Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/791

ROME 767 pauper population in the towns, and the denudation and desolation of the country districts. His strong hand carried out the scheme so often proposed by the popular leaders since the days of Gaius Gracchus, the colonization of Carthage and Corinth. Allotments of land on a large scale were made in Italy ; decaying towns were reinforced by fresh drafts of settlers ; on the large estates and cattle farms the owners were required to find employment for a certain amount of free labour ; and a slight and temporary stimulus was given to Italian industry by the reimposi- tion of harbour dues upon foreign goods. 1 To these measures must be added his schemes for the draining of the Fucine Lake and the Pomptine Marshes, for a new road across the Apennines, and for turning the course of the Tiber. 2 It is true that these vigorous efforts to revive the agrarian prosperity of Italy were made along the old lines laid down eighty years before by the Gracchi, and that their final success was no greater than that of preced- ing efforts in the same direction, but they are a proof of the spirit in which Caesar understood the responsibilities of absolute power, and their failure was due to causes which no legislation could remove. The reform of the calendar, which has been described elsewhere, 3 completes a record of administrative reform which entitles Caesar to the praise of having governed well, whatever may be thought of the validity of his title to govern at all. But how did Caesar deal with what was after all the greatest problem which he was called upon to solve, the establish- ment of a satisfactory government for the empire ? One point indeed was already settled the necessity, if the empire was to hold together at all, of placing the army, the provinces, and the control of the foreign policy in more vigorous hands than those of a number of changing magistrates independent of each other, and only very imperfectly controlled by the senate at home. Some centralization of the executive authority was indispensable, and this part of his work Caesar thoroughly performed. From the moment when he seized the moneys in the treasury on his first entry into Rome 4 down to the day of his death he recognized no other authority but his throughout the empire. He alone directed the policy of Rome in foreign affairs ; the legions were led, and the provinces governed, not by independent magistrates, but by his "legates;" 5 and the title " imperator " which he adopted was intended to express the absolute and unlimited nature of the " imperium " he claimed, as distinct from the limited spheres of authority possessed by republican magistrates. 6 In so centralizing the executive authority over the empire at large, Caesar was but developing the policy implied in the Gabinian and Manilian laws, and the precedent he established was closely followed by his successors. It was otherwise with the more difficult question of the form under which this new executive authority should be exercised and the relation it should hold to the republican constitution. We must be content to remain in ignorance of the precise shape which Caesar intended ultimately to give to the new system. The theory that he contemplated a revival of the old Roman kingship 7 is supported by little more than the popular gossip of the day, and the form under which he actually 1 Sueton., 42, 43. 2 Pint., Cxs., 58 ; Suet., 44 ; Dio, xliii. 51. 8 See CALENDAK, vol. iv. pp. 666-7; Mommsen, R. G., iii. 550 ; and Fischer, Rom. Zeittafeln, 292 sq. 4 Plut., 35. 5 Dio, xliii. 47. 8 Suet., 40; Dio, xliii. 44. For this use of the title "imperator," see Mommsen, R. G., iii. 466, and note. 7 See Mommsen, iii. 467, and Ranke, Weltgeschichte, ii. 319 sq. According to A ppian, ii. 110, and Plutarch, Ctes., 64, the title "rex" was only to be used abroad in the East, as likely to strengthen Csesar's position against the Parthians. wielded his authority can hardly have been regarded by so sagacious a statesman as more than a provisional arrange- ment. This form was that of the dictatorship ; and in favour of the choice it might have been urged that the dictatorship was the office naturally marked out by republican tradition as the one best suited to carry the state safely through a serious crisis, that the powers it conveyed were wide, that it was as dictator that Sulla had reorganized the state, and that a dictatorship had been spoken of as the readiest means of legalizing Pompey's protectorate of the republic in 53-52. The choice never- 701-70 theless was a bad one. It was associated with those very Sullan traditions from which Caesar was must anxious to sever himself ; it implied necessarily the suspension for the time of all constitutional government ; and, lastly, the dictatorship as held by Caesar could not even plead that it conformed to the old rules and traditions of the office. There was indeed a precedent in Sulla's case for a dictator " reipublicae constituendae causa," but Caesar was not only appointed in an unusual manner, but appointed for an unprecedentedly long period, 8 and the " perpetual dictatorship " granted him after his crowning victory at Munda (45) was a contradiction in terms and a repudia- ^09. tion of constitutional government which excited the bitterest animosity. 9 The dictatorship served well enough for the time to give some appearance of legality to Caesar's autocratic authority, but it was not even, it is probable, in his own eyes a satisfactory solution of the problem. A second question, hardly less important than the estab- lishment and legalization of a strong central executive authority over the army and the provinces, was that of the position to be assigned to the old constitution, by the side of this new power. So far as Caesar himself was concerned, the answer was for the time sufficiently clear. The old constitution was not formally abrogated. The senate met and deliberated ; the assembly passed laws and elected magistrates ; there were still consuls, praetors, aediles, quaestors, and tribunes ; and Caesar himself, like his successors, professed to hold his authority by the will of the people. But senate, assembly, and magistrates were all alike subordinated to the paramount authority of the dictator; and this subordination was, in appearance at least, more direct and complete under the rule of Caesar than under that of Augustus. Caesar was by nature as impatient as Augustus was tolerant of established forms ; and, dazzled by the splendour of his career of victory and by his ubiquitous energy and versatility, the Roman public, high and low, prostrated themselves before him and heaped honours upon him with a reckless profusion which made the existence of any authority by the side of his own an absurdity. 10 Hence under Caesar the old constitu- tion was repeatedly disregarded, or suspended in a way which contrasted unfavourably with the more respectful attitude assumed by Augustus. For months together Rome was left without any regular magistrates, and was governed like a subject town by Caesar's prefects. 11 At another time a tribune was seen exercising authority out- side the city bounds and invested with the " imperium " of a prsetor. 12 At the elections, candidates appeared before 8 Caesar's first dictatorship in 49 was simply " comitiorum haben- dorum causa," and lasted only eleven days. He was appointed dictator again for one year in 48, for ten years in 46, and for life in 45. 9 Cicero, Phil., i. 2, praises Antony, " quum dictatoris nomen. . . . propter perpetuae dictaturae recentem meinoriam funditus ex republica sustulisset." 10 For the long list of these, see Appian, ii. 106 ; Dio, xliii. 43- 45 ; Plut., 57 ; Suet., 76. Cf. also Mommsen, R. G., iii. 463 sq.; Watson, Cicero's Letters, App. x. ; Zumpt, Studio, Romana, 199 sq. (Berlin, 1859). 11 Zumpt, Stud. Rom., 241 ; Suet., 76. " Cic. Ad Att., x. 8a.