pposition-senate alone
amounted to 100,000,000 sesterces (1,000,000 pounds) and the price paid
by the purchasers of the property of Pompeius to 70,000,000 sesterces
(700,000 pounds). This course was necessary, because the power
of the beaten nobility rested in great measure on their colossal wealth
and could only be effectually broken by imposing on them the defrayment
of the costs of the war. But the odium of the confiscations
was in some measure mitigated by the fact that Caesar directed
their proceeds solely to the benefit of the state,
and, instead of overlooking after the manner of Sulla any act of fraud
in his favourites, exacted the purchase-money with rigour
even from his most faithful adherents, e. g. from Marcus Antonius.

The Budget of Expenditure

In the expenditure a diminution was in the first place obtained
by the considerable restriction of the largesses of grain.
The distribution of corn to the poor of the capital which was retained,
as well as the kindred supply of oil newly introduced by Caesar
for the Roman baths, were at least in great part charged once for all
on the contributions in kind from Sardinia and especially from Africa,
and were thereby wholly or for the most part kept separate
from the exchequer. On the other hand the regular expenditure
for the military system was increased partly by the augmentation
of the standing army, partly by the raising of the pay of the legionary
from 480 sesterces (5 pounds) to 900 (9 pounds) annually.
Both steps were in fact indispensable. There was a total want
of any real defence for the frontiers, and an indispensable preliminary
to it was a considerable increase of the army. The doubling
of the pay was doubtless employed by Caesar to attach his soldiers
firmly to him,(42) but was not introduced as a permanent innovation
on that account. The former pay of 1 1/3 sesterces (3 1/4 pence)
per day had been fixed in very ancient times, when money had
an altogether different value from that which it had in the Rome
of Caesar's day; it could only have been retained down to a period
when the common day-labourer in the capital earned by the labour
of his hands daily on an average 3 sesterces (7 1/2 pence),
because in those times the soldier entered the army not for the sake
of the pay, but chiefly for the sake of the--in great measure illicit--
perquisites of military service. The first condition in order
to a serious reform in the military system, and to