the municipal towns.[1] Help might also have been looked for from a reformed assembly, one that had been made representative of the whole Italian people. The allies nearly worked out this means of salvation for themselves,[2] but the magnitude of Rome was itself a stumbling-block to the solution of the problem on federal lines. We can hardly blame the thinkers of the day for not seeing the possibility of a representative assembly of a national kind; for the Italian, like the Greek mind, though familiar enough with the idea of the representation of cities, had not advanced to the conception of the representation of individuals through electoral districts.
The reason why the creation of an Italian senate or an Italian assembly might have warded off the monarchy is that such a body might have commanded respect even from the army of the provinces. This correspondence in sentiment might, it is true, have required that the army should remain mainly Italian; and Augustus' attempt to give Italy something of a representative character may have been abandoned through fear of a conflict between an army which was becoming provincial in personnel and an Italian proletariate, when the choice of a Princeps had to be decided. Yet, although circumstances were hostile to a fusion of Italy and the provinces, and the Principate was not to be Italian, one should not forget that it had something of a popular character. The Roman citizens of the legions who made the Princeps[3] were of a better type than the plebs urbana of Rome; for not only was the freedman element eliminated, but discipline had with them replaced demoralisation, their life was lived under healthier influences, and although they were often moved to their selection by a mere esprit de corps, they generally succeeded in placing a very capable man on the throne.
Caesar was the first sole ruler of Rome; and we might be inclined to imagine that the powers which he enjoyed were consciously assumed merely as those of a provisional government, were there not signs that towards the close of his life he was satisfied with the solution which he had adopted. The early dictatorships of 49 and 48 B.C., the second and longer of which was only for the term of a year,[4] were merely efforts for tiding
