lling a strong force, and introducing into the senate laws for
favoring the poor, under which he proposed to distribute land among them
and the best land in Italy, that about[4] Capua which at the present time
was let on public account.[5] He proposed to distribute this land among
heads of families who had three children, by which measure he could gain
the good will of a large multitude, for the number of those who had three
children was 20,000. This proposal met with opposition from many of the
senators, and Caesar, pretending to be much vexed at their unfair behavior,
left the house and never called the senate together again during the
remainder of his consulship, but addressed the people from the rostra. He,
in the presence of the assembly, asked the opinion of Pompeius and Crassus,
both of them approving, and the people came to vote on them (the bills),
with concealed daggers. Now as the senate[6] was not convened, for one
consul could not summon the senate without the consent of the other consul,
the senators used to meet at the house of Bibulus, but they could make no
real opposition to Caesar's power.... Now Caesar secured the enactment of the
laws, and bound the people by an oath to the perpetual observance of them,
and he required the same oath from the senate. As many of the senators
opposed him, and among them Cato, Caesar proposed death as a penalty for not
taking the oath and the assembly ratified this proposal. Upon this all took
the oath immediately because of fear, and the tribunes also took it, for
there was no longer any use in making opposition after the proposal was
ratified."

This agrarian law did not affect the existing rights of property and
heritable possession. It destined for distribution only the Italian domain
land, that is to say, merely the territory of Capua, as this was all that
belonged to the state.[7] If this was not enough to satisfy the demand,
other Italian lands were to be bought out of the revenue from the eastern
provinces at the taxable value rated in the censorial rolls. The number
of persons settled on the _Campanus ager_ is said[8] to have been 20,000
citizens who had each three children or more. The land was not distributed
by lot, but at the pleasure of the commissioners, each one receiving some
30 jugera.[9] If 20,000 heads of families with their wives and three
children in each family were settled in Campania, the whole number of
settlers would be 100,000. This great numbe