JTTLfUS CAESAR 33 relation to the past and the future of the ancient world. If Rome had till then carried out the work of conquest with considerable method, and upon the whole, with steadiness, she had very inadequately satisfied the need for incorporation. Her oligarchical constitution, admira- bly adapted for the first task, could not easily reconcile itself to the sec- ond. In its best days, and while Car- thage and Macedon were still formid- able, the Senate had from time to time, prudently though grudgingly, extended the privilege of citizenship to some of the subject Italian states. But the great mass of Italians had only extorted it by rebellion during the boyhood of Caesar, and outside Italy, the conquered nations were still on the footing of subject allies, tram- pled upon and fleeced for the benefit of Rome, or rather of the Roman nobles and capitalists. If the great dominion was .to be maintained in some tolerable degree of well-being for all its members, or even main- tained at all, it was absolutely neces- sary that the so-called Republican constitution, always oppressive for the prov inces, and now shamefully corrupt, should be replaced by personal government. For a complete incorporation of the subject peoples was not to be expected from the suffrages of a dominant people, to even the poorest of whom, it would, mean the cessation of highly prized privileges and immunities. The provinces would from the earliest moment of their subjection have welcomed such a change. The time was more than ripe for it when the Roman world lay at the feet of Sulla. Sulla had all the ability, self-reliance, prestige, and opportunity that were needed. But his moral nature was below the task. He had neither the insight, nor the sympathy, nor the noble ambition of Caesar, and he preferred to re- establish the senatorial oligarchy. When Sulla crushed the Marian party Caesar had just arrived at manhood. Though of an old patrician house, he had yet a family connection with the demo- cratic party, Marius having married his aunt. He himself had married a daughter of the democratic leader Cinna, and for refusing to divorce her he was proscribed by Sulla, but managed to keep in hiding till the storm was past. After the" death of the great reactionist (B.C. 78), he seized every opportunity of reviving the spirit of the popular party ; as, for instance, by publicly honoring the memory of Marius, bringing to justice murderers of the proscription, and courageously raising his single voice in the Senate against the illegal execution of Catiline's 3
