By this conversion of the political privilege into a provision for the poor, a principle remarkable in a moral as well as in a historical point of view came for the first time into living operation. Civil society but slowly and gradually works its way to a perception of the interdependence of interests; in earlier antiquity the state doubtless protected its members from the public enemy and the murderer, but it was not bound to protect the totally helpless fellow-citizen from the worse enemy, want, by affording the needful means of subsistence. It was the Attic civilization which first developed, in the Solonian and post-Solonian legislation, the principle that it is the duty of the community to provide for its invalids and indeed for its poor generally and it was Caesar that first developed what in the restricted compass of Attic life had remained a municipal matter into an organic institution of state, and transformed an arrangement, which was a burden and a disgrace for the commonwealth, into the first of those institutions--in modern times as countless as they are beneficial--where the infinite depth of human compassion contends with the infinite depth of human misery.
The Budget Of Income
In addition to these fundamental reforms a thorough revision of the income and expenditure took place. The ordinary sources of income were everywhere regulated and fixed. Exemption from taxation was conferred on not a few communities and even on whole districts, whether indirectly by the bestowal of the Roman or Latin franchise, or directly by special privilege; it was obtained e. g. by all the Sicilian communities(41) in the former, by the town of Ilion in the latter way. Still greater was the number of those whose proportion of tribute was lowered; the communities in Further Spain, for instance, already after Caesar's governorship had on his suggestion a reduction of tribute granted to them by the senate, and now the most oppressed province of Asia had not only the levying of its direct taxes facilitated, but also a third of them wholly remitted. The newly-added taxes, such as those of the communities subdued in Illyria and above all of the Gallic communities--which latter together paid annually 40,000,000 sesterces (400,000 pounds)-- were fixed throughout on a low scale. It is true on the other hand that various towns such as Little Leptis in Africa, Sulci in Sardinia, and several Spanish communities, had their tribute raised by way of penalty for their conduct during the last war. The very lucrative Italian harbour-tolls abolished in the recent times of anarchy were re-established all the more readily, that this tax fell essentially on luxuries imported from the east. To these new or revived sources of ordinary income were added the sums which accrued by extraordinary means, especially in consequence of the civil war, to the victor--the booty collected in Gaul; the stock of cash in the capital; the treasures taken from the Italian and Spanish temples; the sums raised in the shape of forced loan, compulsory present, or fine, from the dependent communities and dynasts, and the pecuniary penalties imposed in a similar way by judicial sentence, or simply by sending an order to pay, on individual wealthy Romans; and above all things the proceeds from the estate of defeated opponents. How productive these sources of income were, we may learn from the fact, that the fine of the African capitalists who sat in the opposition-senate alone amounted to 100,000,000 sesterces (1,000,000 pounds) and the price paid by the purchasers of the property of Pompeius to 70,000,000 sesterces (700,000 pounds). This course was necessary, because the power of the beaten nobility rested in great measure on their colossal wealth and could only be effectually broken by imposing on them the defrayment of the costs of the war. But the odium of the confiscations was in some measure mitigated by the fact that Caesar directed their proceeds solely to the benefit of the state, and, instead of overlooking after the manner of Sulla any act of fraud in his favourites, exacted the purchase-money with rigour even from his most faithful adherents, e. g. from Marcus Antonius.
The Budget Of Expenditure
In the expenditure a diminution was in the first place obtained by the considerable restriction of the largesses of grain. The distribution of corn to the poor of the capital which was retained, as well as the kindred supply of oil newly introduced by Caesar for the Roman baths, were at least in great part charged once for all on the contributions in kind from Sardinia and especially from Africa, and were thereby wholly or for the most part kept separate from the exchequer. On the other hand the regular expenditure for the military system was increased partly by the augmentation of the standing army, partly by the raising of the pay of the legionary from 480 sesterces (5 pounds) to 900 (9 pounds) annually. Both steps were in fact indispensable. There was a total want of any real defence for the frontiers, and an indispensable preliminary to it was a considerable increase of the army. The doubling of the pay was doubtless employed by Caesar to attach his soldiers firmly to him,(42) but was not introduced as a permanent innovation on that account. The former pay of 1 1/3 sesterces (3 1/4 pence) per day had been fixed in very ancient times, when money had an altogether different value from that which it had in the Rome of Caesar's day; it could only have been retained down to a period when the common day-labourer in the capital earned by the labour of his hands daily on an average 3 sesterces (7 1/2 pence), because in those times the soldier entered the army not for the sake of the pay, but chiefly for the sake of the--in great measure illicit-- perquisites of military service. The first condition in order to a serious reform in the military system, and to the getting rid of those irregular gains of the soldier which formed a burden mostly on the provincials, was an increase suitable to the times in the regular pay; and the fixing of it at 2 1/2 sesterces (6 1/2 pence) may be regarded as an equitable step, while the great burden thereby imposed on the treasury was a necessary, and in its consequences a beneficial, course.