FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   544   545   546   547   548   549   550   551   552   553   554   555   556   557   558  
559   560   561   562   563   564   565   566   567   568   569   570   571   572   573   574   575   576   577   578   579   580   581   582   583   >>   >|  
ommunity, there were to be simultaneously registered by the highest authority in each Italian community the name of every municipal burgess and that of his father or manumitter, his district, his age, and his property; and these lists were to be furnished to the Roman censor early enough to enable him to complete in proper time the general list of Roman burgesses and of Roman property. That it was Caesar's intention to introduce similar institutions also in the provinces is attested partly by the measurement and survey of the whole empire ordered by him, partly by the nature of the arrangement itself; for it in fact furnished the general instrument appropriate for procuring, as well in the Italian as in the non-Italian communities of the state, the information requisite for the central administration. Evidently here too it was Caesar's intention to revert to the traditions of the earlier republican times, and to reintroduce the census of the empire, which the earlier republic had effected-- essentially in the same way as Caesar effected the Italian-- by analogous extension of the institution of the urban censorship with its set terms and other essential rules to all the subject communities of Italy and Sicily.(102) This had been one of the first institutions which the torpid aristocracy allowed to drop, and in this way deprived the supreme administrative authority of any view of the resources in men and taxation at its disposal and consequently of all possibility of an effective control.(103) The indications still extant, and the very connection of things, show irrefragably that Caesar made preparations to renew the general census that had been obsolete for centuries. Religion of the Empire We need scarcely say that in religion and in jurisprudence no thorough levelling could be thought of; yet with all toleration towards local faiths and municipal statutes the new state needed a common worship corresponding to the Italo-Hellenic nationality and a general code of law superior to the municipal statutes. It needed them; for de facto both were already in existence. In the field of religion men had for centuries been busied in fusing together the Italian and Hellenic worships partly by external adoption, partly by internal adjustment of their respective conceptions of the gods; and owing to the pliant formless character of the Italian gods, there had been no great difficulty in resolving Jupiter into Zeus, Venus in
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   544   545   546   547   548   549   550   551   552   553   554   555   556   557   558  
559   560   561   562   563   564   565   566   567   568   569   570   571   572   573   574   575   576   577   578   579   580   581   582   583   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Italian

 

general

 

partly

 
Caesar
 

municipal

 
Hellenic
 

effected

 
institutions
 

centuries

 
intention

empire

 
needed
 
communities
 
authority
 

earlier

 
statutes
 

census

 

furnished

 

property

 
religion

levelling

 

scarcely

 
jurisprudence
 

irrefragably

 

control

 

effective

 

indications

 

possibility

 

taxation

 

disposal


extant

 

preparations

 

obsolete

 
Religion
 

connection

 

things

 
Empire
 

nationality

 
internal
 

adjustment


respective

 
adoption
 

external

 
busied
 

fusing

 

worships

 
conceptions
 

Jupiter

 

resolving

 

difficulty