ATION OF CAESAR._

The republic of Rome was at an end. The army had become the power, and
the will of the head of the army was the law, of the state. Caesar
celebrated his victories with grand triumphs; but he celebrated them
more notably still by a clemency that signified his innate nobility of
character. Instead of dyeing the streets of Rome with blood, as Marius
and Sulla had done before him, he proclaimed a general amnesty, and his
rise to power was not signalized by the slaughter of one of his foes.

[Illustration: THE ASSASSINATION OF CAESAR.]

He signalized it, on the contrary, by an activity in civil reform as
marked as had been his energy in war. The title and privilege of Roman
citizenship had so far been confined to Italians. He extended it to many
parts of Gaul and Spain. He formed plans to drain the Pontine marshes,
to make a survey and map of the empire, to form a code of laws, and
other great works, which he did not live to fulfil. Of all his reforms,
the best known is the revision of the Calendar. Before his time the
Roman year was three hundred and fifty-five days long, an extra month
being occasionally added, so as to regain the lost days. But this was
very irregularly done, and the civil year had got to be far away from
the solar year. To correct this Caesar was obliged to add ninety days to
the year 46 B.C., which was therefore given the unprecedented length of
four hundred and forty-five days. He ordered that the year in future
should be three hundred and sixty-five and one-fourth days in length, a
change which brought it very nearly, but not quite, to the true length.
A new reform was made in 1582, by Pope Gregory XIII., which made the
civil and solar years almost exactly agree.

Caesar did not live to see his reforms consummated. He was murdered,
perhaps because he had refused to murder. In a few months after he had
brought the civil war to an end he fell the victim of assassins. The
story of his death is famous in Roman history, and must here be told.

After his triumphs Caesar, who had been dictator twice before, was named
dictator for the term of ten years. He was also made censor for three
years. These offices gave him such unlimited power that he was declared
absolute master of the lives and fortunes of the citizens and subjects
of Rome. Imperator men called him, a term we translate emperor, and
after his return from Spain, where he overthrew the last army of his
foes, the senate named