Page:The Letters of Cicero Shuckburg III.pdf/23

 temporary suspension of the magisterial authority. He had struck at the very root of the constitution&#8212;-the right of the people to elect magistrates, and the traditional (though not legal) right of the senate to control them. Candidates were indeed still elected, but they were those formally recommended by himself. Laws were still passed, but a crowd of his veterans&#8212;-whose property depended on his word&#8212;-could and did carry every measure which he wished. The senate still voted the equipment of the provincial governors, but these governors were no longer assigned by the senate or by the sortitio over which the senate presided, but were directly nominated by Cæsar and confirmed by a lex, which was passed as a matter of course. The excellence of Cæsar's laws&#8212;-which he elsewhere acknowledges -&#8212;did not compensate for the unconstitutional manner in which they were carried.

Cæsar too no doubt made certain mistakes. He has been often called a consummate judge of men. If it was so, it is only another proof of the truth of Cicero's words that a conqueror in a civil war is much at the mercy of those who helped to win his victory: for his choice of agents was not happy. Neither Cassius nor Trebonius, whom he sent to Spain, was successful there. Of those he selected as his second in command or masters of the horse&#8212;-Antony no doubt was a man of energy and courage, but shewed neither wisdom nor ability as a statesman, while Lepidus lived to prove the contemptible weakness of his character. Perhaps his own commanding personality choked off men of ability. But the fact remains that a large number of men of energy who had served him turned against him, while those who remained faithful to him were men of second-rate abilities. He was probably unwise to undertake the Getic and Parthian wars. His presence was needed to maintain order in Italy. He had been engaged for fifteen years in almost incessant military labours. No man could hope to be at his best at the end of such fatigues; and we gather from expressions in Cicero's speech pro Marcello that he