Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/285

Rh He apparently left the public treasury in charge of the urban quaestors, who were inexperienced young men serving only one year. But in imperial times praetors, or special officials of praetorian rank, had charge of it.

In consequence of this increase in number, and of the new conditions, the magistrates lost more and more their political character, and were practically degraded to administrative officials.

Tribunician Opposition. — In spite of his dictatorial powers Caesar could not prevent tribunician opposition. Two of the tribunes in 44 took away a diadem placed on his statue on the rostra, and in other ways opposed the endeavor to make him king. He claimed they wished to excite the people against him, and, following the precedent of Tiberius Gracchus, he caused them to be expelled from the tribunician college by a plebiscite, arbitrarily banished them, and struck their names off the senatorial roll.

Membership of the Senate. — The magistrates had been hum- bled both in dignity and power, but the senate suffered still more. As numerous senators had joined Pompeius, and many had fallen in the war, the body which Caesar convened in 47, after his return from Asia, was simply a Rump senate. He had already admitted some of his followers to the equestrian class, and some centurions to the senate. During subsequent revisions of the senatorial roll he allowed a number of Pompeians to reënter the senate, and he admitted private soldiers and the sons of freedmen. Among these were many Gauls who had secured Roman citizenship. He did not wish the senate to represent the aristocracy exclusively, but all elements in the state, just as the old kings had admitted persons that were not citizens. In accordance with an apparently democratic idea, he increased the number of senators to nine hundred.