offices. He had shown himself in all his course to be careful in
keeping within the bounds of the constitution, never exerting himself
in political quarrels except to defend the law against lawlessness.
Now he was in a position to push his ideas of reform, and to show the
aristocracy of what stuff he was made.

It would have been well for Cicero, and better for the state, had the
orator been willing to join hands with Caesar and Pompey; but he was
too vain of his own glory to join hands with those who were his
superiors, and he clung to the Senate, feeling that his talents would
shine there more, and be more likely to redound to his own personal
fame.

Caesar's consulship increased his popularity among all except the
aristocrats. His AGRARIAN LAW, carefully framed and worded, was
bitterly opposed by the Senate, especially by his colleague, Bibulus,
and by Cato. The law provided that large tracts of the _ager
publicus_, then held on easy terms by the rich patricians, be
distributed among the veterans of Pompey. Caesar proposed to pay the
holders a reasonable sum for their loss, though legally they had no
claim whatever on the land. Although Bibulus interfered, Cato raved,
and the Tribunes vetoed, still the Assembly passed the law, and voted
in addition that the Senate be obliged to take an oath to observe it.

The LEGES JULIAE were a code of laws which Caesar drew up during his
year of office. They mark an era in Roman law, for they cover many
crimes the commission of which had been for a long time undermining
the state.

The most important of these was the LEX DE REPETUNDIS, aimed at the