Among the cares of the consul was the nomination of tribunes devoted to him, since it was they generally who proposed the laws for the people to ratify.
Clodius, on account of his popularity, was one of the candidates who could be most useful to him; but his rank of patrician obliged him to pass by adoption into a plebeian family before he could be elected, and that he could only do in virtue of a law. Cæsar hesitated in bringing it forward; for if, on the one hand, he sought to conciliate Clodius himself, on the other, he knew his designs of vengeance against Cicero, and was unwilling to put into his hands an authority which he might abuse. But when, towards the month of March, at the trial of C. Antonius, charged with disgraceful conduct in Macedonia, Cicero, in defending his former colleague, indulged in a violent attack upon those in power, on that same day Clodius was received into the ranks of the plebeians,[1139] and soon afterwards became, together with Vatinius, tribune-elect.[1140] There was a third tribune, whose name is unknown, but who was equally won over to the interests of the consul.[1141]
Thus Cæsar, as even Cicero admits, was alone more powerful already than the Republic.[1142] Of some he was the hope; of others, the terror; of all, master irrevocably. The inactivity of Bibulus had only served to increase his power.[1143] Thus it was said in Rome, as a jest, that men knew of no other consulship than that of Julius and Caius Cæsar, making two persons out of a single name; and the following verses were handed about:—
“Non Bibulo quidquam nuper sed Cæsare factum est:
Nam Bibulo fieri consule nil memini.”[1144]
And as popular favour, when it declares itself in favour of a man in a conspicuous position, sees something marvellous in everything that concerns his person, the populace drew a favourable augury from the existence of an extraordinary horse born in his stables. Its hoofs were forked, and shaped like fingers. Cæsar was the only man who could tame this strange animal, the docility of which, it was said, foreboded to him the empire of the world.[1145]
During his first consulship, Cæsar caused a number of laws to be passed, the greater part of which have not descended to us. Some valuable fragments, however, of the most important ones have been preserved, and among others, the modifications in the sacerdotal privileges. The tribune Labienus, as we have seen, in order to secure Cæsar’s election to the office of pontiff, had granted the right of election to seventeen tribes selected by lot. Although this law seemed to authorise absentees to become candidates for the priesthood, the people and the priests disputed the right of those who did not solicit the dignity in person. Endless quarrels and disturbances were the result. To put an end to these, Cæsar, while confirming the law of Labienus, announced that not only those candidates who appeared in person, but those at a distance also, who had any title whatever to that honour, might offer themselves as candidates.[1146]
He turned his attention next to the provinces, whose condition had always excited his sympathy. The law intended to reform the vices of the administration (De provinciis ordinandis) is of uncertain date; it bears the same title as that of Sylla, and resembles it considerably. Its provisions guaranteed the inhabitants against the violence, the arbitrary conduct, and the corruption of the proconsuls and proprætors, and fixed the allotments to which these were entitled.[1147]
It released the free states, liberæ civitates, from dependence upon governors, and authorised them to govern themselves by their own laws and their own magistrates.[1148] Cicero himself considered this measure as the guarantee of the liberty of the provinces;[1149] for, in his speech against Piso, he reproaches him with having violated it by including free nations in his government of Macedonia.[1150] Lastly, a separate proviso regulated the responsibility and expenses of the administration, by requiring that on going out of office the governors should deliver, at the end of thirty days, an account explaining their administration and their expenses, of which three copies were to be deposited, one in the treasury (ærarium) at Rome, and the others in the two principal towns of the province.[1151] The proprætors were to remain one year, and the proconsuls two, at the head of their governments.[1152]
The generals were in the habit of burdening the people they governed with exorbitant exactions. They extorted from them crowns of gold (aurum coronarium), of considerable value, under pretence of the triumph, and obliged the countries through which they passed to bear the expenses of themselves and their attendants. Cæsar remedied these abuses, by forbidding the proconsuls to demand the crown before the triumph had been decreed,[1153] and by subjecting to the most rigorous restrictions the contributions in kind which were to be furnished.[1154] We may judge how necessary these regulations were from the fact that Cicero, whose government was justly considered an honest one, admits that he drew large sums from his province of Cilicia eight years after the passing of the law Julia.[1155]
The same law forbad all governors to leave their provinces, or to send their troops out of them to interfere in the affairs of any neighbouring State, without permission of the Senate and the people,[1156] or to extort any money from the inhabitants of the provinces.[1157]