of the patriciate and the borrowing of an amended Egyptian[1] Calendar to sumptuary laws and plans for roads and drainage works. Cæsar, as Dictator, undid two pieces of mischief which had been the work of his creature Clodius, by dissolving the "collegia" or street-guilds (see p. 230) and by restricting the distribution of corn. The enlargement of the boundary of Italy by the grant of the Roman franchise to the inhabitants of the country between the river Po and the Alps was a necessary consequence of Cæsar's victory. These "Transpadanes" had been his warm supporters, and he had always maintained that they were already by right Roman citizens.[2] Outside the natural limits of Italy, Cæsar likewise made certain amplifications both of the Roman and of the Latin franchise; the most important was the grant of Latin rights to Sicily. He extended to the province of Asia a wise system, which had long ruled in Spain, by which the subject communities collected their own taxes, and paid out of them the tribute due to Rome; and he revived an excellent project of Caius Gracchus by founding Roman colonies at Carthage and at Corinth.
- ↑ The principle of the Julian Year (i.e., 365 days with an extra day added every fourth year) is to be found in a bilingual inscription of 238 B.C. (the decree of Canopus) now in the Museum of Cairo. The distinguished mathematicians and astronomers whom Cæsar consulted (Plutarch, Cæs., 59) perhaps did not think it necessary to inform him that the work had been done two centuries before.
- ↑ It is difficult to say on what the claim was founded, but that it must have been very strong is proved by the admission of so rigid an aristocrat as the elder Curio. Cicero informs us (De Off., iii., 22, 88) that Curio used to say: "The claim of the Transpadanes has right on its side, but expediency forbids, and that is enough."
