The law by similar provisions diminished the abuse of free legations (legationes liberæ). This was the name given to the missions of senators, who, travelling into the provinces on their own affairs, obtained by an abuse the title of envoy of the Roman people, to which they had no right, in order to be defrayed the expenses and costs of travelling. These missions, which were for an indefinite time, were the subject of incessant[1158] complaints. Cicero had limited them to a year: Cæsar prescribed a still narrower limit, but its exact length is unknown.[1159]
As a supplement to the preceding measures he brought in a law (De pecuniis repetundis), the provisions of which have often been confounded with those of the law De provinciis ordinandis. Cicero boasts of its perfection[1160] and justice. It contained a great number of sections. In a letter from Cœlius to Cicero, the 101st chapter of the law is referred to. Its object was to meet all cases of peculation, out of Italy as well as in Rome. Persons who had been wronged could demand restitution before a legal tribunal of the sums unjustly collected.[1161] Though the principal provisions of it were borrowed from the law of Sylla on the same subject, the penalty was more severe and the proceedings more expeditious. For instance, as the rich contrived, by going into voluntary exile before the verdict, to elude the punishment, it was provided that in that case their goods should be confiscated, in part or wholly, according to the nature of the crime.[1162] If the fortune of the defendant was not sufficient for the repayment of the money claimed, all those who had profited by the embezzlement were sought out and jointly condemned.[1163] Finally, corruption was attacked in all its forms,[1164] and the law went so far as to watch over the honesty of business transactions. One article deserves special remark, that which forbad a public work to be accepted as completed if it were not absolutely finished. Cæsar had doubtless in mind the process which he had unsuccessfully instituted against Catulus for his failure to complete the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.
We may for the most part consider as Cæsar’s laws those which were passed at his instigation, whether by the tribune P. Vatinius, or the prætor Q. Fufius Calenus.[1165]
One of the laws of the former authorised the accuser in a suit, as well as the accused, to challenge for once all the judges: down to this time they had only been permitted to challenge a certain number.[1166] Its object was to give to all the same guarantee which Sylla had reserved exclusively to the senators, since for the knights and plebeians he limited the challenge to three.[1167] Vatinius had also conferred on five thousand colonists, established at Como (Novum Comum), the rights of a Roman city. This measure[1168] flattered the pride of Pompey, whose father, Pompeius Strabo, had rebuilt the town of Comum; and it offered to other colonists the hope of obtaining the qualification of Roman citizens, which Cæsar subsequently granted to them.[1169]
Another devoted partisan of the consul, the prætor Q. Fufius Calenus,[1170] proposed a law which in judicial deliberations laid the responsibility upon each of the three orders of which the tribunal was composed: the senators, the knights, and the tribunes of the treasury. Instead of pronouncing a collective judgment, they were called upon to express their opinion separately. Dio Cassius explains the law in these terms: “Seeing that in a process all the votes were mixed together, and that each order took to itself the credit of the good decisions, and threw the bad ones to the account of the others, Calenus had a law made that the different orders should vote independently, in order to know thus, not the opinion of individuals, since the vote was secret, but that of each order.”[1171]
All the laws of Cæsar were styled “Julian laws;” they received the sanction of the Senate, and were adopted without opposition,[1172] and even Cato himself did not oppose them; but when he became prætor, and found himself obliged to put them into execution, he was little-minded enough to object to call them by their name.[1173]
We may be convinced by the above facts, that, during his first consulship, Cæsar was animated by a single motive, the public interest. His ruling thought was to remedy the evils which afflicted the country. His acts, which several historians have impeached as subversive and inspired by boundless ambition, we find, on an attentive examination, to be the result of a wise policy, and the carrying out of a well-known plan, proclaimed formerly by the Gracchi, and recently by Pompey himself. Like the Gracchi, Cæsar desired a distribution of the public domain, the reform of justice, the relief of the provinces, and the extension of the rights of city; like them, he had protected the knightly order, so that he might oppose it to the formidable resistance of the Senate; but he, more fortunate, accomplished that which the Gracchi had been unable to realise. Plutarch, in the life of Crassus,[1174] pronounces a eulogium on the wisdom of his government, although an intemperate judgment had led that writer, elsewhere, to compare his conduct to that of a factious tribune.[1175]
Following the taste of the age, and especially as a means of popularity, Cæsar gave splendid games, shows, and gladiatorial combats, borrowing from Pompey and Atticus considerable sums to meet his love of display, his profusion, and his largesses.[1176] Suetonius, ever ready to record, without distinction, the reports, true and false, current at the time, relates that Cæsar had taken from the treasury three thousand pounds of gold, for which he substituted gilt metal; but his high character is sufficient to refute this calumny. Cicero, who had not, at this time, any reason to spare him, makes no mention of it in his letters, where his ill-humour displays itself, nor in his speech against Vatinius, one of Cæsar’s devoted friends. On the other hand, Pliny[1177] mentions a similar fact which happened during Pompey’s consulate.
Cæsar receives the Government of the Gauls.
IV. Cæsar did not confine his ambition to discharging the functions of a consul and legislator: he desired to obtain a command worthy of the elevation of his genius, to extend the frontiers of the Republic, and to preserve them from the invasion of their most powerful enemies. It will be remembered that at the time of the election of the consuls, the Senate had conferred upon them the superintendence of the woods and public roads. He had, therefore, slender grounds to expect a return of friendly feeling on the part of that assembly, and, if the distribution of governments was vested in them, history offered examples of provinces given by vote of the people. Numidia was assigned to Marius on the proposal of the tribune L. Manlius; and L. Lucullus, having received Cisalpine Gaul from the Senate, obtained Cilicia from the people.[1178] It was thus that the command of Asia had been conferred upon Pompey. Strong in these precedents, Vatinius proposed to the people to confer upon Cæsar, for five years, the command of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria, with three legions.[1179] Pompey supported this proposal with all his influence. The friends of Crassus,[1180] Claudius[1181] and L. Piso, gave their votes in favour of this law.