Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/294

280 voluntary exile before a sentence was passed, and enjoined complete or partial confiscation of the property of a defendant who was sentenced to banishment. He intended also to codify the civil law, but this important work was not accomplished until more than six centuries later.

Personal Jurisdiction of Caesar. — Caesar claimed, and exercised, the right to render final judgment in capital and civil cases, and thus reëstablished, to a certain extent, the old royal jurisdiction. He tried, for example, some candidates accused of electoral bribery, although such cases properly belonged to the jurisdiction of a praetor; and he sat in judgment on King Deiotarus, whose cause pertained to the jurisdiction of the senate.

Caesar and the republican tribunals had apparently coördinate jurisdiction, but in case of conflict the latter gave way. While he did not have the authority to cancel the verdict of jurymen, he probably reviewed the decisions of all inferior magistrates, and thus in some measure established the exceedingly important appellate jurisdiction of the Roman emperors.

These modifications of law and procedure did not remedy the fundamental evils of the judicial administration, the influence of politics and the rivalry of classes; but conditions were different when all were subject to one master, and justice might be expected to prevail over partisanship.

The Census. — As the governor of the empire, Caesar needed reliable information concerning imperial resources in men and money. He had therefore provided in his municipal law that the census of citizens should not as heretofore be taken only in Rome, but in every Roman municipality (p. 276). He is also said to have planned measuring and surveying the whole empire. In these projects he did not succeed. The census of Octavian in 29 B.C. was the first one since 70.