egiate character that could not well
be separated from this office; Caesar also evidently laboured
to degrade this hitherto supreme magistracy into an empty title,
and subsequently, when he undertook it, he did not hold it
through the whole year, but before the year expired gave it away
to personages of secondary rank. The dictatorship came practically
into prominence most frequently and most definitely, but probably
only because Caesar wished to use it in the significance which it had
of old in the constitutional machinery--as an extraordinary presidency
for surmounting extraordinary crises. On the other hand it was
far from recommending itself as an expression for the new monarchy,
for the magistracy was inherently clothed with an exceptional
and unpopular character, and it could hardly be expected
of the representative of the democracy that he should choose
for its permanent organization that form, which the most gifted champion
of the opposing party had created for his own ends.

The new name of Imperator, on the other hand, appears in every respect
by far more appropriate for the formal expression of the monarchy;
just because it is in this application(13) new, and no definite
outward occasion for its introduction is apparent. The new wine
might not be put into old bottles; here is a new name for the new thing,
and that name most pregnantly sums up what the democratic party
had already expressed in the Gabinian law, only with less precision,
as the function of its chief--the concentration and perpetuation
of official power (-imperium-) in the hands of a popular chief
independent of the senate. We find on Caesar's coins,
especially those of the last period, alongside of the dictatorship
the title of Imperator prevailing, and in Caesar's law
as to political crimes the monarch seems to have been designated
by this name. Accordingly the following times, though not immediately,
connected the monarchy with the name of Imperator. To lend
to this new office at once a democratic and religious sanction,
Caesar probably intended to associate with it once for all
on the one hand the tribunician power, on the other
the supreme pontificate.

That the new organization was not meant to be restricted merely
to the lifetime of its founder, is beyond doubt; but he did not succeed
in settling the especially difficult question of the succession,
and it must remain an undecided point whether he had it in view
to institute some