owed himself in public, and even staid men applauded when an actor
utteredan anti-monarchic sentence or an allusion against Pompeius.
Nay, when Cicero was to be banished, a great number of burgesses--
it is said twenty thousand--mostly of the middle classes, put on mourning
after the example of the senate. "Nothing is now more popular,"
it is said in a letter of this period, "than hatred
of the popular party."

Attempts of the Regents to Check It

The regents dropped hints, that through such opposition the equites
might easily lose their new special places in the theatre,
and the commons their bread-corn; people were therefore somewhat
more guarded perhaps in the expression of their displeasure,
but the feeling remained the same. The lever of material interests
was applied with better success. Caesar's gold flowed in streams.
Men of seeming riches whose finances were in disorder, influential
ladies who were in pecuniary embarrassment, insolvent young nobles,
merchants and bankers in difficulties, either went in person
to Gaul with the view of drawing from the fountain-head, or applied
to Caesar's agents in the capital; and rarely was any man
outwardly respectable--Caesar avoided dealings with vagabonds
who were utterly lost--rejected in either quarter. To this fell
to be added the enormous buildings which Caesar caused to be executed
on his account in the capital--and by which a countless number of men
of all ranks from the consular down to the common porter found
opportunity of profiting--as well as the immense sums expended
for public amusements. Pompeius did the same on a more limited scale;
to him the capital was indebted for the first theatre of stone,
and he celebrated its dedication with a magnificence never seen before.
Of course such distributions reconciled a number of men
who were inclined towards opposition, more especially in the capital,
to the new order of things up to a certain extent; but the marrow
of the opposition was not to be reached by this system of corruption.
Every day more and more clearly showed how deeply the existing
constitution had struck root among the people, and how little,
in particular, the circles more aloof from direct party-agitation,
especially the country towns, were inclined towards monarchy
or even simply ready to let it take its course.

Increasing Importance of the Senate

If Rome had had a representative constitution, the discontent
of the burgesses would have fo