The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]

Nor was the conqueror’s clemency confined to sparing the lives of his opponents. He refrained from confiscation which had been wont to accompany the edicts of his predecessors. The wealth indeed which was poured into Rome from the tribute of so many new subjects, and the plunder of so many temples, rendered it more easy to practise this unusual liberality. It was ungenerous perhaps to make the estates of his great rival the chief exception to this rule of moderation. But Cæsar intended to brand as rebels to constituted authority the men who renewed the strife after Thapsus, and this confiscation was meant, not as an insult to the dead, but as a punishment of the living opponent. The name of the Great Pompey had already passed into the shrine of history, and the victor was proud of closing the fasti of the republic with so illustrious a title. Far from approving the precipitation of his flatterers in removing the statues of Pompey and Sulla, he caused them to be restored to their places in front of the rostra, among the effigies of the noblest champions of the free state. Towards the institutions of the commonwealth he evinced a similar spirit of deference. He sought no new forms under which to develop his new policy. Sulla had attempted to revive the aristocratic spirit of the ancient constitution by overthrowing the existing framework of the laws; but the popular dictator, in laying the foundation of a more extensive revolution, studied to preserve it intact. While making himself an autocrat in every essential exercise of power, he maintained, at least in outward seeming, all the institutions most opposed to autocracy, the senate, the comitia, and the magistracies. But he had long before said that the republic was no more than a shadow, and these very institutions had long been merely the instruments by which tyrants had worked out the ends of their selfish ambition.

Cæsar now was fully aware that he could sway the Roman world unchecked by the interference of a senate, two-thirds of which perhaps were nominees of his own. Under the sanction of an organic law he had raised the number of the assembly to nine hundred, thus degrading the honour by making it cheap; and he still more degraded it in the eyes of the proudest of the citizens by pouring into it his allies from the provinces, his soldiers, and even, if we may believe their bitter sarcasms, the captives who had just followed his car of triumph. The Romans exercised their wits on these upstart strangers losing themselves amidst the forests of columns which thronged the public places, and placards were posted recommending no good citizen to guide them to the senate house. This servile council, with less respect for appearances than its chief, would have given him the right of nominating to all curule and plebeian offices, to the entire abrogation of the electoral prerogatives of the people. But Cæsar declined to destroy the last shadow of liberty, assured that no man would venture to sue for a magistracy without his consent. He contented himself with recommending certain candidates to the suffrages of the people, and these recommendations were equivalent to commands. Moreover the senate had imposed upon the elected the obligation to swear before entering on their office, that they would undertake nothing against the acts of the dictator, for every act of his was invested with the force of law. The consuls, prætors, and other officers thus continued to exercise their ordinary functions under the dictator’s superintendence; the prætors were increased in number, while the consuls, though never exceeding two at the same time, were rapidly supplanted, sometimes month by month, by fresh aspirants whom it was expedient to gratify. As the avowed champion of the people Cæsar retained the appropriate distinction of the tribunitian power, which also rendered his person inviolable;[124] while both the senators and the knights offered to surround him with a guard of honour of their own members to secure this inviolability by a stronger instrument than the law. To the reality of power he added its outward signs. In the senate, the theatre, the circus, and the hall of justice he might seat himself on his golden chair in a robe of regal magnificence, while his effigy was impressed upon the public coinage.[125] Apart from the title of king there is no outward symbol of royalty more appropriate than that of the hereditary transmission of offices and distinctions. The imperium, or military supremacy, which had been granted to Cæsar for his life, was rendered transmissible to his children, and with it the august distinction of the sovereign pontificate.