Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/296

282 a large measure, the successor of the old democracym and he was the leading monarchist of his time and the precursor of Roman imperialism.

Caesar the Executor of Gaius Gracchus. — In a general review of Caesar's constitutional and administrative reforms it is evident that he realized to a large extent the ideas of Gaius Gracchus and his followers. He humbled the senate and made the magistracy independent, he carried farther than ever the equalization of the different classes in Italy. He relieved the debtors, distributed lands, and founded colonies in the provinces. Following the example of the democrat Sertorius, he tried to Latinize the provincials, and he endeavored in other ways to equalize the status of Italy and its dependencies.

Caesar as a Monarchist. — On the other hand, while Gaius Gracchus had been content with civil power and, like Pericles, tried to rule by virtue of his personal influence, Caesar, true to his antecedents, combined the tribunician powers of Gracchus with the dictatorial, or monarchic prerogatives of Sulla, and thus effected that union of the civil and military authority on which Roman imperialism was destined to rest.

Like a true Roman, he was so deeply imbued with the idea of the efficacy of constitutional forms, that in spite of the revolutions of three generations he believed that the people would respect law and justice, which he had so often violated, and that the soldiers whom he had employed to kill fellow citizens and to destroy the republic, would now as civilians cherish the Caesarian tyranny. Accordingly he did not establish a military monarchy, but aimed by various measures to subordinate the military to the civil authorities. Hence he did not organize a royal corps of guards, and finally dismissed even his military escort.