pamphlet against Caesar’s father-in-law.  But both these feeble signs of opposition by the majority of the senate and the ineffectual resistance of the minority show only the more clearly, that the government had now passed from the senate to the regents as it formerly passed from the burgesses to the senate; and that the senate was already not much more than a monarchical council of state employed also to absorb the anti-monarchical elements.  “No man,” the adherents of the fallen government complained, “is of the slightest account except the three; the regents are all-powerful, and they take care that no one shall remain in doubt about it; the whole senate is virtually transformed and obeys the dictators; our generation will not live to see a change of things.”  They were living in fact no longer under the republic, but under monarchy.

Continued Oppositon at the Elections

But if the guidance of the state was at the absolute disposal of the regents, there remained still a political domain separated in some measure from the government proper, which it was more easy to defend and more difficult to conquer; the field of the ordinary elections of magistrates, and that of the jury-courts.  That the latter do not fall directly under politics, but everywhere, and above all in Rome, come partly under the control of the spirit dominating state-affairs, is of itself clear.  The elections of magistrates certainly belonged by right to the government proper of the state; but, as at this period the state was administered substantially by extraordinary magistrates or by men wholly without title, and even the supreme ordinary magistrates, if they belonged to the anti-monarchical party, were not able in any tangible way to influence the state-machinery, the ordinary magistrates sank more and more into mere puppets—­as, in fact, even those of them who were most disposed to opposition described themselves frankly and with entire justice as powerless ciphers—­and their elections therefore sank into mere demonstrations.  Thus, after the opposition had already been wholly dislodged from the proper field of battle, hostilities might nevertheless be continued in the field of elections and of processes.  The regents spared no pains to remain victors also in this field.  As to the elections, they had already at Luca settled between themselves the lists of candidates for the next years, and they left no means untried to carry the candidates agreed upon there.  They expended their gold primarily for the purpose of influencing the elections.  A great number of soldiers were dismissed annually on furlough from the armies of Caesar and Pompeius to take part in the voting at Rome.  Caesar was wont himself to guide, and watch over, the election movements from as near a point as possible of Upper Italy.  Yet the object was but very imperfectly attained.  For 699 no doubt Pompeius and Crassus were elected consuls, agreeably to the convention of