In legislation, the Senate was totally ignored; Cæsar acted directly with the assembly of the people, and passed such laws as he pleased. Yet it must be said that he passed none that were not good enough in themselves, but they were laws which in fact meant nothing. There was no public character to sustain them, and consequently they were made only to be broken. There was a law for the punishment of adultery, when not only Cæsar, but nine tenths of the people were ready to commit adultery, at the first opportunity. There were laws for the protection of citizens against violence, when every citizen was ready to commit violence at a moment's notice. There were laws to punish judges who allowed themselves to be bribed, when almost every man in Rome was ready both to offer and to receive bribes. There were laws against defrauding the revenue, when almost every person only desired an opportunity to do that very thing. There were laws against bribery at elections, when every soul in Rome from Cæsar to the lowest one of the rabble that shouted in the Forum, was ready to bribe or to be bribed. "Morality and family life were treated as antiquated things among all ranks of society. To be poor was not merely the sorest disgrace and the worst crime, but the only disgrace and the only crime: for money the statesman sold the State, and the burgess sold his freedom; the post of the officer and the vote of the juryman were to be had for money; for money the lady of quality surrendered her person, as well as the common courtesan; falsifying of documents, and perjuries had become so common that in a popular poet of this age an oath is called 'the plaster for debts.' Men had forgotten what honesty was; a person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man, but as a personal foe. The criminal statistics of all times and countries will hardly furnish a parallel to the dreadful picture of crimesso varied, so horrible, and so unnatural."- Mommsen. In this condition of affairs such laws were nothing more nor less than a legal farce.

3

3"History of Rome," book v, chap. xi, par. 72.

Cæsar's consulship was about to expire, and as above stated, when he was elected the Senate had named as his "province" the department of roads and forests instead of a province. As this was intended at the first to be only a slur upon Cæsar, and as both he and the people fully understood it, the people set aside this appointment, and voted to Cæsar for five years the command of Illyria, and Gaul within the Alps; but as there were some fears from the barbarians of Gaul beyond the Alps, a proposition was introduced to extend his province to include that. Pompey and Crassus heartily assented, and the Senate seeing that it would be voted to him any way by the assembly, made a virtue of necessity, and bestowed this itself. Pompey now married Cæsar's daughter Julia, which more firmly cemented the alliance while Cæsar should be absent.

The triumvirate had been formed to continue for five years. As the term drew to a close, the triumvirate was renewed for five years more. Pompey and Crassus were made consuls for the year 55 B. c., with the understanding that while in office they should extend Cæsar's command in Gaul for five years longer after the expiration of the first five; and that at the expiration of their consulate, Pompey should have Spain as his province, and Crassus should have Syria.

The first thing to be done by the new consuls was to secure the assembly's indorsement of the triumvirs' arrangement of the provinces. This also the senators opposed by every means to the very last. Cato raved as usual, and when at the expiration of his allotted time he refused to sit down, he was dragged away by an officer, and the meeting adjourned. The next day the assembly came together again. When the senatorial party saw that the action of the triumvirs was to be ratified in spite of them, Cato and Atticus, a tribune, were lifted to men's shoulders, and the tribune cried. out, as Bibulus on the like occasion formerly, that the skies were unfavorable, and the proceedings illegal. Other trib