A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

CAESAR.

CAESAR. 553

the games of the circus and the amphitheatre been
celebrated with such splendour; for Caesar well
knew the temper of the Roman populace, and that
they would be willing enough to surrender their
so-called liberties if they were well fed and amused.
Caesar next appears in the character of a legislator. He now proceeded to correct the various
evils which had crept into the state, and to obtain
the enactment of several laws suitable to the altered condition of the commonwealth. He attempted
by severe sumptuary laws to restrain the extravagance which pervaded all classes of society. In
order to prevent any other general from following his own career, he obtained a law by
which no one was to be allowed to hold a praetorian province for longer than one year, or a consular
for more than two years.' But the most important
of his changes this year (B. c. 46) was the reformation of the calendar, which was a real benefit to
his country and the civilized world, and which he
accomplished in his character as pontifex maximus,
with the assistance of Sosigenes, the Alexandrine mathematician, and the scribe M. Flavins, though he
himself also was well acquainted with astronomy.
The regulation of the Roman calendar had always
been entrusted to the college of pontiffs, who had
been accustomed to lengthen or shorten the year at
their pleasure for political purposes; and the confusion had at length become so great, that the Roman
year was three months in advance of the real time.
To remedy this serious evil, Caesar added 90 days
to this year, and thus made the whole year consist
of 445 days; and he guarded against a repetition
of similar errors for the future by adapting the year
to the sun's course. (Dict. of Ant. s.v. Calendarium.)
In the midst of these labours, Caesar was interrupted by intelligence of a formidable insurrection
which had broken out in Spain, where the remains of
the Pompeian party had again collected a large
army under the command of Pompey's sons, Cneius
and Sextus. Having been previously designated
consul and dictator for the following year, Caesar
set out for Spain at the latter end of B. c. 46.
With his usual activity, he arrived at Obulco near
Corduba in twenty-seven days from the time of
his leaving Rome. He found the enemy able to
offer stronger opposition than he had anticipated;
but he brought the war to a close by the battle of
Munda, on the 17th of March, B. c. 45, in which
he entirely defeated the enemy. It was, however,
a hard-fought battle: Caesar's troops were at first
driven back, and were only rallied again by their
general's exposing his own person, like a common
soldier, in the front line of the battle. Cn. Pompeius was killed shortly afterwards, but Sextus
made good his escape. The settlement of the
affairs in Spain detained Caesar in the province
some months longer, and he consequently did not
reach Rome till September. He entered the city
at the beginning of October in triumph on account
of his victories in Spain, although the victory had
been gained over Roman citizens, and he also allowed triumphs to his legates Fabius Maximus and
Q. Pedius. The senate received him with the most
servile flattery. They had in his absence voted a
public thanksgiving of fifty days on account of his
victory in Spain, and various other honorary decrees, and they now vied. with each other in paying
him every species of adulation and homage. He
was to wear, on all public occasions, the triumphal
robe; he was to receive the title of " Father of his

country;" statues of him were to be placed in all
the temples; his portrait was to be struck on coins;
the month of Quintilis was to receive the name of
Julius in his honour, and he was to be raised to a
rank among the gods. But there were still more
important decrees than these, which were intended
to legalise his power and confer upon him the whole
government of the Roman world. He received the
title of imperator for life; he was nominated consul
for the next ten years, and both dictator and praefectus morum for life; his person was declared
sacred; a guard of senators and knights was appointed to protect him, and the whole senate took
an oath to watch over his safety.
If we now look at the way in which Caesar exerted his sovereign power, it cannot be denied that
he used it in the main for the good of his country.
He still pursued his former merciful course: no
proscriptions or executions took place; and he began
to revolve vast schemes for the benefit of the Roman world. He was at the same time obliged to
reward his followers, and for that reason he greatly
increased the number of senators, augmented the
number of public magistrates, so that there were to
be sixteen praetors, forty quaestors, and six aediles,
and he added new members to the priestly colleges.
Among his other plans of internal improvement, he
proposed to frame a digest of all the Roman laws,
to establish public libraries, to drain the Pomptine
marshes, to enlarge the harbour of Ostia, and to
dig a canal through the isthmus of Corinth. To
protect the boundaries of the Roman empire, he
meditated expeditions against the Parthians and
the barbarous tribes on the Danube, and had already
begun to make preparations for his departure to
the East. In the midst of these vast projects he
entered upon the last year of his life, B. c. 44, and
his fifth consulship and dictatorship. He had
made M. Antony his colleague in the consulship,
and M. Lepidus the master of the horse. Caesar
had for some time past resolved to preserve the
supreme power in his family; and, as he had no
legitimate children, had fixed upon his greatnephew Octavius (afterwards the emperor Augustus)
as his successor. Possessing royal power, he now
wished to obtain the title of king, which he might
hand down to his successor on the throne, and
accordingly got his colleague Antony to offer him
the diadem in public on the festival of the Lupercalia (the 15th of February); but, seeing that
the proposition was not favourably received by
the people, he resolved to decline it for the present. Caesar's wish for the title of king must
not be regarded as merely a desire to obtain an
empty honour, the reality of which he already possessed. Had he obtained it, and been able to bequeath it to his successor, he would have saved the
state from many of the evils which subsequently
arose from the anomalous constitution of the Roman empire as it was finally established by Augustus. The state would then have become an
hereditary and not an elective monarchy, and
would not have fallen into the hands of an insolent
and rapacious soldiery.
Meantime, the conspiracy against Caesar's life
had been already formed as early as the beginning of the year. It had been set afoot by
Cassius, a personal enemy of Caesar's, and there
were more than sixty persons privy to it. Personal hatred alone seems to have been the motive
of Cassius, and probably of several others. Many