erius Gracchus(74)
and Sulla (75) had enacted, both equally in vain.

Elevation of the Municipal System

Lastly while the government thus energetically applied itself
to remove the diseased, and to strengthen the sound, elements
of the Italian national life, the newly-regulated municipal system--
which had but recently developed itself out of the crisis
of the Social war in and alongside of the state-economy(76)--was intended
to communicate to the new absolute monarchy the communal life
which was compatible with it, and to impart to the sluggish circulation
of the noblest elements of public life once more a quickened action.
The leading principles in the two municipal ordinances issued in 705
for Cisalpine Gaul and in 709 for Italy,(77) the latter of which remained
the fundamental law for all succeeding times, are apparently, first,
the strict purifying of the urban corporations from all immoral elements,
while yet no trace of political police occurs; secondly, the utmost
restriction of centralization and the utmost freedom of movement
in the communities, to which there was even now reserved the election
of magistrates and an--although limited--civil and criminal jurisdiction.
The general police enactments, such as the restrictions on the right
of association,(78) came, it is true, into operation also here.

Such were the ordinances, by which Caesar attempted to reform
the Italian national economy. It is easy both to show their
insufficiency, seeing that they allowed a multitude of evils
still to exist, and to prove that they operated in various respects
injuriously by imposing restrictions, some of which were
very severely felt, on freedom of dealing. It is still easier
to show that the evils of the Italian national economy generally
were incurable. But in spite of this the practical statesman
will admire the work as well as the master-workman. It was already
no small achievement that, where a man like Sulla, despairing
of remedy, had contented himself with a mere formal reorganization,
the evil was seized in its proper seat and grappled with there;
and we may well conclude that Caesar with his reforms came as near
to the measure of what was possible as it was given to a statesman
and a Roman to come. He could not and did not expect from them
the regeneration of Italy; but he sought on the contrary to attain
this in a very different way, for the right apprehension
of which it is necessary first of all to revie