this
responsibility he accepted. Sulla, when faced with the same problem, had
been content to place the Senate once more at the head of the state, but
from his own experience Caesar knew how futile this policy had been. Nor
could the ideal of Pompey commend itself as a means of ending civil war
and rebellion. Caesar was prepared to deal much more radically with the
old regime, but death overtook him before he had completed his
reorganization. What was the goal of his policy will best be understood
from a consideration of his official position during the year and a half
which followed the battle of Thapsus.

*Caesar's offices, powers and honors.* Caesar's autocratic position rested
in the last instance upon the support of his veterans, of the associates
who owed their advancement to him, and of such small forces as he kept
under arms, but his position was legalized by the accumulation in his
hands of various offices, special powers and unusual honors. Foremost
among his offices came the dictatorship. We have seen that he had held
this already for a short time in 49 and again in 47. In 46 B. C. he was
appointed dictator for ten years, and in the following year for life. At
the same time he was consul, an office which he held continuously from 48
B. C., in 45 as sole consul, but usually with a colleague. In addition to
these offices he enjoyed the tribunician authority (_tribunicia
potestas_), that is, the power of the tribunes without the name. This
included the right to sit with the tribunes and the right of intercession,
granted him as early as 48 B. C., and also personal inviolability
(_sacrosanctitas_) which he received in 45. He had been Chief Pontiff
since 63, and in 48 B. C. was admitted to all the patrician priestly
corporations. And in 46 B. C. he was given the powers of the censorship
under the title of "prefect of morals" (_praefectus morum_), at first for
three years and later for life. In addition to these official positions of
more or less established scope, Caesar received other powers not dependent
upon any office. He was granted the right to appoint to both Roman and
provincial magistracies, until in 44 B. C. he had the authority to
nominate half the officials annually; and in reality appointed all. In 48
B. C. he received the power of making war and peace without consulting the
Senate, in 46 the right of expressing his opinion first in the Senate
(_ius primae sententiae_), and in 45 the sole right to comm