They in turn gave him the office of Dictator for Life. He essentially practiced a form of autocracy that, while not technically kingship, made the Senate essentially his servants. This was primarily a political reform as it didn't allow priests to change important dates at their whim, almost always because of the interests of the powerful senators.Ĭombined with an earlier law on daily Senate meetings, proceedings in the Senate were more transparent than they had ever been. His reform of the calendar is his most famous (though perhaps too famous). While he seems to have been genuinely concerned with ending internal strife, it was clear they owed him everything. Not just their lives, but their estates were, for the vast majority, returned to them. He granted clemency to his defeated civil war enemies on a scale unheard of at the time. But power and justice are not mutually exclusive. With the enfranchisement mentioned above, non-Romans not only had legal rights, they could be Senators! Of course, they would all be clients of Caesar. But, more importantly, he opened the Senate to non-Romans. He gave economic incentives to couples to marry.Ĭaesar enlarged the Senate from 600 to 900. The goal being that police were bound to the public and not to the magistrate who was paying them. He began ending the use of private police forces, which were the only ones used in Rome to that date. This, combined with the mass citizenship laws, was one of the MOST important social and economic reforms bringing stability to the empire. To reduce over-population and unemployment (with concurrent crime) he set up new colonies, rebuilt old ones (such as Carthage) and passed laws giving both ex-soldiers and poor Romans their own land and farms. This was combined with a building program of libraries, a new Curia (still standing today) and other projects. It was Caesar's goal for Rome to rival Athens and Alexandria as a place of learning and culture.
#Caesar iv caesars requests full#
Moreover, people now had a stake in Rome, not simple subjects.ĭoctors, Teachers, and Architects were given full citizenship and economic incentives to come live in Rome. Now, people who were considered outsiders had all legal rights that those living within Rome had. Stable provinces in Spain, Gaul, and all around the Mediterranean were either given full Roman citizenship or the Latin rights (a goal of the most forward thinking Roman populares). Now, their farms were safe from land stealing creditors. This was one of the reasons "middle-class" Roman farmers lost everything in times past. Caesar is rumored to have planned ending slavery entirely within Italy.Ĭonnected to this: No Italian male could be forced for any reason to live outside of Italy for more than three years. He ordered that all large Roman estates had to employ freemen as 1/3 of their workforce, He essentially reduced slavery by a third and created a kind of government stimulus for the workers. Combined with an earlier law of Caesar's consulship, the governors now had to follow very strict rules and were not given the time to set up any kind of exploitation racket. The governors and collectors were often working together. He drained marshlands around Rome while at the same time expanding the city borders allowing for easier trade and more commerce.Ĭonnected to the tax farmers, provincial governors were given fixed terms, one year for propraetors and two for proconsuls. He passed a tax on foreign ships doing business in Rome's harbor. He once and for all rid the provinces of "Tax Farmers", private citizens given contracts to collect taxes from exploited provincials, setting up a clear tax system based on set land value to be collected by the provinces themselves, giving them a freedom and sense of economic security. Many of those who were taken off the dole were in fact not in the lower classes and simply abusing the system.
#Caesar iv caesars requests free#
He reduced the number of citizens on the free grain dole (a type of welfare) from 300,000 to around 180,000. One reason Caesar was called a "traitor" to his class.
For the rest, interest rates were fixed at 12%, a major blow to the creditors who were in large part responsible for breaking the backs of Rome's workers. He canceled a 1/4 of the debt, largely owed by the lower classes who were victimized by usurious aristocrats.
They fall into economic, political and social realms, but very much overlap.
Caesar's reforms were the most extensive in Roman History to that date, inspired by populists such as the Gracchi brothers and Marcus Drusus, but much more comprehensive.
0 kommentar(er)
