model,(71) first introduced in the Roman empire by Lucius Lucullus for Asia Minor and retained there by his better successors; soon afterwards they were transferred to other provinces by edicts of the governors, and ultimately at least part of them was provided with the force of law in all provinces by a decree of the Roman senate of 704.  The fact that these Lucullan enactments afterwards appear in all their compass as imperial law and have thus become the basis of the Roman and indeed of modern legislation as to interest, may also perhaps be traced back to an ordinance of Caesar.

Elevation of Agriculture

Hand in hand with these efforts to guard against the ascendency of capital went the endeavours to bring back agriculture to the path which was most advantageous for the commonwealth.  For this purpose the improvement of the administration of justice and of police was very essential.  While hitherto nobody in Italy had been sure of his life and of his moveable or immoveable property, while Roman condottieri for instance, at the intervals when their gangs were not helping to manage the politics of the capital, applied themselves to robbery in the forests of Etruria or rounded off the country estates of their paymasters by fresh acquisitions, this sort of club-law was now at an end; and in particular the agricultural population of all classes must have felt the beneficial effects of the change.  The plans of Caesar for great works also, which were not at all limited to the capital, were intended to tell in this respect; the construction, for instance, of a convenient high-road from Rome through the passesof the Apennines to the Adriatic was designed to stimulate the internal traffic of Italy, and the lowering the level of the Fucine lake to benefit the Marsian farmers.  But Caesar also sought by more direct measures to influence the state of Italian husbandry.  The Italian graziers were required to take at least a third of their herdsmen from freeborn adults, whereby brigandage was checked and at the same time a source of gain was opened to the free proletariate.

Distribution of Land

In the agrarian question Caesar, who already in his first consulship had been in a position to regulate it,(72) more judicious than Tiberius Gracchus, did not seek to restore the farmer-system at any price, even at that of a revolution—­concealed under juristic clauses—­directed against property; by him on the contrary, as by every other genuine statesman, the security of that which is property or is at any rate regarded by the public as property was esteemed as the first and most inviolable of all political maxims, and it was only within the limits assigned by this maxim that he sought to accomplish the elevation of the Italian small holdings, which also appeared to him as a vital question for the nation.  Even as it was, there was much still left for him in this respect to do.  Every private right, whether it was called property or entitled heritable possession,