Reforms of Caesar

These evils, under which the national economy of Italy lay prostrate, were in their deepest essence irremediable, and so much of them as still admitted of remedy depended essentially for its amendment on the people and on time; for the wisest government is as little able as the more skilful physician to give freshness to the corrupt juices of the organism, or to do more in the case of the deeper-rooted evils than to prevent those accidents which obstruct the remedial power of nature in its working.  The peaceful energy of the new rule even of itself furnished such a preventive, for by its means some of the worst excrescences were done away, such as the artificial pampering of the proletariate, the impunity of crimes, the purchase of offices, and various others.  But the government could do something more than simply abstain from harm.  Caesar was not one of those over-wise people who refuse to embank the sea, because forsooth no dike can defy some sudden influx of the tide.  It is better, if a nation and its economy follow spontaneously the path prescribed by nature; but, seeing that they had got out of this path, Caesar applied all his energies to bring back by special intervention the nation to its home and family life, and to reform the national economy by law and decree.

Measures against Absentees from Italy
Measures for the Elevation of the Family

With a view to check the continued absence of the Italians from Italy and to induce the world of quality and the merchants to establish their homes in their native land, not only was the term of service for the soldiers shortened, but men of senatorial rank were altogether prohibited from taking up their abode out of Italy except when on public business, while the other Italians of marriageable age (from the twentieth to the fortieth year) were enjoined not to be absent from Italy for more than three consecutive years.  In the same spirit Caesar had already, in his first consulship on founding the colony of Capua kept specially in view fathers who had several children;(62) and now as Imperator he proposed extraordinary rewards for the fathers of numerous families, while he at the same time as supreme judge of the nation treated divorce and adultery with a rigour according to Roman ideas unparalleled.

Laws Respecting Luxury

Nor did he even think it beneath his dignity to issue a detailed law as to luxury—­which, among other points, cut down extravagance in building at least in one of its most irrational forms, that of sepulchral monuments; restricted the use of purple robes and pearls to certain times, ages, and classes, and totally prohibited it in grown-up men; fixed a maximum for the expenditure of the table; and directly forbade a number of luxurious dishes.  Such ordinances doubtless were not new; but it was a new thing that the “master of morals” seriously insisted on their observance, superintended the provision-markets