ay alarmed; he left the senate, appeared on the rostrum before
the people and spoke with so great force that he not only caused the law
to be rejected but took from the tribunes all hope of being successful in
similar enterprises."

In 61 we find Cicero advocating a bill similar in nature to the one he had
so brilliantly combatted in 64. In the last instance, however, the law was
proposed by Pompey, and in favor of Pompey's soldiers and that made all
difference to a man who ever curried favor with the great. Flavius, who
proposed this law, was but the creature of Pompey. Cicero has made known
to us, in one of his letters to Atticus, the conditions of the law which
Flavius proposed and the modifications which he himself wished to apply to
it. Flavius proposed to distribute lands both to the soldiers of Pompey and
the people; to establish colonies; to use for the purchase of the lands for
colonization, the subsidies which should accrue in five years, from the
recently conquered territories.[2] The senate rejected this law entirely,
in the same spirit of opposition which it had shown to all agrarian laws,
probably thinking that Pompey would thereby obtain too great an increase of
power.[3] This was the last attempt at agrarian legislation until the year
59, when Julius Caesar enacted his famous law.

[Footnote 1: Plutarch, _Cicero_, 16-17.]

[Footnote 2: Cicero, _Ad. Att._, I, 19.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid.: "Huic toti rationi agrariae senatus adversabatur,
suspicans Pompeio novam quamdam potentiam quaeri."]

SEC. 17.--LEX JULIA AGRARIA.

During the first consulship of Caius Julius Caesar, he brought forward an
agrarian[1] bill at the instigation of his confederates. The main object of
this bill was to furnish land to the Asiatic army[2] of Pompey, In fine,
this bill was little more than a renewal of a bill presented by Pompey the
previous year (58), but rejected. Appian gives the following account of
this bill: "As soon as Caesar and Bibulus[3] (his colleague) entered on the
consulship, they began to quarrel and to make preparation to support their
parties by force. But Caesar who possessed great powers of dissimulation,
addressed Bibulus in the senate and urged him to unanimity on the ground
that their disputes would damage the public interests. Having in this way
obtained credit for peaceable intentions, he threw Bibulus off his guard,
who had no suspicion of what was going on, while Caesar, meanwhile, was
marsha