Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/283

Rh was also, it seems, to enjoy the tribunician inviolability everywhere, which the tribunes possessed only within the mile limit (p. 30). According to the precedent of Servius Tullius and Sulla he was empowered to advance the sacred city limit (pomerium, pp. 24-25). He was named father of his country, and his image was to be put on the obverse of the coins struck by the senate. This practice was in ancient times a universal badge of monarchy.

In 45 he had been authorized to wear at all times a laurel wreath and the red shoes of the Alban kings; in 44 he was empowered to wear the complete costume of the old kings, his statue was to be placed with those of the seven kings, and all his future measures were to be valid.

Elections for 44 and 43. — Caesar and Mark Antony were chosen consuls for 44. Contrary to the constitution, Caesar caused the sixteen praetors to be elected under the presidency of a praetor, and he made M. Junius Brutus urban praetor, and G. Cassius Longinus foreign praetor (praetor peregrinus). In case no son should be born to him, he had adopted his grandnephew Gaius Octavius, and he intended to make him master of horse for the latter part of 44. As he expected to be absent in the East for an indefinite period, all the magistrates for 43 and the consuls and tribunes for 42 were chosen early in 44.

II. The Republican Magistrates, Senate, and Assemblies in the New Monarchy.

Degradation of the Republican Magistrates. — Caesar, with his enormous powers, labored consistently to degrade the republican magistrates, senate, and assemblies. He seems to have contemplated the abolition of consuls, censors, praetors, curule aediles, and quaestors, leaving only the plebeian magistrates. He would thus have reintroduced the