irit Caesar had already,
in his first consulship on founding the colony of Capua kept specially
in view fathers who had several children;(62) and now as Imperator
he proposed extraordinary rewards for the fathers of numerous families,
while he at the same time as supreme judge of the nation
treated divorce and adultery with a rigour according
to Roman ideas unparalleled.

Laws Respecting Luxury

Nor did he even think it beneath his dignity to issue a detailed law
as to luxury--which, among other points, cut down extravagance
in building at least in one of its most irrational forms,
that of sepulchral monuments; restricted the use of purple robes
and pearls to certain times, ages, and classes, and totally prohibited
it in grown-up men; fixed a maximum for the expenditure of the table;
and directly forbade a number of luxurious dishes. Such ordinances
doubtless were not new; but it was a new thing that the "master
of morals" seriously insisted on their observance, superintended
the provision-markets by means of paid overseers, and ordered
that the tables of men of rank should be examined by his officers
and the forbidden dishes on them should be confiscated. It is true
that by such theoretical and practical instructions in moderation
as the new monarchical police gave to the fashionable world,
hardly more could be accomplished than the compelling luxury to retire
somewhat more into concealment; but, if hypocrisy is the homage
which vice pays to virtue, under the circumstances of the times
even a semblance of propriety established by police measures
was a step towards improvement not to be despised.

The Debt Crisis

The measures of Caesar for the better regulation of Italian monetary
and agricultural relations were of a graver character and promised
greater results. The first question here related to temporary enactments
respecting the scarcity of money and the debt-crisis generally.
The law called forth by the outcry as to locked-up capital--that no one
should have on hand more than 60,000 sesterces (600 pounds) in gold
and silver cash--was probably only issued to allay the indignation
of the blind public against the usurers; the form of publication,
which proceeded on the fiction that this was merely the renewed
enforcing of an earlier law that had fallen into oblivion,
shows that Caesar was ashamed of this enactment, and it can hardly
have passed into actual application. A far more serious question
was the t