over a crisis; and the same may perhaps be said of a later tenure of this office, which was conferred on him for ten years in 46 B.C.[1] But in the last year of his life (44 B.C.) he entered on a perpetual dictatorship,[2] a revival of the Roman monarchy both in reality and in name. It is true that the title rex was not assumed, out of deference to the feelings of the masses who saw in it merely a synonym of oriental despotism; and for the same reason the diadem was declined.[3] But every educated Roman knew that the Roman monarchy had been nothing else than the unlimited imperium, and many may have believed that dictator or "master of the people" was the most significant of the titles of the king. It was, therefore, a regnum under which Rome was living,[4] and there was no concealment of its military character, for the title imperator was now borne by the regent within the walls.[5] This designation was a mere symbol of military command and the fullest jurisdiction; it was no description of a basis actual or future on which Caesar's power could rest, for the unqualified imperium had no existence to the Roman mind, and, if it was to be unlimited, it must be either regal or dictatorial.
With respect to the other powers which Caesar assumed, the praefectura morum, given for three years in 45 B.C.,[6] has the appearance of a special conferment for a given purpose; but the tribunicia potestas was granted early in his period of rule (48 B.C.) and given for life; it must have been regarded even now as the ideal complement of a lasting imperium, valuable for the inviolability it conferred and for the "civil" and popular colouring which it gave its holder. To realise the nature of Caesar's authority by an inspection of the bases of his power needed some reflection; but none was wanted to mark the external symbols of royalty—the triumphal robe, the portrait-head on coins, the statue placed amongst those of the seven kings in the Capitol. These were the symbols that were taken as tests of
- ↑ Dio Cass. xliii. 14 and 33. It has been interpreted as a dictatorship rei publicae constituendae causa.
- ↑ C.I.L. i. p. 452.
- ↑ Plut. Caes. 61; Ant. 12; Cic. Phil. ii. 34, 85.
- ↑ Cf. Cic. ad Fam. xi. 27, 8 "si Caesar rex fuerit . . . quod mihi quidem videtur."
- ↑ Dio Cass. xliii. 44. Caesar probably used it after his name and not as a praenomen, as stated by Suetonius (Caes. 76). It became with him a kind of cognomen, and Augustus, who inherited it, changed its position in the order of his names.
- ↑ Dio Cass. xliii. 14.
