It is not easy to see in what manner he would have
accomplished this, considering the state of hydraulic architecture in
those times. The Roman canals were mere _fossae_, and canals with
sluices, though not unknown to the Romans, were not constructed by
them.[77]

[Footnote 77: The first canals with sluices were executed by the Dutch
in the fifteenth century.]

The fact of Caesar forming such enormous plans is not very surprising;
but we can scarcely comprehend how it was possible for him to accomplish
so much of what he undertook in the short time of five months preceding
his death. Following the unfortunate system of Sulla, Caesar founded
throughout Italy a number of colonies of veterans. The old Sullanian
colonists were treated with great severity, and many of them and their
children were expelled from their lands, and were thus punished for the
cruelty which they or their fathers had committed against the
inhabitants of the municipia. In like manner colonies were established
in Southern Gaul, Italy, Africa, and other parts; I may mention in
particular the colonies founded at Carthage and Corinth. The latter,
however, was a _colonia libertinorum_, and never rose to any importance.
We do not know the details of its foundation, but one would imagine that
Caesar would have preferred restoring the place as a purely Greek town.
This, however, he did not do. Its population was and remained a mixed
one, and Corinth never rose to a state of real prosperity.

Caesar made various new arrangements in the State, and among others he
restored the full franchise, or the _jus honorum_, to the sons of those
who had been proscribed in the time of Sulla. He had obtained for
himself the title of imperator and the dictatorship for life and the
consulship for ten years. Half of the offices of the republic to which
persons had before been elected by the centuries were in his gift, and
for the other half he usually recommended candidates; so that the
elections were merely nominal.

The tribes seem to have retained their rights of election uncurtailed,
and the last tribunes must have been elected by the people. But although
Caesar did not himself confer the consulship, yet the whole republic was
reduced to a mere form and appearance. Caesar made various new laws and
regulations; for example, to lighten the burdens of debtors and the
like; but the changes he introduced in the form of the constitution were
of little importance. He increas