political
rights, and was banished from Italy for life; if he did not survive
the close of the struggle, his property at least fell to the state;
but any one of these, who had formerly accepted pardon from Caesar
and was once more found in the ranks of the enemy, thereby
forfeited his life. These rules were however materially modified
in the execution. The sentence of death was actually executed
only against a very few of the numerous backsliders. In the confiscation
of the property of the fallen not only were the debts attaching
to the several portions of the estate as well as the claims
of the widows for their dowries paid off, as was reasonable.
But a portion of the paternal estate was left also to the children
of the deceased. Lastly not a few of those, who in consequence
of those rules were liable to banishment and confiscation of property,
were at once pardoned entirely or got off with fines, like the African
capitalists who were impressed as members of the senate of Utica.
And even the others almost without exception got their freedom
and property restored to them, if they could only prevail
on themselves to petition Caesar to that effect; on several
who declined to do so, such as the consular Marcus Marcellus,
pardon was even conferred unasked, and ultimately in 710
a general amnesty was issued for all who were still unrecalled.

Amnesty

The republican opposition submitted to be pardoned;
but it was not reconciled. Discontent with the new order of things
and exasperation against the unwonted ruler were general.
For open political resistance there was indeed no farther opportunity--
it was hardly worth taking into account, that some oppositional
tribunes on occasion of the question of title acquired for themselves
the republican crown of martyrdom by a demonstrative intervention
against those who had called Caesar king--but republicanism
found expression all the more decidedly as an opposition of sentiment,
and in secret agitation and plotting. Not a hand stirred
when the Imperator appeared in public. There was abundance
of wall-placards and sarcastic verses full of bitter and telling
popular satire against the new monarchy. When a comedian
ventured on a republican allusion, he was saluted with the loudest
applause. The praise of Cato formed the fashionable theme
of oppositional pamphleteers, and their writings found a public
all the more grateful because even literature was no longer free.
Caesar