained servants of a stern master who looked to the welfare of the whole empire. Their authority, too, was lessened, and they were surrounded by a system of indirect checks in the presence of other officials dependent directly upon the Imperator. The governors soon came to be paid fixed salaries, and were not allowed even to accept presents from the provincials.

But more important than such repeal of abuses was Caesar's positive programme to put the provinces upon an equality with Italy. "As provinces they were to disappear, to prepare for the renovated Romano-Greek nation a new and more spacious home, of whose several parts no one existed merely for the others, but all for each and each for all."2 All Cisalpine Gaul was incorporated in Italy, and Roman citizenship was enormously multiplied by the addition of whole communities in Farther Gaul, in Spain, and elsewhere. Leading Gauls, too, despite Italian prejudice, were admitted to the reformed senate, which Caesar hoped to raise to a Grand Council really representative of the needs and feelings of the empire.

1 The Roman calendar, inferior to the Egyptian, had got three months out of the way, so that the spring equinox came in June. Caesar made the year 46 ("the last year of confusion") consist of four hundred and forty-five days, to correct the error, and for the future, instituted the system of leap years, as we have it, except for the slight correction of Pope Gregory in the sixteenth century. The reform was based upon the Egyptian system (§ 26).

2 Read Mommsen, V. 415-417, also 427, 428.

449. The Unforeseen Interruption. In a few months Caesar had won the favor of the Roman populace, the general sympathy of the respectable classes in Italy, and the enthusiastic reverence of the provinces. He was still in the prime of a strong and active manhood, and had every reason to hope for time to complete his work. No public enemy could be raised against him within the empire. One danger there was lurking assassins beset his path; but with characteristic dignity he

quietly refused a bodyguard, declaring it better. to die at any time than to live always in fear of death. And so, in the midst of preparation for expeditions against the Parthians and Germans to rectify the frontiers, the murderous daggers of men whom he had spared and heaped with favors, struck him down. A group of irreconcilable nobles, led by the weak enthusiast Brutus and the envious Cassius, plotted to take his life. They accomplished their crime in the senate house, on the Ides of March (March 15), 44 B.C. Crowding around him, and fawning upon him as to ask a favor, the assassins suddenly drew their daggers. According to an old story, Caesar at first stood on his defense, calling for help, and wounded Cassius; but when he saw the loved and trusted Brutus in the snarling pack, he cried out sadly, "What! thou, too, Brutus!" and drawing his toga about him with calm dignity, he resisted no longer, but sank at the foot of Pompey's statue, bleeding from three and twenty stabs.

450. Caesar's Character. - Caesar has been called the one original genius in Roman history. His gracious courtesy and unrivaled charm won all hearts, so that it is said his enemies dreaded personal interviews, lest they be drawn to his side. Toward his friends he never wearied in forbearance and love. In the civil war young Curio, a dashing but reckless lieutenant, lost two legions and undid much good work — to Caesar's great peril. Curio refused to survive his blunder, and found death on the field; but Caesar, with no word of reproachful criticism, refers to the disaster only to excuse it kindly by reference to Curio's youth and to "his faith in his good fortune from his former success."

In work, no man ever excelled Caesar in quick perception of means, fertility of resource, dash in execution, or tireless activity. His opponent Cicero said of him: "He had genius, understanding, memory, taste, reflection, industry, exactness." Numerous anecdotes are told of the many activities he could carry on at one time, and of his dictating six or more letters to as many scribes at once. Says a modern critic, "He was great as a captain, statesman, lawgiver, jurist, orator, poet, historian, grammarian, mathematician, architect."

No doubt "Caesar was ambitious." He was not a philanthropic enthusiast merely, but a broad-minded, intellectual genius, with a strong man's delight in ruling well. He saw clearly what was to do, and knew perfectly his own supreme ability to do it. Caesar and Alexander are the two great captains whose conquests have done most for civilization. But Caesar, master in war as he was, always preferred statesmanship, and was perfectly free from Alexander's boyish liking for mere fighting. Beside the Greek, the Roman had less of poetic idealism and more of practical sagacity. And yet the two had much in common, and both tower, mighty giants, above vulgar conquerors, like a Napoleon, moved by lower ambitions.

The seven campaigns in the five years after he crossed the Rubicon left Caesar less than eighteen months for his great