interval between the aedileship and praetorship—­in reality he was aedile in 675, probably praetor in 677, consul in 680.  That the case of Pompeius was a totally different one is obvious; but even as to Pompeius, it is on several occasions expressly stated (Cicero, de Imp.  Pomp, ax, 62; Appian, iii. 88) that the senate released him from the laws as to age.  That this should have been done with Pompeius, who had solicited the consulship as a commander-in-chief crowned with victory and a triumphator, at the head of an army and after his coalition with Crassus also of a powerful party, we can readily conceive.  But it would be in the highest degree surprising, if the same thing should have been done with Caesar on his candidature for the minor magistracies, when he was of little more importance than other political beginners; and it would be, if possible, more surprising still, that, while there is mention of that—­in itself readily understood—­exception, there should be no notice of this more than strange deviation, however naturally such notices would have suggested themselves, especially with reference to Octavianus consul at 21 (comp., e. g., Appian, iii. 88).  When from these irrelevant examples the inference is drawn, “that the law was little observed in Rome, where distinguished men were concerned,” anything more erroneous than this sentence was never uttered regarding Rome and the Romans.  The greatness of the Roman commonwealth, and not less that of its great generals and statesmen, depends above all things on the fact that the law held good in their case also.

15.  IV.  IX.  Spain

16.  At least the outline of these organizations must be assigned to the years 674, 675, 676, although the execution of them doubtless belonged, in great part, only to the subsequent years.

17 IV.  IX.  The Provinces

18.  The following narrative rests substantially on the account of Licinianus, which, fragmentary as it is at this very point, still gives important information as to the insurrection of Lepidus.

19.  Under the year 676 Licinianus states (p. 23, Pertz; p. 42, Bonn); [Lepidus?] -[le]gem frumentari[am] nullo resistente l[argi]tus est, ut annon[ae] quinque modi popu[lo da]rentur-.  According to this account, therefore, the law of the consuls of 681 Marcus Terentius Lucullus and Gaius Cassius Varus, which Cicero mentions (in Verr. iii. 70, 136; v. 21, 52), and to which also Sallust refers (Hist. iii. 61, 19 Dietsch), did not first reestablish the five -modii-, but only secured the largesses of grain by regulating the purchases of Sicilian corn, and perhaps made various alterations of detail.  That the Sempronian law (iv.  III.  Alterations on the Constitution By Gaius Gracchus) allowed every burgess domiciled in Rome to share in the largesses of grain, is certain.  But the later distribution of grain was not so extensive as this, for, seeing that the monthly corn of the Roman burgesses amounted to little more than 33,000