the news of the battle of Pharsalus should be re-erected, and thus
recognized the fact that it became history alone to sit in judgment
on that great man, he at the same time cancelled the last remaining
effects of Sulla's exceptional laws, recalled from exile those
who had been banished in the times of the Cinnan and Sertorian troubles,
and restored to the children of those outlawed by Sulla
their forfeited privilege of eligibility to office. In like manner
all those were restored, who in the preliminary stage of the recent
catastrophe had lost their seat in the senate or their civil existence
through sentence of the censors or political process, especially
through the impeachments raised on the basis of the exceptional laws
of 702. Those alone who had put to death the proscribed
for money remained, as was reasonable, still under attainder;
and Milo, the most daring condottiere of the senatorial party,
was excluded from the general pardon.

Discontent of the Democrats

Far more difficult than the settlement of these questions
which already belonged substantially to the past was the treatment
of the parties confronting each other at the moment--on the one hand
Caesar's own democratic adherents, on the other hand the overthrown
aristocracy. That the former should be, if possible, still less
satisfied than the latter with Caesar's conduct after the victory
and with his summons to abandon the old standing-ground of party,
was to be expected. Caesar himself desired doubtless on the whole
the same issue which Gaius Gracchus had contemplated; but the designs
of the Caesarians were no longer those of the Gracchans.
The Roman popular party had been driven onward in gradual progression
from reform to revolution, from revolution to anarchy, from anarchy
to a war against property; they celebrated among themselve
the memory of the reign of terror and now adorned the tomb
of Catilina, as formerly that of the Gracchi, with flowers
and garlands; they had placed themselves under Caesar's banner,
because they expected him to do for them what Catilina
had not been able to accomplish. But as it speedily became plain
that Caesar was very far from intending to be the testamentary
executor of Catilina, and that the utmost which debtors might expect
from him was some alleviations of payment and modifications
of procedure, indignation found loud vent in the inquiry.
For whom then had the popular party conquered, if not for the people?